Find Your Niche

I love carrying my art journal, which covers long periods of time and many different experiences and thoughts. I also make journals that are more intimate, smaller and explore a single idea. These are no less important.

I love creating a small journal book that is easy to carry and complete during a short trip or important visit. Then I want to give it a beautiful place to reside in my home, a place that honors the experience or people that inspired it.

I think it is fitting for a journal to have a place within a book. In this class you will learn how to quickly make background pages for a small custom journal with several wash and painting techniques, and a few simple bookmaking forms. Then during most of the workshop you will create an altered book with a niche specifically designed for your journal.

We will cover methods and tools for cutting niches and holes without sacrificing fingers and sanity, for creating textures and backgrounds, pools for floating items, drilling, adding text, images, transfers, attachments, hinges, embedding, and using a variety of mediums to create dimension.

This is a fun, fast moving, techniques driven class. You will be able to create a piece in class, and have many more ideas to continue with beyond class. You will not need alot of luggage space for your materials. I will bring the bulky items and plenty to play with.

Kit Fee $5

Supply List

• #11 exacto knife with replacement blades
• mat knife or cutting knife with retractable blade
• 6 inch metal ruler
• awl
• small cutting mat or scrap matboard
• small container of gesso
• gluestick
• several inexpensive bristle brushes for gluing, and paint layering
• colored pencils
• several colors of craft acrylic paint (2 oz. bottles delta ceramcoat from craft store are great). I recommend primary colors, and at least one metallic. Bring colors you like to work with.
• about 15 paper towels
• Book for altering that will contain niche. Consider size and depth of niche you want and choose a book that will have the structure to contain it.
• Photocopies for collage or possible transfers - this is optional.
• Items for attachment. These might go along with a theme for your niche journal
• apron
• camera, and small notebook
  
  Kit Fee $5 includes:
• This covers art paper for journal, additional mediums, tools, adhesives and pooling epoxy, power tool use.
• I will also bring additional papers for layer and texturing, tools to experiment and play with, assorted items for attachment, paper cups and plates for water and paint mixing.