An Artful Weekend

On Sunday morning I’d considered not taking the class at The Art Bar because of having been gone on Saturday morning and there was stuff “I should do.” However I awoke early and decided to go and am I glad! I also thought “I need to make another journal like I need …” After all, I never completed the journal I made in Kelly’s class that I took years ago. Nor have I written in the books I made last September with Jill Berry, who says a book is just a structure until you write in it. I’ve recently made several books; all of which are unfinished. But I LOVE making books and I wanted to see the technique that Kelly was using. So off I went for the second morning in a row to another creativity playdate.

Kelly Kilmer is a really cool artist and an excellent instructor. She’s patient with those who are slower to catch on or up (such an important quality in a teacher!) Kelly has some cool color combinations that create awesome background pages. For this book we used matboard for the cover and spine, so it’s a hard cover. We covered that with handmade arty paper and used decorative tapes, which I’d never used before.

The paper is 140 lb Wausau cardstock which I found much like watercolor paper, receiving multiple layers of paint and scraping well. We used a 3-hole bookbinding technique that was relatively simple. I’m not crazy about the size (9 x 9); it’s a little large for me. But it will be a nice vessel for larger collage images.

My intention is to work in this journal. What I mean by that is I will paint and collage the pages. I will use it for some journaling. I will fill it up with stuff I have (lots of stuff!) and anything interesting that comes my way. It will be a container of artsy stuff, an art journal.

So, off to work I go. However, I’m in a much better mood because of this wonderful artful weekend.