Strathmore Online Workshop Week 2

I joined the Strathmore Online Workshop Visual Journal Series and am just loving it! There are three different workshop series and Pam Carriker is conducting the first one on Recycled Journal Pages. It's so interesting to take finished art and look at it in a new way. The first week, we were to make copies of past art and cut and tear them to make elements for our new page. I used a graphite pencil and journaled between the torn strips and then covered the journaling partially with gesso.

The second week, we were to use charcoal to add definition and shadows. And THEN, oil pastels! I had never used oil pastels before, and what a treat! I just fell in love with them. I love how they glide over the page and interact with the gesso. It was so gratifying to push the colors over the page with my fingers and blend them into one another to create color, definition and interest.

I'm excited to see what Pam has in store for Week 3! Strathmore is offering these workshops for free and it's not too late to join. The Visual Journal is a great journal for working in with mixed media. It's a heavy water color paper that has the ability to hold lots of different media and layers.