Sunday, August 18, 2013

mixed media art journal round robin kick-off

A while back, I put out a call for participants in an art journal round robin, thanks to the kindness of Karen at MMSA. I used her blog figuring I'd get people who were timely, artistic, prolific and pleasant, since that's the only kind of people I run into there. I ended up with 5 women from around the country, and we're about to send our journals out for the first leg of their journey. 

We were to make or buy a journal, do a couple spreads to set the tone for our theme/color/style, and be ready to mail by the 3rd Monday in August. I made a journal using 300lb watercolor paper for the covers and 90lb watercolor paper for the signatures. 

I bound it using some upholstery fabric (from a dumpster diving expedition my friend Moneka made a decade ago. I've been hauling boxes of fabric around all these years using it here and there) and the diamond X stitch. 




The covers were collaged with random papers, stamped a bit, painted with acrylics, collaged with a few layers of crinkled dress pattern tissue, then painted and stamped again. They look a bit leather-like in person and I'm very pleased with them. The inside covers - not so much, so I'm going to do more with them when it comes home 6 months from now.

I did this spread in the art journal class I'm teaching, working from an Oprah magazine, trying to get them to see the way a crazy batch of unrelated stuff can come together in a collage. I like it but it's sooo different from the next one that it's hard to believe I made both of them. And it's weird to look at them together like this. Makes me think maybe I'm a bit schizo LOL. 



I struggled trying to settle on a theme and eventually decided that I just want people to cut loose and make good art in whatever mode they're in the mood for, just like I did with my two wildly disparate spreads. I'll post the journals and my work in them as they come thru. Should be interesting.




6 comments:

  1. Wow, love the book and the spreads!

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  2. I am really impressed Leslie - will be cool to see what you get back! J

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  3. That is going to be a fun round robin!! Looking forward to seeing the whole book whenever it gets back!!

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  4. I'm eager to receive the book and start arting away! That cover looks amazing....

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  5. A Beautiul cover....Thanks for sharing this work!!!

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  6. holy moly - what a gorgeous book! I'm looking forward to all your updates.

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