July 03, 2013

Monday Night "Art Journaling Pow Wow"

Monday night, I hosted a small group of friends in the studio to talk about and experiment with art journaling ideas and techniques.  A couple of the ladies are pretty new to the idea of art journaling and altered books, and a couple of us are fairly experienced in techniques, and what to do with supplies, etc.  It was FUN!!!

 Below are some photos of some of the backgrounds we created for our books.  We didn't really get past backgrounds....we were too chatty and excited to focus on much more than that!  Ha!  Plus we snarfed down some YUMMY pizza from Zoey's!  But these are a good jumping off point for any piece of art.  The layers!  Love the layers!  Great for working on a book, a canvas, fabric, anything! 

First off, I have to show you this shot of something Denise brought with her that made us all drool, and ooh and aah......thousands of tiny words and expressions....already cut out, and ready to include in a piece.  She was attaching these to tiny little wooden hearts and using them as "tokens" to hand to friends.  She generously shared her stash of words...it was good!

 
I was really proud of Denise for jumping in....starting...despite her hesitation and trying to "overthink." She found the heart stencil, sprayed some ink, and then went to town with water soluble crayons. 
 
More oohs and aaahs came from that side of the room, which made me smile.  Look at her go!
 
 
My friend Cindy got to work on altering an old book, with the title "Juvenile Delinquency." 
She says that this summed up her childhood, since apparently she was a naughty little sprite....and thus would be a perfect book for her to alter.  She kept the title visible while working on the cover.
 
 
She ended up painting a mouth around the title words, with a cool flower stencil and lots of doodles and layers.  I think it's gonna be a fun one for her to work in!
 
 
My Lily joined us too, and painted papers for me to use in my book, or put in collages......
 
 
We used bubble wrap, stencils, and paper towels to make texture on paper.  Everyone fell in love with Dylusions ink sprays!  So vivid, and so easy to use!  Pictured below are some pages started by the amazing Mary Zeran and the adorable Lily.
 



 
Erin was off to a fabulous start with this page...using repositionable tape and spritzing with the inks!!!  LOVE IT!  And that patterned tape is wonderful!
 
 
And here are a couple of backgrounds I got done.  There are some layers of cheap acrylic paints, inks spritzed through stencils, more acrylic pressed on with bubble wrap.  (We were singing the praises of bubble wrap!) And the uneven circles were stamped with a toilet paper roll!  All highly technical!  Ha!  The heart on the bottom of the second page was spritzed while the underlying acrylic was still wet, so it did this cool "smooshing" and swirling together. 
 
 
These are all great beginnings for a canvas too....not just a journal.  In fact, I'm working on a canvas piece that's almost done, using similar layers as a start.  I'll show you when it's done!

 
Well, thanks for taking a peek....this was seriously a fun night that FLEW by in an instant.  We all agreed that we need to do this again soon.  It's so exciting to share inspiration with other likeminded creative souls. 
 
 
 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you going to be doing art journaling classes where you open them up to the public? If the time is right, would love to come but I would drive down from Cedar Falls. Marlene

Dori Patrick said...

Hi Marlene! I hope so! I will post info here as well as on our Facebook page when we do. It's really hard to get people together....but we may try again! Thanks for your interest! It really is so much fun!

Miss Iowa said...

Hi! I'm a local who would also love to do something like this. I dabble in mixed media collage and want to art journal, but just haven't found the mojo yet. I need a push! Please offer something like this again to the public.