Donna Downey Inspiration Part 2

"Oh for Pete's sake!" I said to myself when I saw this particular Inspiration Journal in the box of available journals to choose from at our 2nd Donna Downey class. It was love at first sight. Why? I have that stamp, both the flower and the outline. I hugged it, and walked away with it. If class had ended there, I would have gone away happy.But it didn't. End there. It ended here. With Donna writing in my book with a nib pen and India ink. In my book. Donna Downey wrote IN MY BOOK! In true Donna teaching style, she said she could not just write any ole' words because it was not HER book, so she asked me what words to write. On the spot - that was me. So I went with my gut. She wrote the words I spoke "Donna said all art is beautiful. She taught me to be brave." And she did. Teach me to be brave in art.

With this brave new art feeling, I colored in the loopy loo parts of the lettering with Faber-Castel markers. So what's the image on the center part of the page? Thank you for asking! It's another technique that Donna demonstrated in my book. Donna Downey demonstrated image transfer IN MY BOOK! You start with an image or picture that you print out on plain ordinary white copy paper and you transfer the image using Golden Regular Gel Matte Medium. Talk about brave! Isn't that just too cool? Next picture is my attempt to write with a nib pen and black India ink.
I wanted to document the day with some art journaling. I like it! I can see myself incorporating my own hand-writing into my art journaling this way. I'll put my brave on as I go, which will more than likely produce some loopy loo lettering! Here's the entire layout, complete with the inclusion page. It's special to me. ... I mean, Donna's page on one side and mine on the other. Melts me.

A close up picture of the inclusion page. All of Donna's inspiration journals come with a variety of inclusion pages - makes it all the more "one-of-a-kind" cool. I thought it quite fitting to add a ruffle made with book paper since Donna had shown us in our earlier class how to gather, oops I mean smish, it into place. The art of smishing! It's brave, baby! Are you beginning to see the YOUnique part of keeping an inspiration journal? Let that sink in.

Donna's Inspiration Journal class is definitely NOT for kit-oriented people. You show up with a gob of your own art supplies, you dump them out in your work space, and you respond artistically to her art prompts which, trust me, are not ordinary. Some people finished pages, others went to a new page each time she grew our mind in a new way. Yours truly is a Type A personality (everything has a place, and there's a place for everything). So, naturally, I would have come down with a major headache if I had tried to skip from page to page. Thus, here's some of my "finished" pages. This layout was the result of some cards Donna handed out - everyone had a different card and we were to take whatever inspiration we wanted from it (shape, size, color). Ironically, at that same moment, my girlfriend sitting next to me handed me a wad of burgundy and olive green felt flowers, stating she didn't like them. My brave kicked in and within 2 nano-seconds I had them glued on the page! Thank you Linda - I love 'em!

Next up, we were to trade places with someone we don't know - and take our inspiration journal. We did. And there we sat, an expectant class. That's when Donna announced we were to create, using someone else's gobs of art supplies! Too Fun!

I got to use water color crayons! And ribbons and flowers and stamps! And I made a new friend at the same time! Here's my finished layout, using my new friend's stuff:

The next layout incorporated some hand-drawing with a charcoal pencil, and using a punch (both the positive and negative). This was actually my first page during the 3-hour class ... and definitely my least brave! LOL

Visit Donna's blog for her Inspiration Wednesday video's, and I bet you can't help but put on your brave too! After taking this class, one thing on my to-do list is kinda weird ... but meaningful to me. Donna had noticed that all my gobs of art supplies were neatly packaged in plastic baggies, which were inside baggies, which were inside more baggies (did I mention Type A personality?). And we did fly there, for Pete's sake, and it was in my checked baggage! I love justifying! But true to Donna's teaching style, she noticed my Type A baggies, and she came along and did the baggie dump, tumbling art supplies all over my Type A organized work space. I laughed, and suppressed the multi-tasking clean up headache that I envisioned would come my way later. And told her I would stick my hand in those baggies and use it to paint something in my inspiration journal. She loved the idea! I do too. Brave chick. That's me!