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The Musings of Eric Scott, a Journal Fodder Junkie
I'm a little late getting Part 7 out. I had every intention of publishing it last Thursday, but I didn't quite get it finished. I'm not really certain where January went, but I worked most of the day today to finalize the latest part of The Journal Fodder Junkies Daily Challenge. This ebook has 28 new challenges to get you through February, and it also has 3 pages of fodder that you can print and use in your work.
I hope you enjoy it. Check out the Shop to purchase!
Spring is usually a busy time for me as I travel and teach a variety of workshops, and this year, it's getting started a little early. A week from now, I'll be in Portland, OR to teach at Art and Soul, but things are just going to get a lot busier after that. So if you can't make to Portland, there's a lot in the upcoming months.
After Portland, I'll be returning to southwestern Virginia, as I teach two, full-day workshops at the Chestnut Creek School of the Arts in Galax, VA. You can catch Monster Maker Workshop on Saturday, March 10, and Artful Layers on Sunday, March 11.
For the remainder of March, David and I will be working with art students and educators in a variety of venues. First, we will be heading Roxbury High School in New Jersey to work with high school students on March 14, and then it's off to Seattle the following week for the National Art Education Association's annual convention where we will be presenting a variety of presentations and workshops. To end March, we travel to Harford County, MD to work with teachers.
I'll be teaching two workshops in April, one locally and one in Kansas City. On April 14, I travel to Harrisonburg, VA to teach a full-day Artful Layers workshop at Larkin Arts, and then I'll be teaching a two-day version of Artful Layers at Amanda Jolley's Studio Joy in Kansas City, MO the weekend of April 28-29.
I'll end the Spring in Asheville, NC with a two-day, mixed media workshop, Mapping the Journey, at 310 Art in the River Arts District on May 19th and 20th.
And if that wasn't enough, I'll be teaching a variety of kids and adult art classes and workshops locally at the Round Hill Arts Center, in Round Hill, VA.
So, I invite you to join me, and take a workshop or two over the next few months! I hope to see you!
This week, I continued building on many of the pages that I have started over the past few weeks using mostly water soluble pencil and paint pen. I've also added some collage as well, but the bulk of the work has been building up layers of colors, shapes, and textures. I didn't focus too much on theme, and many of the pages that I worked on this week are mostly bare of words and images. The meaning will come!
The last few days have been filled with making art, teaching art, and seeing art - quite a good way to spend some days.
It all started Friday night with an opening for good friend, Steve Loya's Endangered Species exhibit at the Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery in Washington, DC. Over the past year, Steve created 50 drawings of endangered species on colorful backgrounds as a way to learn more about these threatened animals. It was great seeing all the work presented together in such a wonderful space. It's an impressive collection!
Congratulations, Steve! Awesome job!
I then spent Sunday afternoon teaching my Artful Layers mixed media class at the Round Hill Arts Center. Eleven awesome students spent 3 hours exploring watercolor, watercolor pencil, collage, and image transfers. I loved seeing all of the different artwork created by the students. I am so grateful that they chose to spend the afternoon making art with me.
Finally, today I trekked to Harrisonburg, VA to check out and exhibit by David and our good friend Sam Peck. As part of their collaborative journal project, they spent the weekend installing their exhibit Draw and Play Here: A tet[R]ad Project at the Institute of Visual Studies at James Madison University. They transformed the space into an immersive art experience where viewers can spend time flipping through the many collaborative journals, create work in some of the blank journals, or simply take in the expansive artwork.
Congratulations, Dave and Sam. Very impressive.
I can't believe that the end of January is quickly approaching, and though I haven't worked in my journal everyday this week, I have found some studio time and some time watching tv to add to my pages. I've continued adding watercolor, watercolor pencil, ink, and collage to my pages as I continue to build layers and continue the accumulation process. Some of the pages are starting to become quite developed and are starting to take on direction.
Although I have been doing fairly mundane things in the journal, the layers are starting to build, ideas are beginning to emerge, and the power of the journal is completely evident. After 18 or 19 years of working in the journal, I am still utterly amazed at the power of the visual journal to reveal truths and change lives. And so it has been, as I have continued working on my Mapping the Journey spread.
