Book Fair AND Sketch/Journaling Class, 11/7-9/09

Wahoo! I'm RICH!
Well, mebbe not rich, exactly. But I went to the Book Fair hoping only to sell enough to pay for the table ($50 for a 6' table), then sold enough books, outdated workshop workbooks, and prints from my book illustrations to make an extra $174, so I am ecstatic! As my friend Dan Jones says, that'll buy a cord of wood (more like just half a cord, Dan)!

I've done quite a few book fairs like this, and other trade shows, but the tweaking is always interesting. I started out as in the first photo, above, but I noticed that people were reluctant to paw through the prints, so I put a little sign on the front that read "Feel Free to Browse!" and had a little smiley face. Right away, people started looking through them and I sold two immediately.

Then I realized that no one had even asked to buy a book and I realized that I should have piles of books behind each display copy (I KNEW this, but I'd forgotten, since it's been nearly five years since my last book fair). So things got shifted and tweaked until it looked like the picture here. The big display behind the table is the info about our big Art Show and Studio Sale. (Click on any of these to get an enlarged view.)

Now that THAT's over, I need to get back to work to finish preparing for the Art Show and Studio Sale.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
But before I do that, I need to get up news about my last Sketch/Journaling Workshop. It was a good one, (although small, as is usual these days)(and made smaller yet when one student didn't show -- at least I still got paid for her!). Here we all are, and I must say, I really do love small classes. I can give more attention to each student, and everyone feels especially well cared-for.

The first order of business was to get everyone sketching, so we did leaves and shells and generally had a good time. For the Sketch/Journaling class, we don't concentrate so much on the drawing, but as you can see from the journal pages (further down), I do teach enough so that they can make a pleasing quick sketch, and if they work at it later on at their own pace, they will improve dramatically.

This was a nicely varied class of all ages, the youngest being a college student. I particularly love it when I get a good spread of ages. They come in with different viewpoints and backgrounds, and since there's a lot of sharing the experience tends to be richer than average for all of them. This was no exception.

On the second day, we engaged with the watercolor pencils and graphic elements, as well as writing creatively, and turning out some excellent haiku and poetry.

The creative writing really calls out to be shared, and as usual, I had people read their work to the rest of the group. They all have warning before we begin to not write something so personal they'd be embarrassed to share it out loud.

It's fun to watch this process -- sometimes people are shy at first, but as others read their work it becomes easier the second time around. This was a cozy group, evidencing NO shyness from the get-go.

I don't think these students are going to have a speck of trouble journaling on after the end of the class. They were getting a real kick out of the sharing as you can see here!

Of the second day, they produced the assignment of a journal page with a creative paragraph, a colored drawing, a poem or haiku, captions, graphic dividers, and had attached some ephemera (a memento of some kind glued onto the page).

While they were working, I produced a page, too, trying out a bunch of different techniques, lettering fonts, uses of color to divide the page, etc.

When I do a page like this with the students, I'm not trying to knock 'em out. We only have a short time, so I just do a fun page without too much attention to perfection. Because generally speaking, people don't "design" their journal pages so much as just try to get something written/sketched/etc. frequently.

So my demo page had some glued on leaves, a haiku, an experimental doodle with color, a painted leaf, a correction or two, etc. With each technique, I showed them a quick demo, and if they liked the idea they tried the technique on their own page. May page is not a marvel of good design, but it's kinda purty...

With only three people, I could sit across the table from all three and be able to give demos that were easily visible to everyone at once. Love that. And here are their final results. Nice, huh?







Okay. Next time I'll be talking about getting ready for the Art Show and Studio Sale. Till then!