Hire Us

The Journal Fodder Junkies are on a mission to spread the power and the creativity of the visual journal. We provide all manner of workshops, presentations, and seminars on the the visual journal and the visual arts to all those who seek to explore their creativity. Although we have primarily worked with schools and artist groups, we are looking to expand into the private and corporate sectors.

We provide half day, full day, weekend, and week-long events. Prices and terms are negotiable. If you are interested, please contact us here to inquire about the services we provide.

Past Workshops

• Perquimans Art Leauge, Hertford, NC
• Loudoun County Public Schools, Loudoun County, VA
• Virginia Art Education Association (VAEA) Fall Conference
• North Carolina Art Education Association (NCAEA) Staff Development Weekend
• National Art Education Asscociation (NAEA) Annual Convention
• Randelman High School, Randelman, NC
• North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT), Cullowhee, NC
• St. Stephens High School and Catawba County Schools, Hickory, NC
• Valley Artist's Guild, Luray, VA
• Content Teaching Academy (CTA) at James Madison University, Harrison, VA
• James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA
• George Mason Univesity, Fairfax, VA
• Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
• Frederick County Public Schools, Winchester, VA
• Lincoln Academy, Greensboro, NC
• James Wood High School, Winchester, VA
• Maryland Institue College of Art, Baltimore, MD
• Roanoke City Public Schools, Roanoke, VA
• Art Unraveled, Phoenix, AZ
• Art of the Carolinas, Raleigh, NC
• Charles County Public Schools, Waldorf, MD
• Delaware Art Education Association (DAEA)
• Howard County Public Schools, Ellicott City, MD
• Maryland Art Education Association, Ellicott City, MD
• Idaho Art Education Association, Boise, ID
• National Art Honors Society Creative Industries Studio, Washington, D.C.

Recommended Materials and Supplies

• 11x14 or 8.5x11 inch Hardbound Sketchbook
• UHU Jumbo Glue Stick 1.41 oz.
• Yes Paste, 16 oz
• Prismacolor Watercolor Pencil, Set of 12
• Uniball Vision Pen, waterproof, black, blue, or red
• Prang Watercolor, Half pan, 8 color set
• Crayola Yellow Watercolor Marker
• Paint Brushes – A variety of sizes
• Scissors
• Packaging Tape

Western Loudoun Artists Studio Tour

The 9th annual Western Loudoun Artists Studio Tour is just a month away, and for the third time in the last four years, I'll be one of the participating artists. I am opening my garage studio to the public as part of the tour with the hopes to share my art and to perhaps sell a few pieces.

If you're in the Northern Virginia/DC area, I strongly encourage you to come on out for the tour. There is quite a variety of art with over 60 artists on the tour this year, and we're spread all throughout western Loudoun - with a good cluster in and around Purcellville, where my studio is located.

Please check out the tour website for more info on artists, locations, and logistics. I hope to see you on the tour.

Join Us and Get Your Journal On!

It's been a busy year, and it's just getting busier. If you missed us at one of our events over the last couple of months, don't fret. We've got more in the works, so it's not too late. So, grab a journal, and join us for one of these events over the upcoming months.

May
In May we are participating in Strathmore Artist Paper's free Online Workshops. All you have to do is register, and each week of the month, Strathmore will post a new 15 minute video that covers some of the basic ways we work in the visual journal. With registration you also have access to free instruction sheets that accompany each video. We'll also be participating in the online discussion after each video to answer any questions and give some feedback.
May 5 - Workshop 1 - Engaging the Page with Watercolor Paint
May 12 - Workshop 2 - Building Layers with Watercolor Pencil
May 19 - Workshop 3 - Using Writing and Text as Graphic Devices
May 26 - Workshop 4 - Collage, Image Transfers, and Transitional Spaces

June
If online workshops aren't your thing, and you want more "live and in person", then come to Ashburn, VA for our 4-day Visual Journal Retreat. Journal Fodder Junkies: The Retreat is four days of pure journaling bliss, so join us at the Embassy Suites Dulles - North/Loudoun June 26-29 for this one of a kind experience. Registration is open now, and there are Artistic Accomplice discounts for registering with a friend or two. This is the ultimate way to get the Journal Fodder Junkies Experience. Check out the retreat page for more info.
June 26 - Arrival, Introductions, and Easing into the Journal
June 27 - Engaging the Page
June 28 - Delving Deeper and Rich Layers
June 29 - Wrapping up, Saying Goodbye

July and August
At the end of July, beginning of August we will once again be in Pheonix, AZ for Art Unraveled. We will be teaching two all-day workshops as well as participating in the Shopping Extravaganza. If you enjoy the heat, sun, and sand, come join us in the Phoenix.
July 28 - Meet the Artist 7-9PM
July 31 - Alternative Approaches to the Self Portrait
August 1 - The Illustrate Memoir: Writing a Chapter in the Book of "You"
August 2 - Shopping Extravaganza

We hope to see you at one of these events, and please share with all of your friends and family.

