I think the best thing I did all year for myself was take an on-line workshop from the lovely, talented and awesome Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. Her workshop, 30 Days in Your Art Journal was the best on-line class I have ever taken. While I don't work in my journal the way Julie does -- it inspired me to journal a lot more -- and I loved waking up each morning to her video for the day.
It put me in an artful state of mind all day -- and it was often hard to get to the work at hand (assignments for EK Success or my classes) because all I wanted to do was play in my journal. Coffee+Julie to start my day was awesome.
Because I wanted to make this a habit that would stick, I went out and got supplies and made a new journal for the class because I couldn't find what I wanted that was ready to work in.
I was so disappointed when the watercolor paper in my new hand-bound art journal tore at the fold -- on the first day! While it wasn't the best paper in the world -- it shouldn't have ripped and handled the small amount of scrubbing and water I applied to it -- it's SUPPOSED to be made for WATER, anyway. The colors in the washes were so beautiful and I loved the beginnings of it. But, I WOULD not be defeated by the paper, ha ha.
This is my colorful first page that tore out of my journal before the paper was dry. what a disappointment! I had two pages with pretty color washes like this. I was determined not to waste them! |
I waited for the pages to dry -- and used them to demonstrate to myself that I could salvage something from it, kind of like a phoenix, ha ha. For the left side of my two page spread I tore my mess into small squares and used a ton of gel medium to adhere them to a different journal made from better quality paper.
This is the opposite of balance -- maybe bordering on chaos. The papers all torn -- the journaling a mystery to anyone that will look at the pages which was kind of my goal, in a backwards kind of way.
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Here you can see all the chaos, I am pretty sure I was in a bad place that day, ha ha!
Hmmm. not sure the ordered page is much better -- but there definitely is LESS chaos -- which was the goal. In case you were wondering how I made the circles, I poured a puddle of india ink on a clean meat tray and then took different covers off various paint jars and other containers in my studio and dipped them in the paint and then "stamped" them on my page. The largest is my Golden Gel Medium and the smallest is a glue stick. LOVE that look -- though all my containers have dried up india ink on the rims of the covers now. ;-)
The completed spread. Pretty -- no. Completed -- yes. Did I feel better when I was done with it -- YES -- WAY better. So, even though I showed you yesterday that I create art all the time -- it's not all pretty and bad things do happen on the table in my studio.
Thank you for stopping by -- and have an ARTfully happy day!
It was the best class. I plan that after CHA I'm going to do another round of 30 days...viewing the videos, etc. and see if I can change my techniques up a litte!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing yourself, your work and the process Catherine. It really is very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI've just checked out the course and I see it is an "anytime" online course. It looks very interesting and I may just try and find 30 days!
OOO! I love how the new pages turned out, both sides! I loved Julie's class, too, and started my day with a coffee and her. Miss that routine.
ReplyDeleteI agree... loved Julie's class and looked forward to it each morning. I'm really impressed that you took what you had, though the paper stunk, and salvaged it into something so lovely.
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