Thank you everyone, for your support! Please feel free to add my new blog to your blogroll!

xo

Rachel

Subject: blog
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 18:24:30 -0800

Why don’t you put that long picture I liked so much in your blog. you know the one hanging in the small dining room.

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Gotta love it!  Ok Dad, here’s one for you! Thank you for always supporting me and my art! I am so happy you made it out for a visit!

The watercolor  above was inspired by an evening down at a park near our home.  Standing down by the Willamette River near dusk, a deep calm came over me.   It was different than the hasty pace of the Pacific where I grew up… with the constant crashing of the waves upon the shore.  Here, river water runs slow at times, but deep.

But first, I must back track!  Let’s start with an incredible experience with my friend Orly at her Crestline Art Journaling Nature Retreat this past summer. I just got the journal back in my hands today after sending it off with the groups work for review for a magazine. Sadly, our pieces were not chosen, but I will not be deterred! Our work was amazing and will be cherished for years and possibly generations to come….and I want to share it with you!  So on to the details of the work and the weekend itself!
First all, I have never ever experienced anything like it! Who could resist three days and two nights of friends and art and nature in the mountains? Such an incredible opportunity to really soak in the art journaling classes taught Orly. I am truly blessed to have such a supportive husband sign me up for my birthday surprise weekend this past summer!

So where do I start? The weekend was amazing, start to finish. The group was so supportive, and caring, energetic and pumped up to do some serious art journaling.  We stayed the weekend in a small comfy house up at Crestline, near Lake Arrowhead, California.

Each of us were given handmade, hand-stitched journals made by Brian Kasstle. These were INCREDIBLE journals to work in- each was unique and had varying pages that unfolded into long spreads. The paper was so thick and really took a beating-allowing for much play and experimentation.

Since the weekend themes were centered on Nature and natural things- we also played with natural art materials. This was SOO Fun! I played with staining the pages of the journal with wine, coffee, tea and plant matter. Made for such unique results that you can’t mimic with paint. We added tea and coffee stains on the pages to start filling the backgrounds of our journals.

The second day, we took a trip to the lake and had some time as a group but also individually. We took these unique and beautiful little handmade sketchbooks from Orly down to the lake and filled them with thoughts, poems, and sketches. We also took time to pick up all sorts of natural bits and pieces, wood, rocks, leaves, flowers… anything that caught our eye. We looked for different shapes, forms and patterns, really taking time to slow down and LOOK at things, then collected them to use later on in our journals.  I topped mine off with a found bottle cap and string!

Back at the warm cabin, we had some great prompts from Orly that really got each of us a chance to be introspective… Using our collections of twigs, leaves, and other tid-bits collected at the shore, plus photos of ourselves as children, and photos of ourselves as adults, we explored…what was our connection to nature? How did we view our childhood? Our adult life? Who had we become?

Because we had the entire weekend, we worked almost non-stop. Time seemed to stop for us! We were so involved with our work that we just forgot about the clock. We did the really messy work outside on a balcony, but it didn’t matter. We were so immersed in the journey of creating that we barely felt the sharp cold wind on the balcony, our hands freezing as we poured and dripped and shook our wet journal pages.  We really got our hands in nature that weekend- literally and figuratively.  It was incredible.

On the last morning, the world outside was blanketed in snow… a purity of white insulated us in our warm cozy cabin with our newly created journals and friends.

In hindsight  I see how each of us were so focused on our work in our individual worlds, but our close proximity made us also so present- I have never had such amazing group experience in journaling. This time, I really got to dive in. When I hit a wall, or had a block- I had the time to stop and reflect and also had a supportive group around me. This was key to journal pages evolution… the time to feel things, work through them in my mind, then jump right back into the material. No stopping for chores, no television, just pure journaling.

The end result was a journal I am really proud of.  I can look at it and still explore it. I run my fingers over the rough edges, wrap and unwrap the string, and I’m back there in the cabin, surrounded by close friends, pouring our emotions out on the pages with all things at our fingertips! Paint, glue, leaves, pictures, tearing, pasting, dripping, scratching, smearing, sewing… all at once, working out our emotions on the page.

All in all, a rather introspective emotional, creative, fantastic experience!! The final products ranged from whimsical to modern and classic. Everyone’s own personality came through in their handcrafted journals. I can honestly say that I cannot wait for the next opportunity to do another retreat with Orly. There is nothing like it!  Happy Creating!