New Work, New Tools

I've been working the last few days on a new piece in my "Home" series where I combined my two previous paintings (one that represents me and one that represents my wife) into one by projecting photos of each onto a 22"x30" piece of mixed media paper and tracing with pencil. The result was a complex and detailed web of lines.

I wanted to try something different when painting, and I am still digging Golden's High Flow Acrylic. But I wasn't looking forward to painting all the small details by brush. Since the High Flow is the consistency of ink, they work in refillable markers, so I picked up a few empty Montana Acrylic Paint Markers to try. I am definitely loving the control and the detail, and I'm thinking about buying more of the markers to fill with all the different colors of High Flow that I have.

I'll share more when I finish.

San Antonio and Robert Indiana

We just returned from a trip to San Antonio, TX where we worked with private school Saint Mary's Hall and the McNay Art Museum. It was quite a trip, and we want to thank Carol Parker from SMH and Rosemary Hickman from the McNay for organizing the visit.

At Saint Mary's Hall, we worked with a variety of middle school and high school art classes and presented to the entire high school. At the McNay we worked with about 70 educators during an Evening for Educators where we were keynote speakers and workshop presenters. We had a good time at both places, and appreciate the chance to spread the journal love.

Our time at the McNay coincided with the opening of three Robert Indiana exhibits, and Dave and I spent a lot of time in the large retrospective of Indiana's work entitled Robert Indiana: Beyond Love which originated at the Whitney in New York. It was remarkable to see such a collection of his work, and the exhibit completely changed my mind about Indiana.

To be honest, I had never been a big fan of Indiana's work, and like many others, I often dismissed his work as rather shallow and naive. I was definitely mistaken. Though Indiana is widely known for his iconic "Love" image which has become ubiquitous and has been featured on everything from t-shirts to key chains. Indiana never licensed its use, and never made money off of all the commercial products bearing the image. Indiana also never went after those that illegally used it, and the image spread. Like many others, that is how I knew Indiana, but as I spent time in the exhibit, I came to the realization that his work was much more complex and much darker than I had suspected. Though his brightly colored hard edged paintings conjure up images of road signs, arcades, and midways, his work often has a political undertone or personal narrative that drive the work.

If you are in the San Antonio area, I highly recommend a stop at the McNay to see the work of Robert Indiana. I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of such an extraordinary exhibit.

Early Bird Registration Extended Until March 31!

The JFJ would like to announce that we are extending the Early Bird Registration for our summer retreat until March 31, 2014. If you would like to attend Journal Fodder Junkies: The Retreat, June 26-29, 2014, and you want to save a bundle of cash, register now. If you want to save more, register with some friends to take advantage of the Artistic Accomplices Discount.

Regular registration is $450 for four days of journal fodder madness. You could save $150 if you take advantage of the discounts. See the Retreat Registration page for details.

Please share this with all of your friends, and we hope to see you there!

All 1 Process: An Exhibition by David Modler

Dave just finished installing an exhibit at Shepherd University's Phaze 2 gallery on the first floor of the new Center for Contemporary Arts. An opening reception and artist talk will be held this Monday, January 27, 2014, from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. 

According to a Shepherd Media release: "The site-responsive exhibition features new and reworked paintings that explore the effects of location on the context of studio practice. The content bids to confront the formal and conceptual boundary issues, multiple layers, and complex patterns that saturate the artist's everyday life. Dealing with these self-created and imposed boundaries can define one's space like a map, encompass like a web, and contain like a matrix." See more here.

Dave's exhibit consumes you as you enter since it runs from floor to ceiling. It centers around seven main paintings with smaller paintings hanging throughout the space. Some elements are directly pinned or painted on the walls. It's almost visual overload as you circle the gallery and try to take in all the symbols, patterns, and imagery. Dave has included four journals for viewers to flip through with the hope that they will begin to see the connection the journals have to the larger work and vice versa.