The journal is a place to reflect not just on art and what's happening in the journal. It's a place to reflect on life and the bigger issues and concerns. The idea behind the Mapping the Journey is to use yourself as a source for art making, and as I have been going through the process, I have discovered the enormous gratitude that I have for my life and all that I have accomplished. But I had to uncover that gratitude!
One of the things that became evident as I worked and reflected is that I have often lived my life with a rather pessimistic view, and much of the time, I find it hard to see the good in situations. A lot of it has to do with doubting myself and my abilities. It's easy to see the accomplishments of others and feel like you don't measure up. But as the new year began, I really wanted to change that outlook, and I even made and shared a video on Facebook about it. It really hit home for me as I reflected on the key moments of my life, and I began to see all of the amazing things that have happened in my life. I won't go into it too much here, but from coauthoring two books, to traveling all over North America, to working with tens of thousands of students and teachers, it has been quite amazing. It's been too easy to focus on the things that haven't happened and not see all that has. And to think that I get to live a life doing what I love to do. So many people never have that chance.
So, it's with great gratitude that I say thank you to everyone who has supported this adventure in one way or another. I can't wait to see where the journey takes me!
If you're anywhere near Harrisonburg, VA over the next month and a half, make certain to check out the Tet[R]ad exhibit at James Madison University. David and our good friend Sam Peck are having an exhibit of their ongoing journal collaboration project. The opening reception is January 29th from 11am - 1pm.
I'm so excited for them, and I can't wait to check it out!
It's been a busy week, so I haven't had a chance to work too much in the journal. But I've done a little bit, mostly building layers on top things already on the page using some of the same materials - watercolor and watercolor pencil.
I have a tendency to use watercolor pencil to create structure on the pages by adding repeated lines and shapes, but instead of filling in the shapes with color, I shade around the shape and spread the pigment into the negative space.
I also started a two-page spread as a demo for a workshop that I taught during the week all about building layers in the journal. Often the techniques in the demos are a bit sloppy and not as carefully done as techniques done in the studio. But I like the spontaneous nature of the marks, and it'll be interesting to build on them later.
Finally, today I started a two-page spread using ideas for my upcoming Mapping the Journey workshop in Asheville, NC in May. I'm also toying around with the idea of turning it into a more in depth online workshop.
I love how the layers build up on a page and solidify the structure of the composition. I'll probably start working with more themes and images soon.
In just under a month, I'll be heading back to Portland, OR for Art and Soul. Portland is definitely a favorite place for me to visit, and I'm excited to be heading back there for the third year in a row to teach three awesome workshops. I invite you to join me!
On Monday, February 12, I'll be teaching Stencil Savvy as an evening class from 6:30pm - 9:30pm. This class is all about learning the basics of hand cut stencils, and we'll tackle everything from designing simple, yet effective stencils to strategies for successful cutting. So come on out and create your own unique stencils to use over and over again in your art.
On Tuesday, February 13, I'll be leading another evening workshop when I teach Monster Maker Workshop for the first time to an adult audience from 6:30pm - 9:30pm. I've taught it as summer camp for kids, but monster making is fun no matter what age. This mixed media workshop is all about drawing, painting, and collaging monsters. It's going to be an awesome way to spend an evening. So, strap on your mad scientist apron, and come make monsters with me!
Finally, on Wednesday, February 14, I'll be teaching my Luminous Liquid Layers class as an all day class from 9:00am - 4:30pm. I've taught this class several times over the past year here on the east coast, and I'm excited to be taking it to the Pacific Northwest! This messy class is all about building layers using liquid acrylics. We'll use a whole slew of non-traditional and experimental techniques to create paintings that seemingly glow. Spend the day scraping, stamping, stenciling, and much more.
Art and Soul is going to be some creative fun! And I hope that you can join me!
It's the twelfth day of the year, and I've been able to work in my journal nearly everyday, slowly building up the accumulation of marks, actions, and fodder. It seems to be much more organic to work this way without specific themes and challenges to guide the art.
