I've been tweeting now for months about a ning account where my vision of a place where a variety of people, not just  myself, can teach classes. Its this vision I have. You give a class for free and then you can do a paid class. In my mind it's amazing, this community of artists and crafts people focusing on art journaling. Bringing people up to excel in the art. It's so amazing I can't imagine it even working out. But I know it can. I look at the other Ning groups out there and it makes me say I can do this too.

The Art Journaling Ning site, with it's scaffolding of construction still up, is live. Currently there is but one class up, the junk journaling 101 class. All the videos for that class are in one easy place to find. I'll add a materials list when I get settled this weekend. And you know what, I really like the idea of this. I see it as the future. Will I be able to quit my day job doing this? Not yet but maybe. I'll be putting a lot of work into this site over the next few weeks and weekends. Hopefully in a month or so I'll get my first paid class to go up- a beginners binding course. 

I'll give you this though, I used to think that Typepad was hard to use (before their most recent updates) but Ning is about he most obtuse and annoying setup, really not user friendly at all.  The initial set up is a pain in the rear, however the individual course/ workshop is easy to set up!

I can't wait to get this thing really rolling. Feel free to head over to the Art Journaling Ning and sign up for an account poke around and suggest some classes. Are you interested in teaching some classes? Send me a Ning message and I'll work on setting it up for you!

I did a little experimentation with my Christmas gift last night… Don't ask,it's a long story. Lets just say I get about half my gifts early.

Anyway. The Polaroid Pogo is a sweet travel sized printer that spits out 2×3 inch photos on polaroids Zink paper. I'm not going to pretend to know how the technology works i just think it's cool. It spits out the little photos in less than a minute and right onto sticker paper.

I found the colors to be pretty right on with my monitor and accurate to the original work. The pic was clear and crisp with good color saturation. The size is perfect for my uses. I tend to work smaller anyway so the 2×3 size is just right for me to take pics and add them to my work.

So the next thing was to test the image out with some of the media I use. There was no reaction with gesso, colored pencil or ink pen. It did react with my favorite medium acrylic varnish, any areas touched by the varnish turned a little purple red. The image stayed clear but the color changed. Spray inks did not react in the location of the ink. But when I brushed straight alcohol onto the image it lightened it, a lot, instant fade…. which could be a very interest tool.

I did not consider this as part of my experiment but it ended up being. One of favorite tools in the world- my heat gun when left on an area too long turned it green and obliterated the image. So drying paint around the images will have to be done with extreme caution.

The images are small but not so small that you can't see whats in them. I was able to crop an image, load it to my camera and print it with ease. I have bluetooth on my computer but have yet to figure out how to get my computer to find the little printer. I suspect when I do it will open up a world of possibilities.

I suspect that battery life will be shorter than one might like as I printer 3 pics with it last night and this AM the battery indicator was on yellow, indicating it needed a charge. 

I've found out that radioshack has the Pogo on sale for $29.99 and 80 packs of paper for $9.99. Both are a very good deal, the best I've seen on the pogo just about anywhere. (Thanks Barb of http://craft-therapy.blogspot.com/ for pointing this out) You can save yourselves a lot of money by buying on sale.

The one major drawback that I see to the pogo is it's HUGE power cord, seriously massive, it's about the same size as the cord for my laptop. I suspect they could have made it quite a bit smaller. oh well.

Welcome to the new digital world of Polaroids. Wish they'd made them the same size and shape as the only ones….

The other day Rice Freedman-Zachary put up a tweet that asked "Why do you do this? Why are  you here?"

I do this, the blog, the videos and the art because I love it. Pure and simple, I love it. Art is a passion for me. I've been fortunate enough to be able to create art for as long as I can remember. My parents are crafty creative people who nurtured that in me. I think, sometimes, it was to keep me quiet but still when I had pen and paper in hand it was never stopped. It was the same for my brothers. My parents raised a houseful of artists and they are creative and crafty in their own ways.

