Saturday, February 7, 2009

B E L O N G (Workshop Success!)

I DID IT! I DID IT!!! AND I HAD A BLAST!!! I will never be afraid again. First, the class was small, MY kinda small (7 students, and Kelly-the-Instructor). Second, Kelly is my kinda instructor altogether -- relaxed, humorous, real, not afraid of the occasional expletive or juicy tidbit, and not attempting to rush-rush-rush the group through everything. Lots of fun and informative chatter among us, tales told, experiences, and me with my "HOLY CRAP" (twice I did that) when somebody held up a particularly spectacular page. I signed up for this class mainly because I wanted to learn to make my own journals. Oh yea, mission definitely accomplished! Voila the front of my journal. I had trouble making myself STOP with all the tapes. Am I the only person in mixed media land who wasn't aware there are 9 million of these decorative tapes, of which I have zero, of which Kelly had at least half? This is serious. This is trying to become my next addiction and I am trying not to let it. See the bird tape? Kelly unveiled that roll and seven women lunged for it at the same time -- hilarious!!! Whoever makes that pattern is going to get rich from it, alone! Inside front cover. We folded over the outer edges, taped them down, to create pockets. LOVE that - but you know me and pockets. First paint color combination background. My challenge is always how to actually journal LEGIBLY on a dark background. But discussions of The Best Pens for What Purpose abounded; I learned a lot; I tucked it all into my brain for purchases at a later time. The swirly design came from using a vintage plastic doily as a stencil -- Kelly had a few of those and they were the second item every single woman in the class gravitated toward. Manufacturers Alert!!! BRING BACK THE PLASTIC DOILIES!

Observation: the difference between the Golden Fluid Acrylic paints we used (mixed 50-50 with gloss medium), and that 50-cents-a-bottle shite I've always used heretofore, is NIGHT AND DAY. Now, I've been happy with my pages up until now, and my discretionary income hasn't changed one iota, so I won't be running out to buy every color available in the good stuff, but I will MOST DEFINITELY be adding particular colors to my palette, starting with white. NIGHT AND DAY, I tell ya - way true story!!! The quality of the color, of the paper saturation, of blendability, my goodness. It's a whole new world, made me want to paint with my body parts it was so glossy and silky and color-rich and wondrous!! Ongoing pages with varying paint combinations. I like this; it feels very Monet-esque, just brighter.
Kelly has myriad suggestions for ways to use collage papers and focal images to create layouts over the backgrounds. This was my second one. Given that I have pounds of different papers and equal pounds of sorted-by-subject focal images, this is bliss. A way to use them, to showcase them, piece by piece. I HATED this background until I added the skeleton and the stamped image of the jagged lines. Then suddenly it became kinda sassy -- I want to play some more here!
The spine of the journal. I left my strings long because I want to add some beads and charms to this.
Another play with collage. Another paint combination background. This will be collaged/journaled on later, as will the rest. This is my favorite background of those I did today. Using that good quality acrylic paint (in white) to create the stencils, then going back over them with a darker color? LOVE IT! Inside back cover. Again, the outer edge is folded over to create a pocket. That's the name tag I wore; I wanted to keep it as a souvenir! I also kept my receipt for my lunch (egg salad sandwich, pretty yummy, from a little cafe down the block), and a Phoenix Symphony ticket stub I found on my walk to buy a sandwich, to use in a future journal entry! Journal back. Again, tape crazy. I'm going to dream about decorative tapes tonight, I promise. During lunch, I mosied through the store and did some damage -- including these two awesome rubber stamps. I'd seen the 'Explore & Discover' stamp on someone else's journal and was excited to find it, but HONIES! When I saw this stamp with all the architectural drawing fragments? I'm afraid I did more than just a wee jig; I couldn't help myself! I LOVE this kind of sketch, from my passion for architecture/interior design, and all the years I worked for architects. Perfection!

By 4, when the workshop ended, I pronounced to my partner on my right, "I'm tired. It's official." I've been fighting some stupid bug that's being passed around work, and I realized I was just seriously out of gas. I wanted to go home, slowly sip a beer, and peruse the journal and relive its creation step-by-step in my mind, which is the way I learn, the way I can go forward and duplicate the process.

But first I paid my 'tab' at the shop counter, collected a couple of names and blog addresses, told my group farewell, and especially, gave Kelly a heartfelt hug.

WHAT A GRAND DAY!!! More! I want more!!!

13 comments:

Cindy said...

It looks like you had a great time. Your journal is beautiful!

Anonymous said...

HOORAY!!! I told you that you would have a ball!!

Carla said...

Toni, it sounds WONDERFUL!!!! Your journal looks amazing!! I actually have some of that tape, but I'm afeared of it!!

Unknown said...

I like your blog!
Keep it up!

loves.raran said...

i like ur pic so much!!

beth said...

all the fun you had, just oozed out of you, all over my computer !!

I'm sooooo happy for you....now you know why we all keep signing up for more classes...it's addictive I tell ya !!

and see...now don't you want to come up here and spend a weekend...a whole weekend with me at valley ridge ??

come on...please ?

Kelly Kilmer said...

I'm so happy you had a great time!!! It was wonderful to meet you and I LOVE seeing what you did :)
I hope to see you again! :)

The Runaway Lawyer said...

Try your Dollar Store for the plastic doilies. Mine had them last I looked, in metallic gold, no less.

Wabbit said...

Honeychile, I TOLD you that you would love both Kelly and her class. But I'm pretty sure that the paints Kelly uses are Nova Color. I know she doesn't use Golden normally. I use and love Golden because I can get it locally and don't want to pay for shipping on paint.

I'm so happy for you that you loved it.

Anonymous said...

very nice your blog..

Eldy Voon said...

nice pictures , good job

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Coffee Messiah said...

Like your collage work ; )

As we get older, we simply need to get where we were before we were indoctrinated and simply "be"....

Have fun and stay creative! Cheers!

lee said...

oh I am so jealous...your books is amazing and the colour.....keep showing us your work