Heartwood College & CED 08

My Happy Place has come to life again. Wheeee! Tuesday I found my way back to Heartwood for my second semester. This time the administration decided that the entire school would do two three and a half week long intensives. This first one is Book Arts. We did the pamphlet stitch and then, get this, we made codex books.

A codex books, for those who don't know, is the most traditional style, with text block pages stitched together, a mat board cover wrapped in fabric, beautiful end pages. Tah Dah. Here are mine:

In the top photo the small book with bricks is a sample of pamphlet stitch. Tiny, but it works. The larger book, still only 4 x 4, has black and white batik fabric with butterflies. The seamstress in me came right out and took over when making this book. I easily grasp patterns so the codex stitching was a piece of cake and I was able to help the teacher because it was one against ten in that room and she couldn't get to everyone.

She assigned us a final project, due in three weeks. A Passion Book. It's our choice of topic, hopefully something we are passionate about. It must be 5 x 7 minimum with at least four signatures in it and we have to illustrate the inside, too.

MAN ALIVE, I love school!

The other class Heartwood is offering is Book Illustration by Wade Zahares. Check this man's work, it is amazing. He does everything on the round. Try drawing like this, I challenge you. In this class we select any topic, he does children's books, we do whatever we like, and he walks us through the entire process of illustration, right from receiving the manuscript to final corrections.

Creative Every Day...(I'm keeping a journal on this, folks) I think I left off on the 4th day.

1/4...creative dreaming, no kidding, I spent the day being part of a couple of art shows. I imagined the paintings I will do and how excited I will be to receive notice that I was selected to take part of the showing.

1/5...drew sketches in my journal for paintings I will be doing

1/6...um, please skip this entry.

1/7...painted backgrounds on three canvases

1/8...spent the day in illustration class, made a story board for the project, shopped for fabrics for the book arts class

1/9...Made two books, the pamphlet and the codex.

And last but not least, since I was feeling full of IT today. I thought I'd share with you some of the other projects I've done in the past three weeks that for some dumb reason I haven't entered in my journal.

Stand tall...16 x 20 acrylic and mixed media. Part of a series of tree paintings that had to come out of me. I purposely did the colors all wrong. Hillary tells me that this piece is awful and I am okay with that. This one spoke to me and so here it is.

Oh, this was for play. 8 x 10 canvas with acrylic and mixed media. This one has newspaper as a base and then it's just marker and swirls. The scan didn't come out so good, you can't really see it clearly. It's just for inspiration for me. I had fun doing it.This one I love. It is 8 x 10 canvas with acrylic paint. I was reading The Artist magazine and found an intriguing article and immediately went to work using a sketch I had done last fall of a neighboring farm. It has a wild, fiery orange under painting which peaks through the entire piece. I used only four paint colors, cadmium red, cadmium yellow and cobalt blue and white. I blended all the rest.

See how I am all over the place in my work??? HA! This one has a true story attached:

Anna's mother made six year old Anna angry. She stormed off to her bedroom. After some time passed she emerged wearing a paper hat on the top of her head.

"What is that, Anna?"

"Please, don't talk to me, I am wearing my Alone Cone."

EEE GADS if that didn't crack me up! Anna had indeed rolled some newspaper into a cone shape and written the words Alone Cone on it. Soon, alone cones, appeared everywhere. You had to know I'd want to make one.

My version has stamped words: Do Not Disturb. I also put the alonest (okay, not a word) donkey I could imagine, Eeyore. It has a ripped fabric tassel, buttons and pages from a Winnie the Pooh book.

Okay, Leah, how did I do?