And I know, that everyone has not had that during their lives. I know that sometimes parents, friends, family, boyfriends and girlfriends squash your creative impulses, put you down and never bring you up. And if you think for a second that I haven't been there, you are sadly mistaken. I don't talk about it. I worked it out in my journals, made it into art. (If you are here from one of my old blogs you know I used to talk about it, a lot, ad naseum) Is this the place to bemoan the fact that my low self esteem made me choose jerks to date or to tell you my ex was a horses ass?  That any and every creative endeavor was looked upon with scorn? That when I picked up a brush I was put down? That I was told it would never amount to anything and never pay off? (And for that matter, if my ex wants to voice her opinion on here go ahead I know you read my blog.) The thing is this, I can't live in the past. I put that time behind me. I've moved on and I'm not going to use that experience to pull at your heart strings so you read my blog/ buy my books/watch my videos. 

What I have to say is this, if YOU choose to, you can find strength in the horror and the pain and you can create and you can journal. You are worth it. I'm not giving you permission or slapping a label on you; that would be arrogant and patronizing. I'm not interested in starting a church, I'm no deity. I'm just a geeky woman with a pencil, a brush and a journal.

Instead I'm putting techniques and instruction out there. I'm an educator (got a fancy degree that says so too) that believes that someday my students will exceed my skills and I look forward to that day. Yes, you can ask some of my former students that too. I don't want to create co-dependents that always have to learn from me. Part of being an educator is that you learn from the students and that your students move on. In my years of teaching I've learned as much from my students as they have from me. I have spent the last 20 years of my life learning about art and now I'm continuing to share the knowledge I've built. I want each reader and viewer to start with a technique and take it from there. Inspired.

I want everyone who sees my videos to think to themselves, "Damn, I can do this!" Pick up an art journal and start scribbling. My ultimate goal is to bring as many people into art journaling as possible. Why? I think art journaling and journaling is a powerful tool for self actualization, centering  yourself and bringing peace to a creatively chaotic mind. I also think that if give a chance everyone can do this and maybe even better than myself, if they give themselves the chance.

So c'mon what are you waiting for? Pick up an art journal and start scribbling!

This sketchbook is great and Brazilian. Most of the words are in Portuguese but you can make sense of the journal.

sketchbooks – Bipede #1 from Fabio Giolito on Vimeo.

another vimeo sketchbook video.  Excuse the god awful music.

Sketckbook from early 2000's from Cristina Paulos on Vimeo.

Contest closed last night. Tomorrow I draw the  numbers and hopefully contact all the people for addresses and ship it all out Tuesday. Thanks for participating! I had very good turn out and hope for good results! Keep your fingers crossed. I'll pull the drawing tomorrow in the afternoon!

Another nice sketchbook video.

Carnet Bleu fait á Paris from Carly White on Vimeo.

I find this an interesting idea. This guy locked himself in a gallery for a week and did nothing but sleep, eat and paint there. As much as I wish I could do something similar I know I'd not want to do it when it came down to it.

I have several places in the house where I make art. One is in my studio, another in the office in my comfy chair and on the coffee table in the living room. Lately it's all been in the office. I've got a ton of journaling supplies and what not up here and I like it. Well I was in my studio looking for paper not long ago and pretty peeved at myself, the place was an abysmal mess. It had sort of become a dumping ground for my art supplies and anything C might think was an art supply.

So i headed down and started cleaning. 2 hours later I have my bench cleared, well, mostly. Some book supplies moved to where they should be, some paper stored where it should be. Paints put away. Glues all in one spot and the recycled materials put where they should be. I've got a ton of materials for books covers and no matter what I do, unless I cut them to size they look like trash… Maybe becuase in some sense it is trash. 

I realize I need 2 of those 4×6 foot metal garage shelves to really store some of my crap in a more organized way. that's not a thing that will happen until next summer I think but it will need to happen, eventually. Right now I've got some of those plastic storage drawers but they don't deal well with the weight of paper… I used to have some of those metal storage shelves. I had them painted blue and my roommate said they made my room look like a warehouse.  When I moved they did not survive. Too bad I could use those now.

I've got a lot more cleaning to do but I'm glad to have a really good start on what i need to do for tomorrow.

Another quick sketchbook video

showing the sketchbook from aka_ratt on Vimeo.