A few weeks ago, I mentioned my notebooks and sketchbooks. I also keep a calendar-style scrapbook, using a 9” x 12” wirebound mixed media Strathmore Visual Journal as the substrate. Each two-page spread covers a single month. I glue in decorative paper, photographs, ticket stubs, and ephemera I’ve found along the way. By the end of 2013, my scrapbook documented two years of my life. It had grown fatter than its spiral binding could accommodate,…
My first attempt at the Strathmore Visual Journal workshop exercise was less than satisfying. I didn’t like working with the oil pastels. I thought the charcoal dirtied up the page. I didn’t have gesso, so I used a semi-opaque watercolor instead. So I decided I needed a do-over, using materials that I’m more comfortable with. After all, they keep saying it’s all about the process, right? Steps from Lesson 1 I resized the sketches and…
In an earlier post, I shared my work-in-progress for the Strathmore Visual Journal Workshop 1. Picking up where I left off, I began adding other media to the now-dry collage page. Lesson 2 called for adding more layers and color to the page, such as using gesso to paint over unwanted elements, adding “under-journaling” using graphite, enhancing the depth and shape of the elements using charcoal, adding color with oil pastels, and pulling it all…
I signed up for the Strathmore Visual Journal workshop series. I was intrigued by the idea of working with new media (collage) in a new format (bound journal). I’m getting a late start because I packed up my office/studio over the holidays so I could remove the carpet. I’m still unpacking, but I’m itching to get caught up on this workshop. Today I watched the first 3 of the 4 lesson videos in Workshop 1,…
