description

There is a path through each year, a path that varies constantly but the cycle never changes- the seasons.  Constant, yet ever changing, the natural world offers a view of time that is slower, more transformational than our day planners and to-do lists. Using simple and inexpensive materials such as craft paint, dictionary pages, deli tissue and old sewing patterns, we’ll create a richly textured journal marking the seasons.  We’ll use painting techniques, paper bleaching, gelatin printing, mark making activities, and layered tissue collage as a way to explore Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.  We’ll work with flora and fauna to create a visually inspiring take on the changing natural world.  At the end of our day together, it is my hope that you would leave with a book, covers painted, pages bound containing several completed works. 

Seasons Journal

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bio

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class photo 4

kit fee: $0        supply list

• I’ll bring dyes and paints, pattern paper, deli tissue, tissue paper, dictionary pages, fabric for your book’s spine, waxed linen thread, reproduction letters for your covers, liquid acrylic gel medium, disposable 1” brushes, painter’s tape, masking tape, gelatin printing plates, plant material, buckets, inexpensive paper for prints.   
  
  
• You should bring:
• an old scrabble board or other similarly sized game board
• Craft Paint
• The craft paint I mean is very inexpensive- Smart Craft -50¢ at JoAnns or Folk Art by Plaid at JoAnn’s Walmart, Michaels- $1.  You’ll need the following colors:
• white apple green or foliage green
• cream yellow green
• burnt umber black    
• I’ll bring a bunch of other paint colors.
• paint brushes- a small stencil brush, a fine line brush, one other that you have already and like to work with.
• something to hold water for your brushes
• baby wipes- travel size
• 6 feet of freezer paper
• cheap watercolor paper for the pages- three large sheets.  You could even use heavy heavy drawing paper.  We’ll place our work over this paper.
• 1 sheet of good printmaking paper- Rives, Stonehenge – any type with a smooth finish
• Seasonal paper ephemera for collages and 3-D materials for gelatin printing  and collaging-images from your collection/photographs/transparencies of birds, trees, flowers, landscapes, flora, wall paper, or scrapbooking papers, fauna.  3-D: artificial flowers, artificial leaves, branches, floral branches or floral picks, real twigs, sticks, rocks  For gelatin printing, things with a flat face are important. 
• china marker or charcoal pencil, white marker, if you have one
• basic tool kit: good glue stick, scissors, ruler, pencil
• awl or nail for poking holes in signatures
• large eyed needle- like a tapestry needle, for sewing your book pages into place
• 1 brayer
  
  
• Other things that are good to bring, but not required:
• pattern and or alphabet stamps/ stencils, (JoAnn’s and Michaels have some super cheap 99¢ ones by Plaid) nature stamps- trees, leaves, birds
• cosmetic sponges for applying paint
• watercolor crayons
• latex gloves

printable version

LK Ludwig is an artist and author, living, mothering her three littles, and working in her studio, The Gryphon’s Feather Studio, which is located on the third floor of a Victorian four-square in a very small town, (population 4,023) in western Pennsylvania, at least on weekdays.  Weekends are spent north of there, tucked in the family place in the woods, in a tiny valley between the mountains and the Allegheny River, where the bald eagles, deer, bear and porcupine make up the local population. More information can be found at her website: http://gryphonsfeather.typepad.com