After cocktails, everyone headed over to Jeff Soto’s nearby studio for a light dinner and the beginning of the ‘Art Jam’ collaborative piece.  Dinner was provided by Fred Eric of Tiara Cafe who worked throughout the night creating delicious finger food.  Pizza was also available if people so chose (we hovered around Fred’s table).

Being in Jeff’s studio was just as enjoyable as last year – very cool to see work in progress both in terms of unfinished paintings and completed sketches.  After dinner, the featured artists posed for a group shot in front of the blank canvas for the ‘art jam’ – over a day or so they will transform it into a collaborative painting whose form will emerge with unpredictable results.  We’ll be bringing you frequent updates on the progress.

Jeff Soto laid the foundation background strokes and then Joe Ledbetter plunged in with some background splashes and then with the help of a hair dryer to speed up the drying process, proceeded to render one of his beloved characters.  Ana Bagayan and Brandi Milne soon joined in afterwards.

After the studio visit, people piled back on the buses to return to the Mission Inn for a late night life painting session as well as more work on the ‘Art Jam’.

Be sure to click through for a loaded photo gallery of the evening at Jeff Soto’s studio.  This is just the beginning of our coverage — keep watching this space.

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Baby Tattooville ‘08, the 2nd annual limited-edition art retreat, began tonight at the historic Mission Inn in Riverside, CA.   The weekend long event features 10 spotlight artists — Ana Bagayan, Glenn Barr, Dave Cooper, Bob Dob, Joe Ledbetter, Brandi Milne, Daniel Peacock, Shag, Amy Sol and Michael Whelan — across 2.5 days of programming including a panel tomorrow morning and a collaborative ‘art jam’ piece.  The art jam pieces will be worked on until late Saturday night at which point Pop Cling will take it and create limited-edition prints which will be presented to attendees Sunday morning (12 hour or so turnaround).

DailyduJour is on site to bring you all the pics + and info you can handle.  We start with a look at the  pre-dinner activities (cocktails on the patio) with some familiar faces.

If you have any questions or requests, please post a comment.  We’ll be checking them. Enjoy the up-close coverage.

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