Thursday, April 29, 2010

Artiscape: Barbara Close - Paper Textures

My first half-day class was with the wonderful Barbara Close. Titled "Paper Textures," it focused on watercolor as the coloring source, with a variety of items used to texture the paper and add depth to the colors.

We started with four sheets of watercolor paper, folded in half, so we had 16 pages or eight spreads to work with.

We painted all the pages, and while wet did a number of techniques to give them some life.

Included were stamping techniques (linoleum block with or without design), powders, pastel (wet down) and more. This is a swath of pastel, then watered, on a watercolor background.

Sometimes she used odd bits as a stamp -- these marks were made with a corrugated Starbucks drink holder all folded into a square or circle.

And here she's working with the linoleum block.

This is what it looks like on the page.

When done, we put our books together in a cover and stitched them up. Barbara showed us how to judge and place the holes for the awl...

And the stitch the binding.

I learned a lot in this class. You'll note, I'm not showing you my grand book! Well, maybe later! I did some pages I adored. And a few that -- well, let's just call them gross violations of the color wheel! So, I think I'm not done playing with it yet!

But I will say I will do this again -- and use the papers for books or cards. And, this class went well with my afternoon class, which you'll hear about next!

(New at Chopsticks and String: Anne Frank in Words and Pictures.)

13 comments:

anno said...

Wow! Plenty of inspiration here... looks like a year's worth of new ideas to process, work into the bone ... all beautiful.

No wine during this workshop? I sure hope somebody poured you a glass afterward!

Joanne Huffman said...

what beautiful papers. You will make some beautiful book pages and cards with this technique.

Beth said...

Oh, now that looked like the kind of class I would have Loved to have taken. I am going to work in my Art Journals this week-end as its going to be another rainy week-end. I know you really enjoyed learning these fun techniques!
Hope you have a great week-end!
xoxoxo

Annie Jeffries said...

I love what she did with the whale, Jeanie.

Anya said...

Love your creations :)))))

Have a creative weekend
:)

Beth Leintz said...

That looks like so much fun- all those colors and textures and no rules!

jet1960 said...

Just getting started catching up here. What a great opportunity! This looks like it was a great class. Will look forward to seeing your pages. I know they are great!

Anonymous said...

What fun! what results! OK, I have some watercolors and some pastels. I just have to see if I can get anything close to the blue page you show here, or the gorgeous (final result) orange-hued paper. Oh yes, i would love to see your book though you made me smile talking about some of the colors that didn't work out. but maybe you could layer something cool over the colors. I enjoyed this so and will let you know what I get...do...come up with, hopefully this weekend although it's already top-loaded, but that tends to be when I push things aside and try "creating" something.
Lovely, Jeanie- thanks for sharing. Very cool that you took pictures throughout as well!

Anonymous said...

What fun! what results! OK, I have some watercolors and some pastels. I just have to see if I can get anything close to the blue page you show here, or the gorgeous (final result) orange-hued paper. Oh yes, i would love to see your book though you made me smile talking about some of the colors that didn't work out. but maybe you could layer something cool over the colors. I enjoyed this so and will let you know what I get...do...come up with, hopefully this weekend although it's already top-loaded, but that tends to be when I push things aside and try "creating" something.
Lovely, Jeanie- thanks for sharing. Very cool that you took pictures throughout as well!

Mei said...

Wow, those are beautiful!

~*~Patty S said...

Well it's clear you had a wonderful time at Artiscape!
Bravo!

oxo

JessInFocus said...

Wow! They look great!

ForgedinPaper said...

I love messy and inky and colour violations! I can see why you love going.

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