The Creative Process

The Creative Process

The Creative Process, A Peak inside my Empty Watercolor Journal

Do you enjoy the anticipation of an upcoming vacation or trip?  Do you practice packing your suitcase with your favorite clothes?  To me the journey begins way before walking out the door, suitcase in hand.  I love preparing my art supplies for my travels.  Planning for my upcoming trip, Painting the Italian light, Orvieto, Italy.  My smaller journal is a Strathmore 400 Field Watercolor Sketchbook.  For years I have had a love/hate relationship with the Strathmore field book.  Every other piece of (crappy) watercolor page alternates with a piece of drawing paper.  This drawing paper is where my mixed-media imagination soars and I have probably filled at least 20 of these journals with art from my travels.

Pages in my journal prepared for the trip
First page in my new journal with inspiring quote.

in order to compensate for the not so great watercolor paper I tear my Strathmore Sketchbook apart.  I kept the metal coil and the black hard covers.  I  filled it with Arches 140 paper alternating with Strathmore 400 series drawing paper.  I prepared the drawing papers with colorful backgrounds and finished the first page with an inspiring quote for my upcoming trip: “To Paint…. to travel…. the combine the two is to celebrate life”  (Jack Brouwer). 

2 thoughts on “The Creative Process

  1. I love to peek into your art journals, but I would suggest that you make your own books from scratch, only using paper you really love. Those purchased books are too expensive. You’ve paid all that and still have to modify.
    Speaking of expenses, I wish you would lower your rates for workshops. I know you have to make a living, but an occasional class for poorer art students might be nice.

    1. Thank you Victoria for your comment. Unfortunately, the workshop prices are fixed by the people that run them. I have no control over how much they charge. I get paid as one of their employers. I do offer 3-hour watercolor classes at my studio in Oregon for $30 for a 3-hour class. That is below what most teachers charge. I offer it so low because I love to teach want to make it affordable for the poorer art students.

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