Kelly's Journal Classes

 I thought I'd start posting some of my older works here that were done in other classes taught by Kelly Kilmer. She's The Major Influence in my Art Journaling, I find something new every time I take one of her classes. She doesn't do "project" style classes, they are more about discovering your own style and bringing it forward.

Here's a sampling from her Soul Collage Cards class(above). I like this size, because it's smaller, less intimidating. And you can actually come out with a deck of cards in a short time. Really fun!

The one on the left is from her Altered Books Class. I used a lot of actual materials, like leaves, and flower petals and ribbon in this one.

Click on the images to enlarge.

A Life Made By Hand

These are pages from "A Life Made by Hand", early last year and, I tried to focus on the composition of the page, and keep the messages simple.

I did something a little bit different, because I worked on loose pages rather than a bound book, and then when I was done, I bound them using a spiral binder. It was handier for carrying around, and I stuffed everything into a cigar box. So there's a lot of cut up stuff in this one.

I called this one "My Life in Comix". One of the women in the class (Dixie) had posted this link on her blog, where you could create your own comics on the Web. So I did that, printed it, and created a page about it. This is how I imagined I'd look as a cartoon character.

Some Journal Covers

A couple of journal covers, the one on the left is from Journal Bliss. It has a microscope slide and a tiny glass bottle wired thru an eyelet. The one on the right is the Goddess journal. I loved this one because of the interesting shape, very feminine.

Yikes! White Space

OK, so after the last few pages I decided to make a simple page with Lots of white space. So then, I suddenly get a Terrible case of Writer's block, something which Never happened before! I realized that if I left a large white space, I felt compelled to say something Profound and Important! So, I left a blank spot for "future profound thoughts" and covered up the rest with a paperdoll :)

Window Page and Inner Voice

 

Here's a window fold out page, made with the inside of an envelope. The pocket is made from a transparency. The  page on the right is called "Inner Voice", and it's all about the arguments that I perpetually have with myself. After I did these 2 pages I decided that my journal pages look too cluttered, and I'm trying to figure out a way to keep more blank space for writing.

Journal Pages - About Hats

These are a couple of Before and After pages I did about hats. It all started when they made such a big deal about Princess Beatrice's hat at the Royal Wedding, and how everyone was focusing on that, and come on, it's just a Hat! So then I started speculating why I'm not a hat person, maybe it's too hot here. But anyway, I decided that if I were a hat person, I'd wear a cap like the brown one on the "Make a Wish" page.

Seeing the Positive in the Negative

This entry was prompted by my recent conversation with my friend Jennifer. She was talking about how to try to stay positive when negative things were happening. And I was reminded of something my hubby said to me, that I shared with her. He'd told me once that my leg injury turned out to be a good thing. And I was shocked when he said that because, how could that ever be considered a good thing? Then he reminded me that after that happened, I started to play the piano, choreograph, compose music, draw, and do computer graphics. And if it hadn't happened, I probably would've been content to just keep dancing and never try any of those other things. And I had to admit in looking back, that he's right. We tend to follow the same familiar pathway of activities because they work for us, and only venture out to the unfamiliar because we have to.

I did a "before and after" of the collage, so I could see how the handwriting changed the design of the page. Page was done with scrapbook paper, tissue paper, magazine images, wrapping paper, glue stick and pens.

Kelly's Journey Of You Class - Cover

Whoo Hoo! Kelly's teaching an online class that I couldn't resist. In case you haven't heard of her, she's an Amazing Art Journal instructor, and is the one responsible for getting me addicted to Art Journaling. You can see the link to this class description in my Links list (to the right). I'll be posting my pages from the class here on my blog. I'm probably going to do them as "before and afters". I want to get better at incorporating my writing as a design element on the page, something that she's so good at!
Here's the cover of an easy pamphlet stitch book that I made for it. Supplies were: scrapbook paper (shh! wasn't supposed to), tape which my sis brought back for me from Japan, rubber stamps, pens, color pencils, a sticker, and some rub-on letters.

Red Riding Hood

I Love fairy tales, they inspire me to create art. Maybe because they evoke memories of childhood, maybe because the tales can be innocent or dark depending on your focus. I participated in an ATC swap and here are my cards. The sketch was from my journal