Art Journal Boot Camp

I went back to Stamping Bella last night to take Donna Downey's "Inspiration Journal" class. We all got a journal with a pretty fabric cover at the start of the class. Here's what mine looks like:


She told us when we started that we were her first class on this topic. She recognized that all of us are intimidated by a blank page and it's often hard to sit down and create something, even if you might have a huge supply of everything you might possibly need to make whatever it is. So for the next three hours, she guided us over that initial hurdle and forced us to put at the least the beginning of various pages together. She called it "art journal boot camp" and that's exactly what it felt like. We opened our books to the first blank page (not the actual first page, we got to pick one in the middle of the book because that is just so much easier psychologically!) and zoom, we were off!


First she told us to paint one page with one colour. That's all. Couldn't be easier. On the next page, we got to use three colours, in any way we wanted - a little or a lot, sideways, up and down, all mixed up, didn't matter. Next time, it was 6 squirts of water on the page and add one colour. Then we were told to use any of the products we had brought except acrylic paint (which most of us had used for the past 3 pages).

As easy as these directions sound, it wasn't always easy. If you think about it too much, your brain starts inventing all sorts of ways to stop you from proceeding. Donna's solution to this was to tell us that we didn't need to ask her any questions, the answer was always going to be "yes". Is it okay if I use two colours instead of one? Yes. Can I use watercolour crayons instead of paint? Yes.

Here's Donna (on the far left) showing us one of the techniques she uses:


The real challenge started when she told us to flip to a new blank page, pick up our books and move three spots down the table to someone else's spot and decorate the page using their stuff. Wow, that was wild. And exciting at the same time. At first, everyone was a little hesitant - after all, you're using somebody else's possessions. Iut the next time, when she told us to do the same thing at a different table, everyone seemed to get over their initial hesitation and jump in wholeheartedly. It was a lot of fun. Here's a picture of the page I made using someone else's paint colours, ones I wouldn't necessarily have picked myself but which I quite liked:

All in all, it was a great class. We learned lots of new techniques and got comfortable with the idea that we are free to do as little or as much to a page with whatever medium we might choose as we want.

At the end, Donna asked us for any suggestions we might have to improve the class and all I could think of was, make it four hours instead of three. Or six. Or eight. Because once we got going, I didn't want to stop!!!

Evil Is Not Welcome Here

One thing I was concerned about when we were making the book in Donna Downey's class the other night - we decorated the arrow shaped acrylic page with paint and then carved the word "live" into it.

Only we had to write it backwards, on the reverse side of the page, which meant we had to write the word "evil". I didn't want to introduce that emotion into my book so I wrote the word "live" from right to left, which took a little focus mentally but I got it done. I just have to figure out how to cover up that word now, as I don't want to see it. We painted over the letters we carved out of the paint in order to fill in the word "live" and I will try to paint over it again with a darker colour. I don't want evil in my book or in my life. I know it's out there but I'd rather not invite it in the door if I can help it.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. (Buddha)

Doodling with Donna

Painting, watercolouring and doodling, to be exact.

That's the name of the class I took last night with artist/teacher Donna Downey (http://donnadowney.typepad.com/) at a scrapbooking store I had never visited before called Stamping Bella (http://www.stampingbella.com/) in north Toronto (just north of Yonge and Steeles).

We started with these pages, made out of acrylic and chipboard. The acrylic pages look blue because they are covered with a thin film of blue plastic, which we peeled off before starting to paint the pages. There are 8 pages in total, about 6 inches by 6 inches in size.

Donna told us that we were the very last class to whom she was going to teach this project, as she has taught it to about 750 students already and she'd done with it. We used acrylic paint, watercolour crayons, white gel pens, eyelets, ribbon, stamps and black ink to decorate our pages. We didn't get finished by the end of the class but left with a set of instructions and a working knowledge of the techniques we'll need to finish the book on our own.

Here's a picture of a couple of the pages from Donna's book (which she very kindly allowed us to photograph), which I loved. It is so colourful! Looking at my pages this morning in the light of day, they seem rather pale in comparison, I think I'm going to have to go back and boost the colour a little bit.

Here's a picture of Donna and me after class, both wearing our funky glasses.

The most important thing I learned? That caran d'ache watercolour crayons are worth paying the exact money for. I was in Curry's art store earlier this week and decided to get 24 crayons of a less expensive brand for the same price as I would have paid for only of 10 caran d'ache ones. However, I got a chance to sample both types last night as Diane sat beside me with the good ones and was kind enough to let me try them. The two brands really don't compare, the caran d'ache crayons have just that much more pigment in them, it is astounding the difference it makes to your finished piece. Oh well, I'll know better next time!

Another Weekend, Another Class

Every so often, I tell myself I'm not going to take any more classes for a while. However, whenever I say that to myself, it seems to become an example to prove the expression, "we humans make plans and the gods laugh". Because as soon as I said that this time around, literally just yesterday, after an intense conversation with Anne Marie at the TBS meeting on Wed night about how it's fun to take classes and learn new things but sooner or later, you need to stop taking classes and start putting those new skills to work. Seemed like a reasonable idea at the time.

Except I was already signed up to take a class tonight at a scrapbook store in Thornhill. So after this one, I thought, then I'll stop for a while. And except for the couple of classes I'm already signed up for, one in a few weeks at the Paper Place and a beaded bead class with Marcia DeCoster at Beadfx in July. Other than those, I'd restrain myself for a while. Or so I thought.

