Journalfest 2009

Exquisite Corpse Mica Book

Daniel Essig's class was a blast. One of the nice things about this class was there was no tearing down of paper as Daniel supplied the book blocks all ready to go. This was very helpful as I needed the time to concentrate on putting the book structure together.

The book was made with eight sheets of composite mica. We sandwiched an image in between two layers so each piece was double sided. This left us with four, two for the front and two for the back. After the covers were all assembled with a Jacob's Ladder structure it was sewn together with a fairly easy exposed binding.

I hope I can find some more of this composite mica as I would love to make more of these books.

Handbook of Elements

I loved Stephanie's class. She is so much fun and an extremely talented teacher. She is very generous with knowledge, supplies and time. Don't ever hesitate to take a class from her.

The first step in making these books were to prepare the plaster gauze pages. These take a while to dry. The next step was to melt the solder on the brass sheets. While the solder is still fluid we embedded the embellishments.

An Octopus's Garden

On the last day I was in Ingrid Dijkers class. In this class we mostly just worked on painting pages and getting started on stitching the washers or buttons in place. This project will be a work in progress for some time to come. Ingrid provided us with some images in the kit and had lots of templates for us to copy. She also has an awesome collection of collage sheets we were able to purchase from her.

ARRRGGHHHHHH!!!!

I have been without my computer for about a month now and it is driving me crazy. I know I spend too much time on it but I miss it terribly. You would think that I would have accomplished much in the last month without my computer - nah ah - not much of anything.

I did finish the two books I started in Stephanie Lee's class at Journalfest. Stephanie is a fantastic teacher and if you ever get the chance to take one of her classes, go for it, you won't be dissappointed. Pictures will come later when I have my computer back.

The Mica Corpse book I made in Daniel Essig's class was finished in class. I also love this book and would not hesitate to take another class from Daniel. I do need to find a source for that mica though.

The work I started in Ingrid Dijkers class is a work in progress and will be for quite some time I imagine. I only have a few pages painted and one with some collage work on it but it isn't finished. I did manage to finish my wooden page with all the gauges and clocks wired to it. I had come a long way in class on this part of the project but when I got home I did not like the way I had wired everything on so I took it all out and started again. I am pleased with it now. Again when I get my computer back I will upload some pictures and tell you more about Journalfest.

I have also been catching up on my reading. Lori was reading a book while we were at JournalFest that looked very interesting. She really enjoyed it and as luck would have it I had already put it on hold at my local library. I got notice that it was in about a week after arriving home. The book is called The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. It is a story about a man severely burned in an auto accident. He is visited in the hospital by a beautiful stranger who insists they have known each other of centuries and were once lovers. I am loving this book, thanks Lori.

What I did yesterday.

Yesterday was a great day. Started out with breakfast at Pluto's with Suzanne, Christiane, and Charmaine. We were priveliged to see some incredible work done by Christiane in a paste paper workshop with Martha Cole. Christiane made a fantastic journal with samples and recipes from class. She also showed us a little journal she made. In the journal was a wonderful little poem she composed and wrote in her own beautiful calligraphic hand.
After breakfast Suzanne and I proceeded to Island Blue where she was teaching a Lutradur journal class and I was one of her students. The class was great as usual, Suzanne is an awesome teacher and hands out extremely clear handouts. It was fun experimenting with different mediums on the Lutradur. I wasn’t really very happy with any of my pieces after they dried but after spending some time on burning, melting, lacing and embellishing I was very pleased with the outcomes, especially my finished journal.