Journaling your (he)art out, my 21 Secrets class

Unfamiliar places, both emotional and geographic, snap us out of our identities and comfort zones. The unknown sharpens our senses and brings us directly in touch with the moment, pushing us into spaces that are ripe for self-discovery. In this workshop, we’ll lose our way (and find our way back) through a playful series of journal workouts including maps, lists, brainstorms, stories, and other journeys of the imagination. Now come on — let’s get lost!

I am delighted to be a part of 21 SECRETS again. We had a blast last year, and this year, we are set for another wonderful learning and creative experience.

In this workshop, we will continue to explore and play with everyday items to create richly textured journal pages and canvases. In this 5 video workshop, I will show you numerous ways to create intricate patterns, one-of-a-kind surface designs, and unique journal pages using various children’s toys, recycled materials, basic art supplies and found objects. You do not need expensive  art supplies to create art. I have a ton of ideas to share with you to help and inspire you to get experienced student.

In this workshop I am going to share some of my favorite techniques of incorporating words and text into mixed media creations. I will demonstrate and discuss the way I use rubber stamps, vintage books, and old letters to add poetic, thought-art journal pages and collage pieces on wood.

Texture is all around us and I can’t help but love all that texture has for us to explore. In this workshop I will teach you some of my favorite techniques for creating texture in my art journal.. techniques will include the use of modeling paste, fibers, beads and more!

 

Stop thinking so much about it!! Our juiciest Art comes when we embrace our mistakes and just go with the flow! In this workshop weʼll paint FEARLESS™, have fun, and stop the exhausting search for our Artistic style/voice—weʼll just go with the flow!

The world around us sometimes tries to take us out of our POSITIVE, HAPPY, JOYFUL place.  We can succumb to those contrasts OR we can manifest some POSITIVES from them.  One way to do that, is to be kinder to ourselves.  In this workshop, we will create ART and send ourselves some of those POSITIVES.

We will make 7 postcards that we can mail to ourselves over a week – on a week that we NEED them. Once home, they can be put into a book ( mini – album) that we construct.  The book will be made with pockets for you to pull out your postcards to see and a simple accordion binding.

 

Scary? Not. My techniques for getting in touch with your critic are pretty amiable. Heʼs not going anywhere so letʼs get to know him! Iʼll encourage you to move quickly, outrunning your critical left brain.

Think storms of words, lines, papers and color and a comfort in imperfect (gasp!) journal pages. Games and prompts will help you locate that critic-free space within. That power gives you the strength to begin a communication.

The only way to get a layered look is to do the layering work. With this workshop, I will show you how to paint intuitive layers. Intuitive layers come when you free yourself from any concept of a finished product. You start painting, then you step back and observe. You listen. You let the journal tell you what to do next. We will start our pages with abstracts–painted pages full of color, shapes, movement, and energy. Then we’ll examine the abstracts and let them speak to us. We’ll spot images in our layers and discover hidden meanings and messages. We’ll add even more layers and techniques to let those images come alive! By the end of the process, you’ll have dozens of layers on your pages, and you will have participated in a creative process that will free your soul to new ideas. Take a deep breath, and see what happens when you create intuitively!

 

The word “Mandala” is a Sanskrit word meaning “Circle”, they are an iconic part of human culture well known for their calming effect on the mind and body. The creative process of making mandalas is an ancient form of meditation and healing that is deeply calming and insightful. In “Wisdom Circles”, we use myth and legend to infuse the art of creating mandalas within the pages of our journals. Through visualization, reflection and instruction we create aour own beautiful, deeply personal, and symbolic mandalas.

Give me 15 mins a day and a few supplies and I will have you filling your journals. Ever sit down and think – Where do I begin?  Well, lets put an end to that!  Do you take photos of everything and not know what to do with them?  Do you collect magazines?  Are you an eye candy junkie?  I will show you what to do with all of those images to create a journaling technique that fits your own voice and style!

Turn “I donʼt know what to draw” into ” I need a bigger journal!”. Drawing is a great tool for untangling and expressing every emotion from the heaviest burden to floating-way-above-cloud-nine. But you have to get that infernal inner-critic behind bars, to allow your natural drawing talent the security and confidence to roam freely. In Frolicaholic we learn to love our lines!

I love watercolor!  Itʼs inexpensive, easy to clean up, and enormously versatile.  Iʼll be sharing five different ways to use watercolor in your art journal: shadowing, stamping, stencil printing, and two techniques for creating backgrounds.  These are easy techniques that I use constantly.  I hope theyʼll become a part of your artistic repertoire too!

