Paint Michigan.Badly, on purpose.
A long weekend making art on the Lake Michigan shore, in the town Chicago artists have been escaping to for over a century. No instruction, no skill required, no one grading you. Just show up and make something.
This is a working itinerary
Nothing on this page is locked in. We are building it with the people who come to our community art events around Chicago, and the community decides when this one runs and whether it runs before Mexico City. Come to an event to tell us when and where, and to join the list and hear about the launch first.
A weekend of making things, two hours from home.
A small group takes over a stretch of the Michigan shore for a weekend and spends it drawing dunes, painting a working harbor, and printing with sunlight, with long dinners, the dune grass coming back, and a beach with nobody on it. Nobody's teaching. You just make stuff. The point is the doing, not the masterpiece.
Saugatuck isn't a random pretty town. In 1910 two painters from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago came here looking for somewhere to work that wasn't the city, and started a summer school on a bend in the Kalamazoo River. It's still running. Claes Oldenburg, Joan Mitchell, Leon Golub, Ed Paschke and Shel Silverstein all passed through. A century later the galleries are still there and so is the school.
The plan has been to go in spring, before the summer crowds arrive, while the beaches are empty and the light is long. That is one of the things still open. The season and the weekend get set by the people who show up to our events, not by us.
Three nights. Seven art forms.
No skill needed for any of them. Just show up and try.
Everything but getting here.
This is the working list. Some of it will change as we hear from people.
3 nights, two-bed rooms
A block of rooms in Saugatuck or Douglas, two beds each, so nobody shares a bed with a stranger. Private rooms are planned as an option. Plus a room we take over in the evenings that becomes the studio.
All the art stuff
Oils, acrylics, boards and panels, brushes, paper, pencils, cyanotype chemistry, and wet panel carriers so your oils get home intact. We buy it, you keep what you make.
Breakfast every morning
Included at the hotel, so you eat before we move. Coffee comes with us in a carafe to wherever we're working.
Lunch on both working days
Packed and carried to the beach and the dunes on Saturday and Sunday, because there is no cafe on a stretch of empty shoreline and nobody should have to stop painting to go find one.
Three group dinners
Every night is a long table somewhere in Saugatuck or Douglas: a welcome dinner Friday, a private room Saturday, and a farewell on Sunday.
Cyanotype on the sand
Collect leaves and grasses on the trail, coat the paper, expose it in the sun right there, rinse it in the lake. You go home with a deep blue print made of the place, in the place.
Saugatuck Center for the Arts
A Saturday stop at the town’s arts centre, 4.8 stars, with a gallery, a sculpture garden and whatever’s hanging that month.
Ground transport all week
A local van moves the group between the beach, the dunes, the orchards and town. You never need a car once you're here.
Two real hikes
303 stairs up Mount Baldhead, and a wooded dune trail into Saugatuck Dunes State Park that opens onto a beach with nothing built on it. Light kit only, no studio easels to haul.
The book of the weekend
We photograph the work and the group all weekend. Four to six weeks later a printed book of everything the group made lands in your mailbox, one copy each, plus the full photo set to keep.
Every night, the table
After dinner the day’s work goes down the middle of the table and everyone walks the length of it. Nobody critiques and nobody ranks. You look at what six other people saw in the same dune you were standing on, and then somebody explains what went wrong with their sky. This is the part people remember, and it is the reason this is a trip and not a hotel booking.
Who this is for
Planned for people who want to make things. You have to be based in Chicago and be 18 to 39. If you are over 39, you can still come as long as you have been to one of our Chicago art events. No art experience needed and no connection to anyone else going. You should be comfortable on your feet: expect two to four miles of walking each day, sand, stairs, and standing while you draw. Spring on the lake runs 50s to low 60s in the day and 40s at night, often windy. Tell us about anything that would make that hard and we'll tell you honestly whether this trip works for you.
Getting here
Amtrak's Pere Marquette leaves Chicago Union Station in the early evening and reaches Holland, Michigan the same night. Holland is about twenty minutes from the hotel, and we'll have a van waiting for the train. Most of the group travels together on it without us organising a thing. Driving is around two and a half hours from Chicago and there's parking at the hotel. Either way the fare is yours.
Friday to Monday.
A proposal, not a schedule. Tell us what you would cut and what you would add.
Get there, eat, draw each other
Arrive in the evening on the train or by car. Keys, beds, and a welcome dinner in town to meet everyone. Back at the hotel the studio room is open with the materials laid out, and we run a loose hour of sketching each other: five minutes a pose, everyone takes a turn in the chair, everyone draws badly, and the ice is gone by nine. Duck out whenever you like.
Mount Baldhead · Oval Beach · the arts centre
Up the 303 steps to the top of the dune for the harbor, the river mouth and the whole lakeshore, with quick warm-up sketches, nothing precious. Down to Oval Beach for a long oil painting session: dune grass, driftwood, and a spring shoreline with nobody on it, with lunch carried out to us so nobody has to break to go find food. Oils stay workable in the cold and wind, which is exactly why the painters who came here a century ago used them. Free time in town after to draw storefronts and boats. Late afternoon at the Saugatuck Center for the Arts, then whatever is left of the light back on the water. Dinner in a private room in Douglas, and everyone’s pages go on the table after.
The lagoon, the dunes, and printing with sunlight
Morning on the Kalamazoo River oxbow, the bend in the water two Chicago painters found in 1910 and never really left. Then the trail into Saugatuck Dunes State Park: fifteen minutes through wooded dunes, real hills, and out onto a secluded stretch of shore, with lunch in the pack. Straight into the cyanotype session on the sand, because the process runs on sunlight and you print what you just picked up, a few feet from where you picked it up. Then acrylic on canvas at Oval Beach as the light drops, wine out, everything drying in the open air. Farewell dinner after, with the weekend’s work laid out along the table.
