JournalFest 2011

Home again after an enchanting time in Port Townsend. This was my first JournalFest and it was just incredible. I feel as though another creative part of me has been opened up and opened wide.

After unloading my car into my dorm room look what gift appeared outside for all of us:

My first class was Orly Avineri's Face Lift. We were treated to some very disarming exercises and revisited the meaning of true beauty....and being human. Thank you Orly and my fellow travelers...My friend Gwen was in this class too!

Here are is a shot from the back of the classroom and a couple of my journal spreads from that class:

My Friday class was with the fabulous Juliana Coles. I didn't take any photos in the class but here are a couple of my spreads from that class which are in a different journal - a large history book I bought at Value Village especially for this class:

This book is surprisingly lightweight for it's size, about 9" x 12"

Finally, Saturday was Learning to See with the warm and wonderful Lisa Cheney-Jorgensen. We drew with our pens and learned how to slow down, quiet the left side of our brains, and really draw what we see:

first we did some symbolic (from memory), contour, blind contour, and modified blind contour drawings of a coffee cup.

We also did an upside down contour drawing of a drawing Lisa provided. Drawing upside down forces you to focus on lines and shapes instead of the whole picture. This helped us not get so anxious and wound-up about what we were drawing. It worked well for me. Some people were smart and turned their journals upside down before starting so that once they were done their image would be right side up in their journal. I didn't do that but I'm ok with that - it reminds me of the lesson and the learning.

The drawing on the right is of my personal object, a leaf I picked up while enjoying the grounds at Fort Worden. I am not done painting it yet - watercolors....but like how the drawing turned out :)

Here's the leaf for your reference:

Finally, I had time to draw my iPod in it's case while others were completing their drawings of their personal objects

AND, Lisa had us all do the coolest collaborative drawing. She took a photo of Tracy, cut it up into a bunch of squares and then we all drew 2 or more squares onto post-its without knowing what we were drawing. This again focussed us on shapes and lines - and turned out great!

I loved doing this with my fellow travelers.....this will always connect us together and connect us to JournalFest, and Teesha and Tracy

Here are the wonderful trades I came home with too:

What a great time I had -here's my new friend Connie:

we went out to dinner at the Fountain Cafe Saturday night with Josie and her mom Nancy (who was in my Learning To See class) and it was so much fun - great food and great company...what more could you ask for?

Connie and Nancy in their party garb:

good times were had by all!

Namaste,

Dawn