Juliana Coles

Expressive Drawing

The Visual Journalist draws to document the world around her- not to be great or render a perfect image. There’s little life in that. Drawing is note taking. Drawing is research. Drawing is learning to see and to make comparison’s between this and that. A scratch here, a line there, that we carve through our years and smear across the pages of our Visual Journal. This is not drawing 101. We will not be learning to draw crumpled bags, still lifes, shading a box, or any other boring mechanical drawing exercise taught in art school. I will challenge you to redefine how you think a drawing should look while you learn to make marks in your own unique style, in your own strange and beautiful hand through my pioneering methods of Expressive Drawing. Your drawings will not look like mine: they will look like your own.

Supply List:

• Book /Journal (A blank book, sketchbook, altered book, or any book or journal you are currently working on. Size and paper stock is up to you. Working in a book is all important to the Visual Journaling process so please do not show up with random pieces of paper to bind later. See www.destinyvoyages.com "discovering VJ" for more info on choosing a book)
• Gluesticks (2 big ones - don’t bother with the little ones)
• scissors
• Acrylic paints: one light, one dark, and 1 white or cream/beige. (Cheapy craft paints like Anita’s brand are fine).
  black paint or black ink (optional)
• brushes (a few different sizes -get one really big brush at least an inch- bigger is better- home depot crappy is fine- but no sponge brushes, 1 quarter inch brush - relative good quality - no frayed edges or wispys.)
• rubberstamp letters (any size) & stamp pad in any color (And I highly recommend Staz On stamp pads because we work so quickly).
• 2 brush markers in any color, any thickness, any brand
• 1 black permanent marker such as Sharpie (any thickness)
• 1 white poster paint marker (or other tool that can write on dark surfaces)
• 1 graphite pencil, 6B, Ebony, or graphite stick, no charcoal.
• writing pen (nothin’ fancy)
• Plain ole Masking tape at least 1-2 inches in width (you may want some transparent tape, but not necessary)
• an eraser (If you have one on the bottom of your pencil that will work- or you can just get one of those pink pearls. (my favorite).
• China Markers (grease pencils) or water color crayons (no oil sticks or water based oil sticks like portfolio- it needs to make a clear hard line- not smudgy) in at least two different colors.
• Wet Ones brand wipes (or any other wipe with alcohol or other toxic cleaner- get a small package or get the big jug and share with your friends!)
• collage items: 1 magazine to cut up, 1 poetry book to cut up, random collage items
  
  
• Each student will be required to bring a "Mystery Bag." A small plastic grocery bag will do. Some suggestions are collage items, an old paintbrush that is all glued together, that orange paint you hate, stickers from when you were 14, Artist tools and supplies you no longer use or never liked, torn up pieces of your artwork that didn’t work out (no recognizable artwork, please) books to cut up, magazines, sticks, markers, 2 inch pencils, you get the picture-sort of a grab bag. We will be using these mystery bags as part of our mixed media explorations. What, and how much to bring, is up to you. Don’t worry about trying to include nice things- we’re looking more for garbage items. We all ready have our own nice supplies-we want your cast offs to really make us think!