I finally made it to my art workshop, though I was a little worried about it when I got to the airport and saw all the snow still stuck to the runway. Even covered in salt, snow doesn't melt when the temperature is negative six. Luckily I wasn't on the plane trying to land in this - just take off.
But I finally made it to California, grabbed six hours of sleep and headed off to my workshop (a 15 minute walk to the conference center in 70 degree weather - heaven). I was so excited when I found out that my Polish artist, Anna Dabrowska (nickname
Finnabair) was going to be my first class. Unfortunately, she said she wasn't a morning person, which seemed somewhat relative to me since there is a 10 hour time difference when traveling from Europe. But a quick cup of coffee and she was ready to go.
For her class we made an art journal that she called "Black Beauty." We glued on all kinds of metal elements, spritzed on different spray paints, and then added black and gold highlights. I think this technique is absolutely stunning. Everyone used different colors and everyone's book turned out great (not a common thing in art classes that are open to anyone).
The next class was with
Limor Webber. Her style is a little too frilly for me (her blog is called Chic Scrapbook Designs), but it was interesting building a 3D structure. It is supposed to represent a wedding album. Not a functional one, but something you might put on your coffee table for others to look at. What was difficult was trying to squeeze this project into my suitcase without crushing it.
My last class of the day (yes, we were in classes from 7:00 in the morning until 8:30 at night) was with
Frank Garcia. I'd actually never heard of Frank before, but I really enjoyed his class. He was very talented and funny, and really knew how to keep everyone on task (not always easy when you've got a room full of independent-minded women). I also found his background very intriguing, because he actually designed all the craft materials we used for his project himself using Photoshop. It's hard to see all the individual paper designs, because we kept layering things on top of one another.
The second day, it quickly became apparent that I was not going to be able to get everything into my suitcase, so I ran over to the UPS store over lunch and shipped back a huge box full of supplies. I have no pictures from 2 of my classes, because those projects are still on the UPS truck somewhere.
My final class was with
Steff Miller. She loves making journals (a woman after my own heart), but her style is much, much looser than mine. You can always tell my stuff was made by an engineer (very austere), whereas Steff adds tons and tons of embellishments. It was a really fun workshop - one I'd definitely attend again, especially if it's some place warm in January so I can get out of the cold.
