And the Day Came...

One day in June I treked with a friend to San Diego to my friend Pnina's beautiful home for one of Orly Avineri's art journal field trips to San Diego... It was a lovely day, we ate wonderful foods, laughed a lot, did a bit of art journaling and playing with pens, and paint, and paper and made some wonderful new friends. We revisited the roses. I finally added a bit of text and wanted to post it here.

The left side.

And here is the right side.

And here is a close-up of the quote in my awful handwriting. Bloom my friends, take some risks.

My trees...

As the old saying goes "money grows on trees", we explored in Orly's art journaling lab what if anything we wanted grew on trees? What would your tree look like? What if anything you desired could be plucked off a tree, what would you put on your tree? Love, youth, creativity? What would you put on your tree? What would it look like?

"Grows on trees" left side.

"Grows on trees" right side.

Hey, also check out "Work of Art The Next Great Artist" on Bravo. I gave it a shot last week it was fun, I think I will give it a try for a few weeks. Sarah Jessica Parker is executive producer. It follows fourteen artists competing for an art show. What brings this to my post is that there was an interesting quote from one of the judges, "an artists work is an outward expression of the artist's inner world" Welcome to my inner world.

Naturally Nature Journals.

Greetings from Chrestline, California!

This picture was taken Sunday May 23rd, 2010 just before we left the cabin. YES, we got snow and that is hail you see in the picture falling!

On May 21 to the 23rd I joined four other amazing artists went in Crestline, CA for Orly Avineri's Nature Journal Weekend Workshop. Orly presented each of us with a packet like the one above. Each packet contained a hand made art journal I made from Teesha Moores hand made journal videos. Each journal is 16 pages. Teesha's design is brilliant and worked wonderfully for our nature journals.

Here are our completed journals from the weekend. It was a truly amazing journey. Each artist did incredible work. It was a time of sharing, laughing, growing. Orly Avineri lead us on a wonderful exploration of nature journals. To give you some idea we journaled on Saturday 22 of May for almost 12 complete hours! We just kept going on and on we were having so much fun.

If you ever have the opportunity to take one of Orly's classes I so highly encourage it!!! Orly is such a natural and gifted teacher. Orly is encouraging, engaging, challenging(in such a fun and gentle way). I am also so happy to call her my good friend. To see more photos of our group go here.

Here I am presenting my journal just before we left the Crestline cabin.

Have a wonderful weekend, I am headed to another one of Orly's art journaling workshop in San Diego! Go create some art!

Casting My Net A Little Wider

Here is to casting my net a bit wider. Being bold. Be it in relationships, art, life. You never know where it will lead. Try a new technique. Use a color you've never tried. Go down a road you've never traveled. Take a leap! Do something you've always wanted to try.

Left Side

Right Side

I am excited this weekend I am joining Orly Avineri and five other wonderful artists for an art journaling weekend in Crestline, California for almost 3 days and 2 nights of art journaling bliss! I'll take some photos and post them next week. Have a great week!

This journal page came out a bit different than it started out you can see it below in a previous post.

As always click on any photo for a larger version.

A Fabulous Day of Art Journaling!

Back row:Me, Thalia, Jean

Bottom row:Orly, Rachel

We met today at Orly's lovely home for a day of art journaling. There was a lot of reflecting on our journeys as artists & sharing where we came from, & our process. I've learned as much from the members of Orly's Art Journaling Lab as I have in the class. I have so much respect for each of them. We will not be meeting weekly any longer, we will come together for special occasions. We shared a lot of laughs and smiles.

Orly and I and our art journals. I have so much respect for Orly. She challenges me to expand beyond my comfort zone and work more organically. She's helped me to find the courage to believe in my own creative process my own worth as an artist. Orly was my inspiration for going to this bigger journal (it is an 11.5 x 17.5 Moleskine) and I love each and every page. These are one of my favorite spreads from Orly's and my journals.

Here I am with my WIP(work in progress) I'll show this page when it's finished soon. Have a wonderful creative weekend.

My Roots...

My pages for Orly Avineri's Art Journaling Lab, she's changed the name of her weekly art journaling group because it really is more like a lab than a class. I love the new name. This last weeks class was about "Roots". I would have used more photos of family pictures but my printer ran out of ink and I did not have time before class to head out to Staples. At any rate I digress. This has me thinking about different kinds of roots. The roots of behaviors, behaviors we can change, and those that run deep. the roots of life. The roots of fun. The roots of creativity. The roots of excess. The roots of style or taste.

I showed my art journal to my friend Stormy this past week and she said I "defiantly have a style" and my "art tends to be a bit dark." I thought it was amusing and interesting. I've never really thought much about my art journal having a style. What are your "roots"?

Click on any photo for a larger view.

The right side with my ink "roots" of my tree of life. The "trunk" of my tree is made from vintage papers, collage papers, and scrapbook papers, found vintage photos this page courtesy of Orly.

Right hand side. The photo with the pumpkins is yes of me...

