On Saturday, I will be teaching an "Artists' Books and Journals" class at The Art Stand Gallery so I am in the process of gathering and preparing materials for the class. Since this is the first time I'm offering this particular class, I have quite a bit of work to do before Saturday.
It should be a fun and different class and I hope people will enjoy it. What it's doing is opening MY mind to all the possibilities that I haven't fully explored myself. I've decorated a lot of purchased journals and I've had fun making some handmade books out of postcards (on a trip to Italy and Greece) and out of drink coasters. The travel journal was especially fun to do since I made the pages out of found and gathered materials in addition to purchased postcards.
For the class this weekend, I will be showing how to decorate purchased journals and how to make your own. This afternoon, I worked on my own "workbook" (as opposed to a sketchbook) so that I can use it as an example on Saturday. I learned a long time ago that I am not good at working in a sketchbook. I never seem to have it with me when I need it most so I do my most inspired sketching on the backs of restaurant placemats, on tissuey napkins, on take out menus and on various scrounged pieces of paper from where ever I am when the mood to jot down an idea or make a sketch strikes. So, I've found what works best for me is to succumb to that tendency and draw on whatever is at hand. I store all those little bits and pieces of paper in a special blue folder and now I am trying to make sense of the whole mess! I'm organizing by subject rather than by date and including reference materials as well as sketches. My intent is to also add a photo of the finished work if the drawing led to an actual painting. My intent is also to be finished with it before Saturday! At least a preliminary draft of it. So, I'd better get back to work.
Today's photo is a little shot of a few of the books I've done before.
No comments:
Post a Comment