The 9:08 into Chicago
Breakfast, then the early train reaches Chicago at 9:08am, so most people are at their desk on time and only ever took a Friday off. Drivers can leave whenever they like. Four to six weeks later the book shows up.
If the weather turns
It might. This is Lake Michigan in spring and we planned for it rather than hoping. Rain moves the painting sessions under the pavilion at Oval Beach, into the studio room at the hotel, or into a back room in town, and a working harbor in the rain is better to draw than a sunny one. Cyanotype needs UV, not blue sky, and it still prints under overcast, just slower. If the sun is genuinely gone we coat the paper on the beach, carry it back in a light-tight folder, and expose and rinse it the next morning. Nothing on this itinerary gets cancelled for weather. Some of it gets moved.
Dean Anoje.
Dean runs Co-Signed out of Chicago and hosts its community art events here: sketch meetups on the riverwalk, drawing sessions, walks with a book in your ears. He is not an art teacher and has never claimed to be. He paints at about the level this trip is aimed at. What he is good at is picking the spot, sorting the van, buying the right materials and getting a table of strangers talking.
He will be on this trip the whole weekend, in the same hotel, carrying the same supplies, making the same mediocre paintings. Questions and suggestions go to info@co-signed.app, and he answers them.
Before the trip
The plan is a group chat with everyone who is coming, so on Friday you are walking into a hotel lobby with names you already recognise instead of fourteen strangers, plus a packing list and the exact train and van times.
Come to an event and tell us when.
There is nothing to book yet, and we are not taking deposits. This itinerary runs when the community says it should, and the people who decide that are the ones who turn up to our community art events around Chicago. Portrait parties, ballerina figure drawing, seasonal one-offs, all around the city.
Come to one, tell us when this should run and where it should go, and join the list so you hear about the launch first.
See upcoming events →What happens next
1. We keep collecting feedback. At every event, on when this runs, where it goes, and what belongs in the three days.
2. The itinerary gets rewritten. This page changes as that comes in, so it is worth checking back.
3. The list hears first. When a date is set and the trip opens, the people on the list find out before the page does.
The honest answers.
Do I need to be good at art?
No, and that's the whole point. There's no instruction and nobody's judging. If you can hold a brush you're qualified. The trip is built for people who want to make things for fun, not improve a craft.
Is there really no teacher?
Really. We pick the spots, handle the logistics, buy the materials, feed you and put a table together every night. What you do with the paper is up to you. If you want someone standing over your shoulder correcting your perspective, this is the wrong trip and we'd rather tell you now.
What you get instead is the thing a workshop charges you separately for and then rushes: time in front of a good view with the right materials already in your hand, and six other people doing it next to you. There are workshops all over this town if you want the other thing.
Can I have my own room?
That is the plan. Rooms are two beds and same gender by default, with a private room available as a paid add-on, and a short survey pairing you with someone whose sleep schedule looks like yours. Pricing for all of it gets set when the trip opens.
What if it rains all weekend?
Then we paint in the rain and under cover. Oil and acrylic sessions move to the pavilion at Oval Beach, the studio room at the hotel, or a back room in town, and the harbor and the storefronts are better subjects wet than dry. Cyanotype runs on UV rather than sunshine and still prints under cloud. If the light is genuinely gone we coat the paper out on the sand, carry it home light-tight, and expose it the next morning. Nothing gets cancelled. Some things get moved.
What do I actually take home?
Everything you made, including the oils, which travel flat in a wet panel carrier we hand you. Your cyanotype prints. The full photo set from the weekend, of the places and of you working. And four to six weeks later, a printed book of the whole group's work with your name in it, one copy per person, in the mail.
How do I actually get to Saugatuck?
Two ways. Amtrak's Pere Marquette runs daily from Chicago Union Station to Holland, Michigan, arriving in the evening, and we'll have a van at the station. Or drive, roughly two and a half hours from Chicago, with parking at the hotel. Once you're here you won't need a car, because ground transport during the trip is included. Exact train times go out once there is a date.
Why isn't the train included?
So you can come from wherever you actually live, drive if you'd rather, and arrive early or stay on afterward. It's a short fare and including it would mean charging people from Chicago for something a driver from Grand Rapids doesn't need.
What exactly is not included?
Getting here and home. Travel insurance, which we don't sell and don't earn on, but which is worth having. Personal expenses and tips. Optional add-ons on your free time.
Everything else is in the price: your room, breakfast every morning, lunch on both working days, your art supplies, the three group dinners, ground transport for the whole weekend, and the book afterward.
What does it cost?
Not set. We have run the numbers on the rooms, the van, the materials and the meals, but the final itinerary decides the final price, and the itinerary is still moving. We will publish it when the trip opens rather than quote you something we might have to change.
Can I put money down now to hold a spot?
No. There is nothing to pay for yet and we are not taking deposits on a trip that does not have a date. The way to be first in line is to join the list at one of our events.
What's the weather actually like?
Spring on the Lake Michigan shore runs 50s to low 60s in the day and 40s at night, and it's often windy off the water. That's good drawing weather and bad t-shirt weather. Bring layers, a windproof jacket, a hat, and shoes you don't mind filling with sand. A packing list goes out once there is a date.
Who else will be on the trip?
Four to fourteen Chicagoans who want a weekend of making things. Most will come on their own and not know anyone.
Is this trip going to run?
Responses so far lean toward Michigan or Mexico City in spring or summer, which is where the average of current feedback sits. Once more comes in we will set the exact date and announce it.