Strathmore Workshop 2 - Start Where You Are. Instructor Linda Blinn

The second free workshop of the great series from Strathmore* was more about ideas and techniques than in making a single journal page like Workshop 1; there were lots of useful  ideas but I particularly liked these:-


1. Making pockets to keep bits and pieces while the journal is evolving is a useful tip:-
"Cut a diagonal line from the top left corner to the right edge of the page—approximately 6 inches up from the bottom right corner (for 9" x 12" size journal).Use double sided adhesive tape or glue to secure the bottom of the pocket. Use brads or tape on the right edge to hold the pages together."
I put this inside the back of the journal.

I  have been using acrylic washes up until now for journalling,  but the instructor likes water soluble crayons, paints and pencils so I have had a change.

She suggests making grids by rubbing over things -  these were plastic pockets for storing slides etc
and I used water soluble pencils.

For these I used various stencils and used a mixture of water soluble crayons and mister bottles.

The pages are now ready for journalling on...

 Another really good idea which - doh - had never occurred to me is to add an extra piece to a journal to give a bigger interactive spread



I am doing a kind of family history journal and  I had left stuff out....





so I added another fold out page on the left








Of course if you have foresight you could add extra pages to the journal for a panoramic spread as you go - see right

To add the extra page, just score a fold and glue it to the edge of the page and the page is ready to use. I had to disguise the overlap where I added the extra to the journal I was already working on....

*The workshops are completely free and are still open and you can work at your own pace - the next one starts on May 1st and you can still join the first two workshops. See http://www.strathmoreartiststudio.com

" Once a workshop begins, you can join in at any time and complete workshops at your own pace. Once a workshop begins, it will stay active until August 1, 2011."