Journalfest- Classes Days 2 & 3

We are all born children. The trick is how to remain one. Picasso

My class on day two of Journalfest was "Making Faces" by Roxanne Padgett. Of the three classes I signed up for at Journalfest, I probably expected the least of this one, and maybe that is part of the reason I enjoyed it so much. I find when I just go with the flow and play I am very happy with the results at the end of the day. Roxanne does a fabulous job of getting you out of your head and back to that childlike state of play and making art for the pure joy of it, and not for some grand result. The picture to the left was one of the first exercises we did as a class. After loosening up drawing ovals on pages we drew an oval, put our name in the lower right hand corner and were told to pass it to the right. When we all had someone else's oval in front of us we were told to draw a facial part- an eye, nose, ear, mouth, whatever we wished, but just one. Then we had to pass that on and get another 'face' to add one element to and so on, until the pages ended up back to us, complete with portrait. Fun!

We did a lot of painting, drawing simple portraits and then doing things to them: coloring them, collaging them, making stamps of faces with foam sheets and cardboard. Here are some of mine:

My class on Day 3 was Grimoire with Juliana Coles. She had hinted that we could get dressed up for the occasion and donning my Luna Lovegood Spectospecs and witch's hat I attended a class filled with a few more witches, an enchantress, and Juliana looked absolutely grand in her enchantress outfit as she led the class through journaling spells to enter into a mystical place where we could reach inside and draw out our own magical secrets to put down on the pages of our special journals. A fun, relaxing class, even though she had us working fast and furious through several points in the morning. Since the journal is supposed to be personal and secret, I won't be sharing pictures here, except for the one posted yesterday:

Journalfest-Class day 1: Shimmer and Bling with Lisa Engelbrecht

Shimmer and Bling with Lisa Engelbrecht was my first class and it was all I hoped it would be- it was awesome. What a fun teacher Lisa was! I wish I could show you the gilded letters and words we did in class, but they don't translate very well on the scanner. The word Dream featured here was a warm up exercise we did with gold markers and decorated with these very cool Uniball Signo glitter pens. We worked with different glues and gold/silver/pink foils, gold leaf, pearlx powder, glitter, and schminke powder to make writing shimmer and bling! Here is a sampler sheet I did, but you really can't get the full effect without seeing it in person.The letter P below is done with gold foil. I sketched out the letter, painted it with a special sizing, let it dry and applied the foil. Amazing! I have always wanted to know how to do this, and been put off by the 'medieval method' I've read about in books. The methods Lisa showed us were very easy and I was very impressed with the results. I will definitely be using this new skill in more of my projects.

The Last Journalfest

October 25-30th I was in the Pacific Northwest having the time of my life at my second Journalfest. Lucky for me that I had decided to go because this past weekend Teesha Moore announced that she will not be planning another Journalfest in 2012, and the Artfest planned for 2012 will also be the last.

Although I support her decision and any new projects she may undertake in the future, I cannot help but be saddened at the thought that I will not have more Artfests and Journalfests to look forward to in the future. These events have been life changing for me, and a creative/mental/spiritual boost that lasts for months. I am glad I was able to participate in the two Journalfests and five Artfests I've already attended.

So without further ado, here is a recap of my art excursion: Getting to Journalfest

I flew to Seattle on Jetblue on Tuesday to meet up with another Journalfest attendee with whom I would be sharing a rental car. I met up with Dana the first time ever in the garage of the SeaTac airport and once I stowed my luggage into the trunk of the rental car and hooked up my GPS we took off to find our hotels in downtown Seattle. Luckily our hotels were right around the corner from each other and once we checked in and got settled we decided to meet across the street at the Seattle Public Library, an incredible building inside and out. Here is picture of one of the floors inside:

After a quick tour of the library we headed off to Pike's Place Market for a quick look around before they closed up for the night. We grabbed dinner at an Irish pub and then walked back to our hotels for the night.

In the morning it was back to Pike's Place Market where we had breakfast overlooking Puget Sound at the Sound View Cafe. We checked out the market, this time in set up mode before heading back to check out of the hotels and head over to the ferry to Bainbridge. We spent some time wandering around the Bainbridge main street checking out the stores and galleries before heading to the Pegasus Cafe for an awesome lunch then we were back in the car and off to Port Townsend and a stop at Akamai art store (a truly awesome store with a truly awesome staff!)before heading over to Fort Worden for checkin.

We checked in at Fort Worden and after I hauled my 44 pound suitcase, my overloaded messenger bag and pocketbook up several flights of stairs of Dorm 225 I realized that my room assignment, Rm 41 was the same room I had my first time at the fort for Artfest back in 2007! Funny how that sort of thing happens to me so often. Here's the view from my room.

After dinner we headed over to the small theatre on the grounds of the Fort for the welcome meeting and introduction to the teachers and what Teesha and Tracy had in store for us for the rest of the week.

My three classes were very fun. Here are photos of some of the work I did. More details tomorrow!

Journalfest-making trades

Just a few days left until my cross country trip to Seattle, Washington and on to Journalfest! I spent yesterday finishing up on my other trade item: positive voodoo dolls, since this year's Journalfest is right around Halloween. I first made these dolls for Art Countinuum in 2003, and made them for an Artfest a few years later. In the past I have had a bit of trouble getting the right ink to make the stamp on fabric that can take the wear and tear of sewing the dolls together. This time I used StazOn black ink, and it worked very well. My finger nails are black from turning the dolls inside out after sewing and prior to stuffing, but I am pretty happy with the way they turned out.

