Hello There! Thanks for dropping by the Orange Spiral Arts blog.
Today I will recap the Visual Journal Collective's May meeting on Maps. The Visual Journal Collective meets once per month at the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts. It is free and open to those interested in visual journaling, sketching, art journaling, etc.
For our meeting on maps, Suzanne Hughes shared the resource, Make Map Art: Creatively Illustrate Your World by Salli Sue Swindell and Nate Padavick.
We all worked on two exercises from the above book: a hand map listing "personal passions" and a "what's on my mind" map. The first two images below are from my journal.
The two books above my sketchbook are resources I brought to share with the group. The one on the left is by Juliana Coles, and it's called, Ghost Pirate: The Legend of Juana La Loca. There are a lot of map drawings and references in this pirate themed book of Juliana's amazing artwork and visual journals.
The second book I brought is by Jill K. Berry, and is called, Personal Geographies: Explorations in Mixed-Media Map Making. Jill has also written Map Art Lab.
We spent some time walking around the room looking at everyone's journal pages, which is of course, such a treat! Everyone works so differently, even on the same suggested assignments.
(Oh yes, there was a third suggested assignment, which I did not get to; most of us didn't. It had something to do with the idea of a street map, though.)
People in the group were excited by this map key on the left, describing each part of the the "mind" illustration.
(The guy in the turquoise shirt drew the map key above. He was new to the group, along with his girlfriend). We accept "first timers" with open arms! Well, at least with a big welcome and a big smile; we are from Minnesota, after all. : )
(I try to sneak in a little art supply inspiration when I can capture it with my camera! It is so interesting to see each artist's preferred pens, paper, markers, etc.)
Caran D'Ache Neocolor II water-soluble crayons are awesome! Just look at those colors! To see a list of all of the Caran D'Ache Neocolor II colors, click here (small list with colors) or here (larger color squares).
After we walked around to see everyone's map art, we went back to our spots and had a general sharing time. This is a time when people have journal pages or journal related projects that they'd like to share with the group.
TJ Goerlitz shared her journal done in April for Roz Stendahl's International Fake Journal Month (aka IFJM).
Jean Shannon (pictured below) shared a special experience of making an image in her journal, then finding something with that pattern at a thrift store! It was like magic!
Cyndie DeRidder shared an alphabet project she started, based on a something initially done with a friend. I believe it all started with the letter Z (pictured below). Cyndie liked the letter idea, and decided to create an entire illustrated alphabet, using various art techniques.
Molly Anthony told us about her new mini photo printer she received for Mother's Day. Since she is a busy working mom, she loves the idea of being able to print "little moments" and put them in her journal.
I believe she has the Polaroid Zip portable printer. There is no ink, as the "ink" is in the photo paper that you purchase. Here is a review of the Polaroid Zip from GizMag.com
The Polaroid Zip printed image size is 2x3 inches, which is great for journaling!
Molly also shared that she was so excited after taking my Junk Journal Workshop, that she started another junk journal. She converted an old hardcover book as her journal cover.
Her next step will be to bind the signatures into the cover. She was hoping to have that done by the date of our Visual Journal Collective meeting, but that did not stop her from sharing her enthusiasm and her progress thus far on her latest junk journal. Once you get started, junk journals are quite addicting!
Here is a link to a previous blog post where I share some pages in my junk journal.
That's a wrap for the May Visual Journal Collective Meeting at the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts. I hope you enjoyed this summary and feel inspired to go work in your journal. Feel free to share a link to your map art blog posts in the comments below.
Happy Creating to You!
Briana
PS If you love stencils, like I do, there are some great map stencils on the market here and here.
