The Best Friday the 13th Ever

The class last Friday with Donna Downey was amazing!  It was a 3-hour class, designed to get participants into the mind set that whatever you do in your art journal is yours and it's okay.  It wasn't like any class I've had before, but I felt like it was just what I needed.  To get the full benefit, I also took the 5-hour class on Saturday.  There were about 30 people in each class - limited by space only, I'm sure.

To begin, we each received one of Donna's expandable journals.  Those of us taking both the Friday and Saturday classes received two.  I worked in one both days and am saving the other for later.  One thing I love about Donna's journals is that the covers accommodate the filled pages.  The journals come with one signature and room for another.  She also puts the smaller "insert" pages on each spread to challenge you to think outside the box and come up with something to complement the rest of the spread.  

One of our first instructions was to take a pencil and put something on a blank page.  I wrote "just begin" and wasn't happy with it at all.  We then painted a page and drizzled ink over it.  I didn't work on this spread much more during class but added a few things at home and ended up with this.  I'll probably add more later.

Here are a few of my other pages.  I'm sure I'll be adding more to them later, and still have several blank pages to work on. Bear in mind that I've never had any formal art training other than a junior high art class, and my talents lie more in the sewing area. Please be kind.

We were asked to add certain shapes and colors to a page.  Mine was green circles and triangles.    

We tried photo transfer using gel medium.  I added the suitcases cut from a magazine.  More to do on this page.

This one started as torn paper mosaic.  It still needs something - just not sure what.

This is my favorite spread so far.  I have no idea why as these are not colors I'd typically use, but I love it as is and most likely won't add anything else.

At one point we were told to take our books, move to someone else's area, and use their supplies.  I love this tree screen.  The shadow of the woman was a failed photo transfer that lifted some paint leaving an outline. I like it.

The directions for this spread were to use tape on two pages in two different ways.  I love the stamps and the horse image cut from a magazine, plus the little bit of cardboard given to me by a table mate.  I'll probably add some journaling at some point.

If you have the opportunity to take one of Donna's classes, I would recommend them.  She also does Inspiration Wednesday each week on her blog, and has archives of many of them.