Seeing Things in Black & White

A black & white page spread for Orly Avineri’s Art Journaling class in my XL Moleskine journal. Using vintage images, vintage fonts, vintage advertising, decorative tape, white gel pens, Sharpie poster paint pens, acrylic paint. This spread took on a life of it’s own and was very difficult to know when to stop. With Orly’s help I flushed out the face on the left hand side. I liked that the peice was very collaborative and there was a lot of talking over it as it evolved. It also started out with a smaller picture of the man with the beard or I call him M.W.B. The spread contains a secret page can you guess where? The answer is farther down in this post. Blogger is not working to view a larger size. Click on the images on the left hand side under Flickr to view my pages in Flickr and you can see larger sizes there.

It was really fun to work only in black and white and shades of grey. I am not really a black or white thinker… I’ve always been about the shades of grey. How about you?

The left side of my black and white spread for Orly Avineri's Art Journaling group in my XL Moleskine Journal do you see a face?

The right side of my black and white spread. I love the M.W.B. I brought a couple of sizes to the group, Orly liked the larger size and used in her spread for the evening and I used a smaller one, you can see part of Orly's spread here. Can you guess where the secret page is?

Tada, the secret page...

A close-up of M.W.B. This page folds out to reveal more and a secret mini journaling page tucked in. The photo courtesy of ookami_dou on flickr.

My secret journaling page. Enjoy!

Rain, rain, go away...

"Mercy for Haiti"

"Mercy for Haiti" started out very Teesha Moore"ish" and I added the photo of Haiti photo on the right side, from the Los Angles Times newpaper Sunday. The image of our lady of guadalupe is a packing tape image transfer(image from Flickr). Click on any photo for a

close-up.

"Frame of Perspective"

"Frame of Perspective" was done in Orly Avineri's Art Journaling Class this week. We did an interesting crackle finish for the background. I will definatly be doing it again.

Close-up right "Frame of Perspective"

Close-up left "Frame of Perspective"

These are close-ups of the images I chose for our frame of perspective.

January 2010 Calendar

The January 2010 Calendar is for part of a calendar challenge on "the kathryne wheel" blog. I am not sure if I will be continuing the calendar for the rest of the year but it was a lot of fun to do. I used some favorite papers and some hand-made paper we did in a class with Orly Avineri's Art Journal group.

It is currently pouring down rain in Southern California. I born and raised in Montana, and they certainly have some severe weather up there. I have been in southern California since 1984 and am very climatized to the warm weather we enjoy here. I sort of chuckle every time it rains in southern California we have "Storm Watch (fill in year)" on EVERY news channel. We are currently getting a lot of rain here. There is actually flooding in areas of Long Beach, the ground cannot absorb the moisture fast enough. We are actually getting flooding in our area here. I will be home on "Storm Watch" tonight.

49... Human Interaction...

49... Human Interaction...
Originally uploaded by bkasstle

This my musings on aging. Being in the "happiest place on earth" and feeling isolated and lonely, this one does not feel finished to me I may change it or add more...click on any photo for a larger view. Have a great day.

Let Us Love Winter...

Let Us Love Winter...
Originally uploaded by bkasstle

Journaling for the Quote "Let Us Love Winter...For it is Spring of Genius" from Orly Avineri's Art Journaling Class, the last class of 2009. Click on any photo for a larger view.

Growth...

Growth...
Originally uploaded by bkasstle

From Orly Avineri's Art Journaling Class, regarding personal growth within the last year of 2009.

Words...

Words...
Originally uploaded by bkasstle

Doing some catching up and adding some journal pages from my smaller journal. This is from a prompt from Orly Avineri's Art Journaling Class regarding the love of words and giving thanks...click on any pic for a larger view.

I am working in my new XL journal but the problem is it is too big to scan and it is hard to photograph. More pics to follow.

How Do You Play the Game?

How do you play the game? My journal page for Orly Avineri's Art Journaling Group this week. Our topic was "It's in the cards". The pockets in the bottom left, upper right and bottom right contain my journaling booklets.

This picture contains all my journaling booklets I made to contain my journaling. Click on any picture for a larger view.

Quieting the beast...

The beast... You know the beast... We all have the beast... The beast is that nagging, critical voice in our head that says "Oh your can't create" or "your not an artist" or "that is ugly", fill in with your own critical saying... you get the picture. In my art journaling class with Orly Avineri she talked about that very beast & putting a name to it. We name it so we can tell it to "BE QUIET!!!"

Here is my sneaky little beast and quieting him down... have a great weekend and go create something fun.

Click on any image for a larger view.

Creative Explosion...

From Orly's Avineri's latest art journaling class on "Wild doodling". This week we were joined by ten amazing teenagers. The class was a blast and everyone enjoyed it. This page is titled "Welcome to My World" Click on any page for a larger image.

"Fishes"

"What does the Stamp of Your Life Say"

"What does the Stamp of Your Life Say" page 2.

"Cowboy Dance" page 2.

"Cowboy Dance"

"What are You Hiding"" page 2.

"What are You Hiding?"

Many sides page 2. Includes my hand-cut stencil of myself as a teenager.

"My Many Sides" includes my hand-cut stencil of myself as a teenager.

Welcome to my journal page 2.

Welcome to my journal. 1st page.

Being in Orly Avineri's art journaling class has inspired me to do more art journaling on my own. These are my pages enjoy. Click on any page for a larger image.