My Artist Voodoo Dali version is a positive doll. I like to think of it as a remote acupuncture to stimulate your artistic energies to be more creative, playful, inspired, etc. Made with love and positive thoughts, I hope they are met with joy and laughter when I give them away at Journalfest!

Countdown to Journalfest

I've been very busy the past two weeks working on projects and gathering supplies for Journalfest in Port Townsend, Washington October 26-30, 2011. I am taking Shimmer & Bling with Lisa Engelbrecht, Altered Portrait Portfolio with Roxanne Padgett, and The Grimoire with Juliana Coles.

If you've never been to an art retreat before, one enjoyable activity is trading with other artists some homemade token of some sort. The item you make to trade is usually dependent on the event. Since Journalfest is about art journaling, I make mini ephemera packs to trade. I am also working on another item that I have made for other art retreats and since Journalfest is so close to Halloween, I thought this one would be fun to have to trade. You'll get to see what I am up to in my next blog post.

I made this smaller journal for my class with Juliana Coles on Saturday. From the class description this class looks like it should be a lot of fun.

Journal No. 11 made and ready to go!

Here is my finished journal! Visual Gossip No. Eleven ready to go with me to Journalfest later this month. If you are an avid art journalist like myself, or wishing to learn more/experiment I hear there is still room to be had. Go over to the Journalfest page on Teesha Moore's website to get the information and check out the great classes being offered! Hope to see you there!

Day 18 & 19- 30 Days of Get Your Art On

Sept. 18th was my birthday, so I spent most of the day visiting with family and friends. But I did spend some time journaling on the last page in my journal and finished it up today. I am in a total state of transition. I sent in a late registration for Journalfest coming up in late October at Fort Worden in Port Townsend, Washington. I am waiting for my confirmation packet from Teesha Moore and trying to make travel arrangements. I am also unpacking the bulk of my supplies, which have been in storage with a lot of other household items since mid March of this year. I thought I'd be unpacking them in new digs, but that's another story. My creative space is very cramped and clutter at the moment. I also am on the lookout for gainful employement! A full slate, to say the least. But I'm smiling, I'm excited and filled with a sense of adventure!

Another day of zero inspiration. This page was started at Journalfest and I added some ranting journaling about how tired I am and uninspired. Hope tomorrow is a better day.

Lost and Found: Jasper the Bunny has returned!

My thanks to Cindy O. out in California for finding Jasper at Journalfest (see blogpost Oct 23: Lost BunnyPin) and sending my little friend back home to me. You can compare my hand drawn Lost poster with the actual photo. Jasper is a bit bigger than I pictured him to be, and I forgot his two white buttons. But I think the likeness was pretty close. I am doing the happy happy joy joy dance, so glad to have him back! Cindy, you are the best!

Scribble Designs vs. 'Zentangles'

Day 5 of the challenge and I've switched over to my mini journal for this one. I've seen examples of Zentangles on the Internet after a teacher at Journalfest introduced our class to the term. I immediately recognized them as something I've been doing since I was in first grade (a long time ago my friends!) They were called scribble designs and involved a box of crayons and a piece of blank paper. You took out the black crayon and scribbled all over the paper in big loops until you came back to your starting point. Then you had to color in all the spaces with different colors making sure no two spaces had the same color next to them. An easy feat if you had the big box of Crayola 64 (which I'm not sure they offered then, but I know I collected a lot of different colored crayons to do those scribble designs with). I've been doing these off and on for years. Some in black and white (see today's journal page above) some in color (check out my ATC page on my website: www.dianneforrest.com
Try it. It's fun, relaxing, and a challenge to come up with a different pattern to fill in all the spaces. And I do have that highly coveted box of 64 Crayolas. Maybe I'll break them out and use them on a journal page this month.

Journalfest: Lost a Pin

Well I'm back from Journalfest and still recovering from the time change. I have yet to unpack my artwork and art supplies, since I've had laundry and other chores to see to and of course I had to go back to work on Monday. I did notice that I am missing something very dear to my heart. A little pin that I had on my journal bag, which I've drawn a picture of above. I've had this pin for at least 20 years. I lost it on Saturday at Fort Worden, somewhere between Dorm 225 and the Commons area I think. I loose pins all the time, but this one was special. If you have found Jasper, please let me know. I would really like to arrange a homecoming for the little guy.
I will start posting more about my adventures at Journalfest in the next few days. I had a really great time. My world is a better place thanks to Teesha and Tracy Moore, and all the great folks at Journalfest (and Artfest).

West Coast Art Time

It's always a struggle to adjust my body clock to West Coast Time. It usually works in my favor, allowing me to be on time and awake at the beginning of the day when I'm usually sleepy and zombielike. There is definitely an adjustment to be made to the vibe of Seattle/PacNorthWest that I really enjoy making. Things are slower and friendlier here in Seattle. The city is smaller and seemingly more accessable. Black is not the dominate color of clothing, which makes people watching all the more interesting.
Other differences between Seattle and NYC- I see a lot of people walking around reading books at the same time. I went to visit the Seattle Public Library and it was pretty packed for a Monday afternoon. I was impressed that they could hand me a laminated page that gave me directions for a self guided tour around what is an incredible building- 11 stories---it is huge and wide open. I'll try to post a photo later, but I loved the words carved in the floor on the first floor of the library and the 'cone of sound' which made me think of the cone of silence from Get Smart. The building is a visual treat!
All of this site seeing I hope will add to my inspirational treasure chest for the art I will be making later in the week at Journalfest.

What do you do to refuel your creative toy chest of inspiration?