My resolve lasted until I was at this class tonight. I was really enjoying it and the teacher. I had signed up for it more than a month ago with my friend Diane and I barely knew what I had signed up for. Diane had read about it online and told me about it and sent me the supply list once I had signed up. I didn't even know the teacher's name until last week when I was at Bizzy B and they told me it was Donna Downey. Didn't really know who that was but I checked out her blog and liked her style so off I went.

I didn't realize until I got there tonight that Donna is in town all this weekend teaching several classes over the next few days. While we were working on tonight's project (more about that tomorrow), I casually asked to see what the sample items looked like for the other classes. Just curious, that's all. Donna held up the various items and then put them down on a table for us to come look at. The one book she didn't describe was the one that caught my eye the most and as I flipped through it, I knew I had to come to that class.

Except that earlier in the evening, the store staff had announced there was only one spot left and another woman in the class quickly spoke up and said she would take that spot. It was one of those moments when I just had a feeling that I should take that last spot, without even knowing at the time what I was signing up for, and I had been just about to open my mouth and say I would, when the other woman beat me to it.

But as soon as I saw the actual book (an art journal), I knew I simply had to take that class, no matter what. I decided I would ask to put my name on a waiting list, in case another spot opened up before Sunday night when the class is scheduled. I spoke to the one of the staff at the end of the evening and she said she'd take down my name just in case, and literally two minutes later, this lovely woman named Anne came up to me and said, "You know, I'm signed up for that class and I'd like to cancel as I live an hour and a half away, so I'd get home late Sunday night and I have to teach early Monday morning and I really don't want to do that. Why don't you take my spot?"

Wow, how serendipitous was that?? I had had a strong feeling that I should take the class and I knew if I put my name on a wait list, I'd get a spot, I just didn't realize it would happen so fast!

So, what the heck. I'm taking another class. I don't know yet why I am meant to be in that class but I feel that I am and I already know I'm going to love it!! Thank you, Anne, for giving up your spot for me, that was so sweet of you.

Summer Rain

Can you believe all that rain we had yesterday? We certainly needed it, after a week and a half of hot, sunny weather. It started coming down mid-afternoon and was still going strong by the time I got home around 9 p.m. I took public transit downtown to a dental appointment in the late afternoon and then walked down to the Toronto Bead Society meeting, about a 20 minute stroll, during which time I got quite damp, in spite of my umbrella. Got even wetter when a taxi drove by and splashed me with one of those huge arcs of water. The beauty of it all, and the part that made me just shake my head and laugh when I got soaked by that taxi, was the fact that it was WARM water!! So humid and moist. It didn't matter that it was wet, once you got under cover or indoors, everything dried out pretty fast.

An old friend once told me he loves the rain. I can still remember exactly where we were and when it was that we had this conversation - we were sitting in a car, thankfully dry and with the heater going, watching the rain pour down the windshield and listening to the thudding on the car roof and that swishy noise on the road as other cars drove past. It was November and it was cold and damp. I didn't disagree with him, because I like rain too, but I thought he was crazy to say that about a November rain, that icy cold rain that soaks your ankles and chills your entire body. No way, no sir. But a summer rain, that is something entirely different. It even sounds different than a winter rain, no doubt the result of all those little raindrops landing on green, green leaves and soaking into thirsty lawns and flower beds.

The best thing about rain, in my humble opinion, is lying in bed listening to it hitting the roof above you while you snuggle all warm and dry under the covers. It is something I remember most fondly from being a young kid tucked up in bed in my grandparents' cottage. The way their cottage was built, the individual bedrooms weren't enclosed, they didn't have a ceiling - they were open to the rafters - no privacy whatsoever, of course, you heard every sound and snore but as a kid, drifting off to sleep, it was always rather magical to lie there and listen to the adults talk and laugh as they played cards or whatever they were doing and later, when everything was quiet and dark, to wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of the rain coming down.

Here's how that feeling sounds to me - take a listen to "Rainy Night in Georgia" as sung by Conway Twitty and Sam Moore, circa 1993. The bittersweet slide of the steel guitar says it all.

TBS Garage Sale

Tonight is the final meeting of the Toronto Bead Society for the 2009-2010 season and we're having a garage sale. What that means is that members can rent a table and sell some of their stash to their fellow beaders. I know The Dixon Chick has been going through her beads and picking out those she can live without. I'm sure others have been doing the same.

I'm tempted not to attend, as I don't want to be tempted to buy any more beads but then again, I want to support my bead society, so what's a girl to do but go? :)

I Did It!

I walked home from work tonight! It may not seem like an over-exciting thing to do but I am excited nevertheless. It's something I've been wanting to try since I moved to where I'm living now, because I live so close to the office. It's about 4.5 km and it only took me about 50 minutes in total. It was warm and sunny out but there was a strong breeze that helped to keep me cool, plus I had brought workout clothes to work and changed before I set off, with my purse and clothes tucked into a knapsack.

I meant to bring my camera along today but forgot, so these photos are taken with my camera phone. My foot looks weird from this angle, doesn't it?

It worked out well today, as I got a ride into work this morning with my carpool buddy Lesia. I'd like to do the walking part more often and preferably in the morning when it is cooler but then I worry about arriving at work possibly sweaty and smelly, which is not a good way to spend the day. In the future, I could also take public transit to or from work, which is a bit of a drag because it involves taking 2 buses but lots of people do that as a matter of course, no reason why I can't.

Now that I know I can do the walking part, I definitely want to do it again. It's a great way to get some exercise and spare the air.

I even stopped to smell the roses on the way.