 

Using your body as inspiration, we will redefine the art journal to create a healing process that will help transform and deepen your relationship with your body. Whether it’s a trauma, an illness, or a discomfort with some physical characteristic of oneself, most everyone has some challenge in the relationship they have with their one lifetime companion – their own body. A division within keeps us from attaining our full potential. This journaling process will encourage a shifting of old perceptions and limitations trapped within the boundaries of flesh to unite body and spirit as one.

I ‘m excited to share with you my favorite medium, collage. I’m often asked “How do you assemble a collage so the random objects look like they were meant to be together?” We will pull out scissors, glue sticks, and magazines and our play will focus on one design element, shape. I’ll share some key principles that will get you piecing together new works of art. In this workshop, you’ll get a dozen prompts to choose from as you experiment with your collages. Are you ready to get into shape?

channeling our stories we will
throw them down by flinging
some paint, creating a colorful
piece, containing a bit of ourself.

it is simply about using our
inner self to allow the creative
process

a creative spread.

using a quick simple way to get
your thoughts out and a creative
flow going.  using a book spread
or just a simple sheet of water
color paper. to make a page
the beauty of this is that
later new pages can be added
as your stories come later.

channeling it girl is all about getting
those juices moving and opening
up the flow, allowing yourself to play.

Wow, art journaling sounds great, but you’re a creative bumble bee.  You buzz about your life, zipping from one thing to another.  You like to dabble in this and dabble in that.  One day you feel like painting.  One day you feel like writing. One day you feel like working on seven kinds of paper.  One day you feel like you might have ADD.

A blog could be just the thing you need to bring all your lovely distractions together in one place.

Learn how to use Tumblr, or any blogging service for that matter, to create your very own short

attention span art journal, the kind you can add to a little at a time for as long as your attention

will hold.

In this fun class we will use cut-up credit cards to create flowers! My husband tells me to feel free to cut up any credit card in my wallet— but, of course, any credit car or key card will work! (I donʼt advise you to use your active ones!) I will show you how I cut mine into several shapes to create flowers, leaves and stems. We will also discuss briefly one of the most important concepts in any painting… value. I wonʼt bog you down with a value study but we certainly donʼt want any hokey paintings and a painting without light, medium and dark values will certainly fit into the hokey category. So, get ready to create fun flowers in your journal, on a stretched canvas and for just about anything else you can think of. All from a little credit card.

In Journaling our (HE)art out, we will be using the symbol of the heart, this shape we know since weʼre little kids, and make it tell what is actually inside ours. Put it out on paper. The fears, the shames, the doubts. And make it something beautiful we can look at afterwards if we want as a reminder that we can always shift the negative thoughts into something awesome that would help us heal.

 

People are so used to the daily grind, of trying to get everything done, just getting from one day to the next, that they frequently function on auto-pilot. Because of this, they are fairly out of touch with their feelings and with themselves–not thinking about how they feel, just going where life takes them and then wondering later how they got there. Itʼs time to stop. Itʼs time to look within and gain some self-awareness.

No matter if you are new to visual journaling or a seasoned pro, this workshop will help you to broaden your self-awareness and to become more in-tune with yourself through working in your journal. Iʼll guide you with some inner journaling tactics that have helped me gain better understanding of myself. Through the magic of video, you can watch me create a journal page from start to finish using these same exercises and techniques. Although I feel the process of

working in the journal is more important than the finished journal page, Iʼll also show you some of the mixed-media techniques that I used to create the visual layers and textures of my journal pages.

This class is for everyone. No writing or art experience necessary–Just a willingness to be open

to creative and personal exploration!

Do you dare step into an artistic adventure of the heart?

Do you dream of discovering whatʼs hidden within?

During JournalQuest™, youʼll encounter exotic creatures, ancient artifacts, meaningful symbols and lore . . . the stuff of legend!   It was there all the time, buried deep and waiting to excavated by you.  Join the journey.

 

Have you ever fantasized about living another life? We donʼt have to be unhappy in our lives to wonder what it would be like to have a different one. We all have sides to ourselves that we havenʼt lived out. Did you want to be a famous singer? An athlete? Live in the time of the pharaohs? You can explore any life you can imagine in your art journal — without leaving behind the one you already have. To do this, I will introduce writing prompts to get us imagining. Then we will use various  collage, painting and drawing techniques to enter and explore our alternative life.

The third annual 21 SECRETS

will go on sale Monday, January 2nd & officially open on Sunday, April 1st!

All 21 workshops will be available and open 24 hours a day from April 1, 2012- January 1, 2013.

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