Early in 2011, I signed up for a series of online workshops offered by Strathmore Paper to promote their Visual Journal line of sketchbooks. The workshops focused on art journaling, something I had not tried previously, using materials I was unfamiliar with. Collage. Gesso. Acrylic paint. Scribbling. Doodling. Writing down private thoughts and then covering them up with another layer of paper or paint. More writing. More doodling. I blogged about a few of the…

I’ve been working on both versions of my art journal workshop exercise off and on for the past few days, squeezing in a scribble here, a smudge there, and a swipe of the paintbrush in passing. Right now my desk is covered in supplies — my color journal and my art journal, various watercolor pencils and watercolor crayons, pens, brushes, paints, and various other implements of artistic nature. And — most significantly for this story…

My first attempt at the Strathmore Visual Journal workshop exercise was less than satisfying. I didn’t like working with the oil pastels. I thought the charcoal dirtied up the page. I didn’t have gesso, so I used a semi-opaque watercolor instead. So I decided I needed a do-over, using materials that I’m more comfortable with. After all, they keep saying it’s all about the process, right? Steps from Lesson 1 I resized the sketches and…

I signed up for the Strathmore Visual Journal workshop series. I was intrigued by the idea of working with new media (collage) in a new format (bound journal). I’m getting a late start because I packed up my office/studio over the holidays so I could remove the carpet. I’m still unpacking, but I’m itching to get caught up on this workshop. Today I watched the first 3 of the 4 lesson videos in Workshop 1,…