Greetings from the mountains of western North Carolina! Here is a detail from a stained glass window I enjoyed on a "scavenger hunt" to greater downtown Sylva.
Lovely, no? I'm hoping this will inspire some journal pages. I love the colors.
It is 36 degrees here in Cullowhee, in the mountains of western North Carolina, but most of us here have not thought too much about the weather lately, because we have been spending 12 hour days in the studio. The two facilitators are marvelous and I will write about them more at length in another post. They have led us through writing prompts, suggested the myriad ways to confront the enemy (the blank page), and demonstrated methods of image transfer, watercolor, and use of photos and other artifacts in our journaling. All of us have already made vast progress.
I wandered some about the studio yesterday and there was a true visual feast! Each of us (24) has interpreted the prompts and inspirations in our own way, through our own vision, and the results are absolutely beautiful, awe-inspiring, touching, funny, and in many ways, surprising. We have been urged to be honest and to share what we choose to share with the group. Here are some pages (some in progress) from my own "Transformation" journal.
The cover:
Symbols and meanings: the swirl, the circle, the square, the triangle, the cross.
Next is a background process for these facing pages -- all in blue. I had somewhat of an idea where it would go, and this morning I will finish it and post the finished product here. The background is watercolor, sprinkled with salt, then dried, after which I took a fine point black pen and emphasized some of the lines created by the watercolor.
After the blue page is My coffee page! I began by staining the pages with coffee from a spray bottle. I collaged torn and scrunched pieces of brown paper and dress pattern tissue for both color and texture, then journaled on them. Here is a detail from that page showing my journaling about my mother, father, and the proprietor of a cafe in France...all about coffee! I then had to scribble in a verse of the "Java Jive"!
The next images are from "I NEED" page and "I WANT" page. what I need is TIME, hence the clock theme on that page. On the other, I used many tiny copies of my own art and photography, as well as images clipped from magazines and other ephemera. There is even a tiny square from the cover of one of my antique copies of LITTLE WOMEN.
Enjoy these, and please leave comments or questions. I'll post again before the end of the week. I can't wait to get to breakfast and back into the studio! Thanks for visiting. Lynda