If you can't make the opening night, the exhibit runs for the next two weeks. If you are in the area, try to stop by the show.

San Antonio Bound

2014 looks like it's going to be a busy year, and we already have events scheduled throughout the year with many other possibilities. First on the list, David and I have been invited to present in San Antonio, Texas at the beginning of February - just two weeks away. On Wednesday, February 5, we will be spending the day at Saint Mary's Hall, a private school where we'll be working with students. On the evening of Thursday, February 6 we will be speaking and conducting workshops at the McNay Art Museum from 5:00 to 8:30 as part of the museum's Evening for Educators series in conjunction with the Robert Indiana exhibit. So if you're an educator in the San Antonio are, we hope to see you there.

The Movement of Life

The movement of life has thrown me out of balance yet again, and I have been working to get back to center. Thanks to some unexpected snow days this winter, I have had a little extra time in the studio and with my journal. I have even begun some tentative meanderings into a new journal. I'm not certain what volume I'm on now. Unlike Dave, I haven't been diligent about numbering all of my journals, and since changing over to Strathmore Hardbound Drawing Journals which have half the number of pages as the black Classic Cachets, I go though journals a bit faster now.

The above photo is from the first page of my new journal, and I jotted down the phrase as I was working on a few pieces of art and a few journal pages yesterday in the studio. I have come to a realization that all of my art and all of my writing - my journals, all the finished and unfinished wall pieces, and even this blog are my attempts at trying to visualize and document the movement of my life. I'm trying to be more diligent about keeping more balanced, being more in touch with my art, and finding the time to touch base here. I'm trying to make a more concerted effort to visualize that movement in more tangible ways.

However, the movement of life can be unpredictable. I am just glad that there are times when things slow down, and it's easier to feel and to process that movement.

Here's to a prosperous winter season.

Goodbye 2013

It's hard to believe that this is the last day of 2013. It has been such a busy year that it's hard to believe that we're at the end. So much has happened, and time has marched quickly by.

First Dave and I were busy doing our thing - promoting our books, attending conferences, and providing workshops. We hit the NAEA Convention in Fort Worth in March and the VAEA Conference in October. We provided a handful of workshops at a variety of schools, art centers, and universities. We even put on our own retreat in June, and we are planning another for June 2014 (sign up now for some big discounts). We had a joint art exhibit at Eastern Carolina University in Greenville, NC in August, and we both exhibited our work at a variety of other places as well. We have also been working on a couple of new ideas for books, and we're hoping that 2014 will bring a new book by the Journal Fodder Junkies.

Of course there's been my regular teaching gig at an elementary school in Leesburg, VA. It's my 18th year of teaching, and my second at Tolbert Elementary. I can't believe that I've been teaching for nearly two decades. My students continually astound me with their creativity.

On a more personal note, 2013 was also a year of loss. We began the year with the loss of our beloved shepherd/chow Percy. In November my uncle, one of my mom's younger brothers, lost his battle with leukemia. Uncle Ed was always ready with a joke and had given nearly all of my cousins and me silly nicknames. He was only 60.

Most recently, my wife and I had to say goodbye to another beloved dog. Poi (pictured at the top of this post) lost his battle with cancer. He had to have a couple of surgeries and quite a few chemo treatments, and the year saw him slowly deteriorate. In the end, he passed away in my wife's arms just a few days after Christmas. We miss him terribly.

Here's hoping that there's a lot less loss in the new year.

2013 saw a new direction in my art as I became enamored with web imagery. I explored drawing it, painting it, and cutting it out of paper. I even began a collaborative project based on it. Although I have always seen this type of imagery as dealing with connection, I never felt like I had a lot of meaning and intention behind it. I found that intention as I wrapped up the year with two pieces that utilize the web imagery to explore our connection to places - specifically the places that we have lived and called home. I began my "Home" series with a painting where I overlapped maps of the places I have called home. Using Google Maps and a projector, I projected each address onto a 20"x30" piece of paper, and used red acrylic paint to create the web. I created a second "Home" painting using my wife as the subject. As a former naval officer's wife, she has lived in many places, so her painting is much more dense than mine. I'm looking forward to exploring this idea more in the upcoming year.

And so that's just a small smattering of some of my happenings in 2013. I hope that you all have had busy and prosperous years, and here's to a happy, healthy, and productive New Year.