Learning Curve?

This quarter I began taking a watercolor class at Santa Barbara City College Continuing Education. So far, not so good. The scheduled teacher was unable to teach and for the last three weeks we've had a substitute for the substitute. I haven't learned much about using watercolors except how to mix a cool or warm black.

Last Tuesday, the teacher brought hand-outs about using pen and ink along with watercolor wash. It is amusing that I'm now doing the same kind of things in this class that I do with fabric. I drew a little turtle, painted over it, then laid some plastic wrap over the wet paint to create this mottled, textured background. Maybe next week I'll learn to discharge and overdye watercolor paper! Or paint some fabric and lay plastic wrap over it.

Visual Journal

Recently I began a class at Santa Barbara City College Continuing Education (commonly referred to around here as Adult Ed) called Creativity and the Imagination: Visual Journaling, with Deborah Wroblewski. We will be creating journals using more than words to capture our experiences. This is a photo of the first page of my journal. The assignment was to create our name page - something to describe ourselves as introduction to our journals. I chose to do a watercolor wash as a background, then used a Sharpie to write about who I am, what I feel, and what I aspire to. I then printed some photos of my quilt "Everyday Quan Yin" - which is about bringing compassion and mercy to daily life - glued them on to the page and then began playing with some materials I am familiar with from surface design on fabric. The silvery splotches are Shiva Artist's Paintstiks and the spirals are glue and foil. They certainly act differently on paper than they do on fabric. This is definitely going to be fun!