Book of the  Night

Happy Journaleen!
Materials List Descriptions:

Bring  your favorite gluesticks, (glue sticks are great for the VJ process because they are not wet like a medium - we work quickly and need our pages to dry fast!  UHU is my favorite) scissors,  some brushes for your paints, a rag or two, and a jar for water.  All Visual Journalist’s  should have a set of rubber stamp letters.  And I highly recommend Staz On stamp pads because we work so quickly ( black is good and some other light color to use on dark surfaces - the little “chalks” are good and kind of opaque - your favorite rubber stamp store will have the best info on what pads work on what surfaces!).)   You will need acrylic paint- any brand, any color in at least two colors, one light one & one dark.  You will need black acrylic (you might want to try other dark colors for texture: Ultramarine Blue, