Creativity Journal with Jacqueline Sullivan

Jacqueline Sullivan has always been one of my favorite teachers. Her instructions and demonstrations are clear, she is very generous with her time and supplies and I always end up with something I enjoy when all is done.

The Creativity Journal class was no exception. The goal was to create a journal from watercolor paper that we would bind together, having used some interesting painting techniques and tools to create the journal and papers we would include.

Our group was large and one of the delightful things about the end result was that everyone's book looked very different! Below are some of Jacqueline's deli papers.

We began by using gesso and stencils on a large piece of watercolor paper -- both sides.

The stencils had a number of patterns -- curlicues, leaves, starbursts, squares. Later we would see a little magic with these!

After they were dry and we started painting we discovered they acted as a partial resist medium and the stencil patterns showed through! Such fun! You can see it here in the upper right most clearly.

Then we painted a number of deli paper pages, again with the acrylics, to use later.

I have to say, I just loved the ones I came up with! For that matter, I loved everyone's. It's such a great surface to work on. (I discovered this in my gelli workshop, but there we were printing rather than direct painting.)

The we started working on our watercolor sheet, painting over the gesso with diluted walnut ink, sumi ink and some color when desired. We used a variety of tools for a very abstract look. Jacqueline is an officially certified Golden teacher and it was a pleasure to use the Golden paints she provided.

This was Jacqueline's...

...and this is one of mine. Notice how the stencils held the resist when painted over. You can see it in the leaves and in that brown part in the lower right corner.

We also painted a contrast sheet we could cut into pieces and use when desired. we used a variety of tools for this -- paint brush ends, corks, wallpaper brushes and more.

 

When all the painting was done, we started cutting apart our large watercolor sheet. The sections were folded into pages that were carefully stitched together.

As you can see, some of the pages had "flaps" which you could either glue down  to make a pocket (I haven't done that yet and not sure I will) or to serve as another page.

Then we began adding quotes and the painted papers, along with embellishments.

Of course, Jacqueline was there if we were stumped, had questions or needed an opinion.

Soon it was show and tell time. Everyone's was different!

Here are a few pages from mine.

I'm still not done, but added things after I returned home from the workshop, like beads in the front and some stamping and embellishment inside.

There are pages I'm not that fond of -- I think I filled the page too much with color and stencil and it needed more white space. I'm OK with that -- it was a class and I'm there to learn.

Next time I'll try some different things.

When all was said and done, I was thrilled with the results, enough so that I know this isn't my last journal -- it is the first of many.

(After I did this one, I did another with my friend Kate. Still learning the technique and a few pages drive me nuts -- but I'm learning! Look for more soon!)