As mentioned before, I don’t work on a single page or spread at a time. I allow the color, the shapes, and the lines to meander through pages, and I skip back and forth among several pages when I work. As a result, I have about 20 pages that have something started on them at this point. A few of those pages are bit more developed as I have built up a few more layers on them, and a few simply have a bit of collage or color on them. But slowly I've begun the initial layering process with those meager beginnings from last week by turning to some favorite materials and tried-and-true techniques. I have no idea where the pages are heading or what they will turn into, but that is part of the fun.
I used one of my favorite materials this week — water-soluble pencils, and there are three types that I used, watercolor pencils, water-soluble ink pencils, and water-soluble graphite pencils. I’ve always loved to draw, so these pencils give me a lot of control, but by painting over the marks with water, I can get those painterly effects that I like so much in the journal. I typically use the pencils to create shapes and spaces on my pages, but occasionally I use them for words and writing. It’s interesting to create an initial layer for a page by doing some stream of consciousness writing with them and then wash over the writing with some water. The words soften, and some disappear completely as the pigment spreads and bleeds. I find these water-soluble pencils perfect for starting pages and for building those initial layers on top of other materials.
I also turned to my trusty black pen to add some lines, some shapes, some textures, and some words. Everyone seems to have their go to pens, and I love the uniball Vision pens. I make certain to get the waterproof/fade-proof pens, and though they can bleed and smear a little when they come in contact with water, they are pretty steadfast, and I always have a black, blue, and red pen on me. Not only did I use the pen to draw some lines, shapes, and textures, I used the pen to take notes. Since the journal is an everything book, I often take notes in my journal as I read, take a class, or try to figure out some ideas. This week I pondered some ideas for some possible future workshops. Since I always have my journal with me, I always have the notes.
Along with water-soluble pencils and ink pens, I turned to fodder, as well. Fodder is food for the journal — the collage materials that over time make the journal swell and bulge, and I dug through my stash to find some old and new fodder and spent time gluing bits and pieces to multiple pages. I don’t buy ephemera from craft stores, and I don’t scrounge second hand shops for vintage photos. I use what I come across in my day-to-day life — what’s class at hand and authentic to me. These mundane bits get endowed with so much meaning by being placed in the journal, and they become a way to document life and memories.
Though I’ve worked quite a bit, the pages are still in the initial stages, and I’m looking forward to seeing where they go from here.
I'm super excited to be kicking off 2018 with a couple of local workshops as well as several at Art and Soul in Portland, OR. I hope that you can join me.
January and the Round Hill Arts Center
In January, I'll be teaching two local workshops at the Round Hill Arts Center in Round Hill, VA.
This Friday, January 12th, I'll be teaching an Intuitive Painting class from 6:30pm - 9:30pm. In this take on the popular paint night, we'll explore intuitive mark making, line, and color mixing as we mix and blend, play and explore with paint.
On Sunday, January 28, I'll be teaching Artful Layers from 1pm - 4pm. This mixed-media class is all about building rich layers with simple materials, like watercolor, ink, and collage. We'll explore several working methods for creating layers of meaning.
February and Art and Soul
I'll be heading to Portland, OR in February to teach at Art and Soul again. I'll be offering two new classes, plus a repeat of a class from last year.
On Monday, February 12, from 6:30pm - 9:30pm, I'll teach Stencil Savvy. I taught this popular class at last year's Art and Soul in Portland and Virginia Beach, so I thought I'd do it again. This class is all about learning the basics to hand cut stencils using a heavy duty stencil film.
Tuesday, February 13, brings Monster Maker Workshop from 6:30pm - 9:30 pm. I've been joyfully creating monsters over the past few years, and I've taught this as a kids class. But I'm very excited to bring my monsters to an adult audience. We'll be focusing on drawing, painting, and collaging monsters in this evening workshop.
Finally, on Wednesday, February 14, I'll be teaching the all-day workshop Luminous Liquid Layers from 9am - 4:30pm. This class was a hit at several workshops in VA and NC last spring, and now I'm bringing it to Art and Soul. This class is all about using liquid acrylic paint to build layers using a wide variety of non-traditional techniques like rolling, scraping, stamping, and much more.
I hope that you can join me for one of these awesome workshops. If not, there's still plenty more to come. Check out the JFJ Events and Workshops page for an updated listings of all the workshops for 2018.
