Back To School - Week 2

How much fun am I having at these workshops?
I love them!!!
Yesterday each and every one of us played the role of Mother Nature and produced magic. We turned plain green leaves into colourful printed explosions to mark the Season of Autumn.
I managed to sneak a few photos of their creativity at the end of the lesson while their teacher read to them from my 'Voices' journal.

Back To School

Yesterday afternoon I took my first journal workshop at Harry's school. 30 children around the age of ten awaited me and their new adventure.

The children were very attentive while I gave a quick talk about journaling and showed them some of my journal pages. Emphasis was placed on the fact that you DO NOT have to be brilliant at drawing and that 'mistakes' are simply lessons that provide a wonderful record of your improvement over time. I showed them pages in my journals I love and some I feel are my own 'lessons'.

Each child was given a Hahnemuhle Travel Booklet (9 x 14cm Portrait) and our project of the day was to personalise our journal with our very own handprint, a much more creative way than simply writing our names in our books.

The children went about filling their handprint with lots of illustrated personal information, their excitement, creativity and enjoyment was such a pleasure to watch. There were some great ideas buzzing around eg. one young girl decorated her background with her fingerprint, using watercolours.

Below is the pre-prepared example I took, made in my very own Hahnemuhle booklet and the journal page I made during the day in my A6 Venezia.

I am returning next Friday and I enjoyed it so much ...I Can't wait!

Hahnemuhle Travel Booklets

From this plain little brown booklet

To this....

Don't they look great!

I purchase a block of cover papers today and decided to spruce up some Hahnemuhle Travel Booklets, I love how they've come out. These little journals are what I gave my students to work with and I can't wait to show them how they look with a makeover next week.

The first two in the top picture are gifts; one for a friend's birthday and one for Brian Nelson. (His is the lined one) A while back I posted my very first dip pen sketches and commented that I found the nibs a little scratchy. Brian commented that he'd bought a package of nibs and offered to send me some as a gift...Just like that!

I think acts of kindness such as this are such a wonderful surprise. Sure to his word, the nibs arrived and are beautiful.

THANK YOU BRIAN!....doesn't sound like much over the internet, even if you shout it in capital letters, so I sketched it inside the first page of the booklet I will be sending as a thank you gift to Brian.

Hope you like it!