Art Unraveled

This was my first year at Art Unraveled and I have to say it was so much fun!!! A list of classes & instructors so long that it was hard to pick classes!! I started out with 3 but at the last minute added a 4th---I think maybe next year 3 will be enough. By the end of the week, driving back & forth to Paradise Valley every day (40min to over 90min each way) and having classes from 9-4 really wore me out!! Maybe if I had spent the night one time it would have helped.

The 4 classes I took were a "double double" cloth journal,  Mapping Identity in the Visual Journal, One Palette, and Spirit Book. It was all about the art journal for me this year!

Double Double with Jane Eileen

This is a sewn journal with pages on both sides when you open it. I took it cuz I wanted to learn about sewing a journal and because I thought the style was quite unique.  I'm not quite done with it---I wanted to add some of my own touches but haven't had the time yet.

This is the front (right side) and back (left side) of the cover. I want to sew a ribbon across part of it to tie it shut and I still have to add the "binding" down the center.

This is the inside of the journal all folded out (the pages will go in here).....

.......and the sides folded in.  it was so much fun picking out the scraps to use---the instructor generously let us choose from her HUGE tub of fabrics! And the binding was a piece of cake---just fold it over & sew with a zig zag! Looks just like seam binding!



Mapping Identity in the Visual Journal by Journal Fodder Junkies

This is a photo from the instructor's book---I certainly can't draw like that!!!  It was more about the concept than the art in this class. About finding what forces affect your life (family, health, morals, etc). I used a road visual---the intersection at the center was me & the roads leading to that intersection where the forces in my life. If you cut a "hole" (the squares in the pic) to the next page then you can expand on that particular aspect. It's definitely a work in progress to find out what shapes yourself.



One Palette by Pam Carriker

This was probably my favorite class! Pam is an awesome artist and teacher! We used watercolor products that I've not really experimented with before. And those I have, we found different techniques to use with them.

First we took a huge paper and folded it 4 different times to make 12 "pages". When you unfold it, you color each page (front & back) individually then as a whole. Basically you're just adding color (monochromatic) to the entire sheet. It looks strange as one piece but after you finish painting & folding it back up, you separate all the pages with a bone folder to get a book like this......

Now you have pages intermixed showing the colors from each side of the big paper. When it's cut down into pages versus one huge sheet, it really looks cool!

 We wrote words on some of the pages, added a few stamps & splatters, and on this one added a color wheel we made with a coffee filter!

You can see we didn't cover the entire page when we were painting---I think it gives it so much more depth with the colors done around the edges and some simple stamping! Now it's just waiting for me to actually turn those pages into something meaningful to me.  Thanks Pam!!!


Spirit Book by Kelly Kilmer

 

I love taking classes from Kelly!! She comes to our LSS a couple times a year and does an entire weekend of her classes--what a treat!  This class was the first time I had used a sheet of canvas to paint & use as the journal cover. 

This is the inside of the book---we folded in the sides a bit & I'll sew the tops & bottoms to make little pockets. Slip in notes, zentangles, photos or whatever to use on future pages. It was so much fun added acrylic paint, stencils, detail doodling and stamps! The primed & unprimed sides of the canvas too the products so differently!!

Then we started making pages---Kelly loves using images from magazines & books combined with decorative tape, stamps, and transparencies/stickers.  This is my favorite page that I made---can't wait to do something with it!!

I think I'm good on empty journals now! LOL  Now if I could just get myself to write in them instead of just making the pages........