Are you ready to shake off the doldrums and put your imagination and make-it-instincts into gear? I know I am! This has been a month of vacation (delightful) and health restoration (not so much fun), but I am ooching back into full fledged boogie -- with a few cautionary words of self talk about not overdoing! However valuable the down time, it means I need a little jumpstart to get my creative juices going again -- it all seems really hard (I've got too much to do, where to start?), maybe a little pointless (Oh, why bother, what difference will it make?) and, listening to myself, more than a little whine-y (I don't want to have to get started again, why is this so hard?).
Thus this task of completing the written online version of INSPIRATION IS IN THE CARDS comes at a very opportune time!
This Friday starts that new online course with Joggles. The four weeks of instruction are based on a course I teach here at El Cielo occasionally, and one that I've taught with great success at the International Quilt Festival in Houston a couple of times. Here's the scoop:
What gets you going in the studio? (Be it a back bedroom, kitchen table or dedicated workroom..) Susie Monday shows you how to make Inspiration Cards and how to use them as art work prompts, creative jumpstarts and mini-art gifts for friends. The four week class takes you through collection and collage activities, photo-editing and word-smith fun to make your collages even more interesting, the use of an all-in-one printer or copier to "finalize" your cards, and suggestions for how to make Inspiration Cards part of your artist's path.
Week 1: What are Inspiration Cards?
Learn about Inspiration Cards and how to use them with lots of examples from Susie and her former class participants, then assemble and organize your collage materials -- paper, packaging, magazine images and photos, fabric, trims and more -- and start to work. This week's lesson includes five design assignments that use your right-brain intuition, intentions and goals and your left-brain analysis of composition and color schemes.
Week 2: Collage Alterations
Photography your designs and send your collages though a variety of photo-editing and alteration experiments using on-line tools and websites on your computer. If you have an iPad or other smart tablet or smart phone, you can also use some suggested apps to make other interesting alterations with editing, filters and collage options.
Week 3: Card Making from your Images
Using an all-in-one copier and/or ink-jet printer, you'll learn to size and reduce your collages and finish your Inspiration Cards. Susie details options: printing on different papers, tissue paper prints incorporated into paper cloth, printing on fabric to make stitch-able cards and more. Add embellishments to make your cards even more scrumptious!
Week 4: Inspiration Cards as Ritual, Routine and Reward
How can you use Inspiration Cards in your studio and art-making life. This lesson will take the cards full circle with suggestions for how to make them (and their creation) part of your art life, as well as some suggestions about ways to organize, share and continue this practice. You'll also get links to some art-making inspirational videos (by famous and not-so-famous artists from around the world) that have inspired Susie in her own work and creative life.
If you want to join along, sign up at Joggles, purchase and gather the SIMPLE supplies (Barbara sells them on Joggles, so you don't even have to shop around), and then PLEASE join the conversation either here on the blog or on the Joggles forum. (It's easier to use than it appears at first!) The real fun will commence when we try a MAIL IT ON exchange sharing copies of our cards with others in the class who wish to participate -- and doing some "add-on, pass-it-along" assignments, too. Hope to see your on Joggles.
Digital designs will be another fun part of the course -- both on the computer or on an iPad or other tablet.