Spring Workshops


It's hard to believe that it's already March, and that means there's a full slate of JFJ workshops on the horizon. In just ten days, I'll be in Galax, Virginia, and in one month, Portland Oregon. Check out the full schedule below.

 March 18-19, 2017 - Chestnut Creek School of the Arts, Galax, VA

April 8-9, 2017 - Art and Soul, Portland, OR

April 22, 2017 - Luminous Liquid Layers, Larkin Arts, Harrisonburg, VA - 11:00AM - 5:00 PM

May 19-20, 2017 - Luminous Liquid Layers, 310 ART, Asheville, NC - 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM

The JFJ Invade NYC for the NAEA!


We got back late yesterday from New York where we presented a few sold out workshops and one extremely crowded talk for the National Art Education Association's annual convention. It was an exciting week, with lots of connections, journaling, and a bit of mischief.


We took the train up from Baltimore on Tuesday, and began the convention with a sold out, full-day journaling workshop. It's always great presenting the visual journal to a group of eager art educators, and there was a lot of creative energy flowing the whole day.


I am always astounded by what participants in these workshops do, whether they're art teachers, professional artists, or creative hobbyists. I love connecting with them, and sharing my passion.


But the journaling wasn't confined to just the workshop spaces, and at any given time we could be found working in our big books or our pocket sketchbooks, both at the convention hotel and out for dinner and drinks.


This convention was pretty special, too, because we were able to connect with some vendors, who graciously donated some awesome materials for our participants. A special thank you goes to Nasco Arts and Crafts who not only supplied us with paint and glue sticks, but also arranged for watercolor pencils and markers from Jolly Austria and brushes from Royal & Langnickel. Another special thank you goes out to Canson who supplied small sketchbooks for our collaborative journal workshop, tet[R]ad - Draw and Play Here. The teachers were so excited to walk out with these materials.




Of course there was time for adventures, silliness, and a little mischief. David met a new friend out and about on the streets of NYC, and even bed time was an adventure with roommates like Sam.



But for me the best moment was when we filled our talk, Confronting the "One and Done" Mentality to beyond capacity. Now we weren't the only presenters to do this. Many of the the rooms were on the tiny side, and there were over 7000 attendees at the convention. But filling a 200 seat room with around 350 people was pretty awesome, and there were many people standing out the door trying to hear our talk. It was a great feeling to have the support of so many!

If you were one of the unfortunate ones who stood at the door, or wanted to attend, but just couldn't because it was too full, then please see our website for a free download of the PowerPoint and notes.


We are grateful to everyone who came out, sat in a cramped room, and wanted to hear what we had to say.


Even on our last day in the city and on our way home on the train, we found time to journal, doodle and draw.


Thank you to the NAEA for accepting our proposals to present, to the vendors who donated materials for us to share, and mostly to everyone who attended a session, who talked with us in the in-between spaces, and who shared their passion, enthusiasm, and creative energy with us. It is that connection that keeps us doing these things.

Journal Friday #4

It has been a busy week, and I came up a little short on the daily challenges. I'm hoping to make up for it next week, but next week is going to be even busier with a trip to New York for the National Art Education Association's Annual Convention. But we'll see.

Watercolor pencil with water-based marker 

Choice 

Overlapping tracings 

Hand prints 

Growth

Journal Friday #3

Small actions lead to big results. Working with the daily challenges has been a great way to build up layered pages in my journal. Some days I have only a short amount of time to work, and other days I have much more time. It has also been a great motivator to do some things that I normally don't do.

Drawing small objects


Action


Drawn text


Shape templates


Systems


Pop-up using accordion folds


Wrappers and packaging

Find Your Style


This is just a little reminder that I am part of Find Your Style, a collaborative ebook put together by Kristal Norton. Along with eleven other artists, I share my creative journey to finding my style giving a little bit of practical advice as well.

I am honored to be a part of this collaboration, so please check it out!

For more information or to purchase your own copy, visit Kristal's website, and see how you can FIND YOUR STYLE!

Art and Soul: Portland


I can't believe that Art and Soul: Portland is a little less than 2 months away. Time is ticking by so quickly. We'll be teaching three classes the weekend of April 8th, and we're looking forward to going back to Portland, Oregon.

On Saturday, April 8th, we'll be teaching Wish You Were Here, a full-day art postcard workshop that uses your life as inspiration. That evening, we'll be teaching Stencil Savvy, a 3-hr workshop learning the basics of making your own stencils. Finally, on Sunday, April 9th, we'll be going back to where it all began with Journal Fodder Junkies of the World Unite. This full-day visual Journal workshop is an updated version of the first workshop Dave and I taught together  long time ago.


To register for our classes, click here. We Hope to see you in the Pacific Northwest!

But if you can't make Portland, we'll be teaching the same three workshops at Art and Soul: Virginia Beach at the beginning of October. Don't forget our other workshops! You can find a complete listing on our Events page.


Journal Friday #1


For the past month, I have been trying to work in my journal on a daily basis and post about what I have done on the blog and on social media. I must say that I am pretty proud that I have kept it up for 34 days now, and I hope to keep working in my journal daily for as long as I can. But I won’t be sharing daily from now on. As not to bombard your social media feeds with daily in progress journal pages, I am going to begin sharing on a weekly basis. When I taught high school art, I had Journal Fridays where I would share something with my students, and allow them an entire class period to work in their journals. It was the only day where students worked all period and did not clean up early.

So, I’m going to implement Journal Fridays here on the blog, where I plan to share the things that I have done in my journal throughout the week, and if you want to join in and try some of those things, great. From now on you will be able to catch what I've been up to in my journal every Friday instead of everyday.

And if you started to add things up, you may have suspected that the pages and ideas that I have shared over the past month are related to the new book that I’ve been working on since October, and you would be correct. I have been using a different challenge each day to guide my work in the journal. It’s been fun to focus on just one thing each day, but of course, there have been many days when I have done additional work in the journal. That’s the beauty of working with daily challenges, they spark new ideas and new directions.


Unfortunately, work on the book hasn’t been going as quickly as I had originally envisioned. It’s absolutely amazing how many things can get in the way, and my attention is easily diverted by the other projects and work that I have to do. I was really hoping to have things wrapped up and have the book published by the first of March, but that’s just not going to happen. I’ve written two hundred of the 365 challenges, but there’s still the matter of designing the book. I’m now looking at the summer or fall. I will keep things updated here on the blog and on social media. Until then, please follow along as my new weekly feature Journal Friday!