I’ve been following Laura Horn for a while now and I’ve taken a couple of her classes. She has this fantastic year program called the Creative Blend Program and it consists of 12 modules which you can purchase individually. This art journal I made alongside her in module 3 – Mixed media sketchbooks. It’s a class in which she takes us through the whole process of making our own sketchbook – or art journal – from start to finish.
The first step was to gather our pages. Just like Laura I used different kind of papers, cheap like Kraft paper as well as the more expensive and sturdier watercolor paper.
Then we chose our colour palette, I chose Payne’s Grey, Sap Green Hue, Quinacridone Burnt Orange, Titan Buff and white to mix with, all from Golden Fluid Acrylic.
I was using these colors already on bigger works on paper with the theme Bare Branches and I wanted to try out different marks in the sketchbook to see whether I would like them. So I was working in the art journal at the same time as the paintings.
You can see the big painting underneath the art journal in all the photographs.
Laura taught us different techniques for making papers of which a selection we would bind in our art journal and other papers we could use as collage material.
As we painted the papers before binding them in, the pages didn’t match after binding which was totally the purpose of the exercise. It also made it possible to work on different pages at the same time as you didn’t have to wait for a page is dry before you leaf over to the next.
After binding she would show us several ways to connect the left with the right page through mark making, collaging or adding more paint.
My theme was Bare Branches, because I had been looking at bare trees all winter and was mesmerized by the lines of the branches which you could see so well when all the leaves are gone.
We also used stencils, spray paint and used paper palettes.
A lot of dripping and wet techniques were involved.
I had a lot of fun with playing around and it became a lovely art journal that I keep coming back to. I especially like the colour combination and the way you can see the branches across the pages.
I highly recommend this class.