A few weeks ago, I  had such a wonderful day today, at Orly’s Class, Bazzar and facilitating the “Art Lab” for the kids.  A fundraiser for her son, there were tons of beautiful works of art for sale.  Lots of WONDERFUL altered books and little tiny books made by me, and a cool assortment of journals and goods made by fellow art journalers Brian and Pnina.

The Art Lab was a success!!
I was so inspiring to watch the kids jump right in and play with the pastels, paper and ink. They came up with some great works, and got to explore some materials too!

It was also so good to be back in an art journalling class, exploring and playing too! But also being surrounded by super supportive people.

And here are the results!   So much fun! The themes today were based of Dada Art- and also the topic of trees! Trees have roots, they have branches, some make fruit… Orly urged us to explore and make trees with OUR kind of fruit on them! Maybe money Does grow on trees… maybe so does love, friendship and more!

This spread is not quite complete- but I wanted to share it anyways. It was such an inspiring topic- Imagine YOUR own life and what you want more of, what you are striving for…  My tree is filled with blooming love, support, respect, and tons of  other things!   What grows on your tree?

One thing I am definitely crazy about are my tools and materials! We have an amazing amount of tools for creating art at our hands today. I love my pastels, pencils, paint, everything! I cherish the pigments, the feelings we can get just from a particular material or tool in our hand, and the mark they produce. I truly respect and want to learn more from my tools and materials, and explore other media that is out there. These are by no means professional photos, but I wanted to share my fascination (and somewhat obsession)
with my supplies with you. I hope to make a monthly or weekly posting, just sharing little (or big) details of my work space with you!

A super appropriate topic from Orly’s art journaling class!
Last Saturday was all about diving into our journals, our emotions and letting them out on the page. The topic “Casting my Net” had a personally significant meaning…I had been emailing Orly and let her know that since taking her classes, and having had the opportunity and courage to do a teaching demo, I fell like i am finally casting my net a little larger!

I was as if I had been too afraid to cast my net too far, maybe afraid to come up short? But  I realize you get nothing if you don’t even put yourself out there!  Thalia, a great woman in the art journaling class, was generous to share with us pages of an old family book that was falling apart. Oddly enough, the page I pulled out was all about TRUST and Casting away your fears…. one section was about still waters are safe… but I know that still waters are also stagnent… I fell like by opening up, my waters are moving! I have a new hubby,  new and awesome connections with people, a new blog (justdesignstudio coming soon!) and a new discovery and love for teaching… What kinds of newness are you making for yourself?

I am pushing forward into moving waters. Who knows where it will take me?  Will you join me?

I have long wanted to teach by always felt I was “too shy” to do it. But ask anyone present that day, and I was anything BUT!! I can really nerd it up about art  – and I am thankful for the opportunity to share it!
I feel full of gratitude and excitement, after facing down a fear and discovering and a STRENGTH! This page is a reflection of those thoughts and feelings – opening up, coming from my roots and blooming- or becoming something more….

Who knows what the future will bring…More workshops? demos? The doors are opening up…. When have you opened up doors, faced down something you originally didn’t think you could do?

Pastel, Spray Paint collage, ink, sharpies, found material and colored pencil

Collaboration Day!
Yey! This class of Orly’s was SO fun! Both Brian and I were SO excited to give our demos. I had a BLAST sharing my love and passion for chalk pastels. But seeing how my fellow journalers used the materials was even more exciting!! How awesome it was to see everyone using these materials I had just had collecting dust in my closet! You learn the most, as Orly once put it, from your students! It was so exciting to see other people play and explore this media I have enjoyed myself for so long. The results were OUTSTANDING too! I think we all had a wonderfully playful day, exploring and playing with the spray paint from Brian and tons of other materials all in a playful, mindful meeting of our minds.
I am so thankful for the opportunity to have shared a bit of my love of art with Orly’s students!!

What do you do when faced with a seemingly insurmountable task? An unreasonable mismatch of requests? A double negative, a catch-22?  How do you approach it? I had one such question asked of me by my good friend Orly, who asked me to give a demo on chalk pastels along with fellow art journaler Brian in a recent class. When challenged with the idea of mixing chalk pastels with spray paint collages, I was dumbfounded! It broke all the “rules” I knew about these materials! But I did what I knew best – I brought all my tools and thoughts to the table (so to speak) and explored what these two media have to offer!! In finding a solution, I found unknown strengths and cleared room for my personal growth! It’s these very challenges that make us grow! We test things out that we otherwise would disregard as “impossible”or “wrong” and the results are sometimes splendid surprises….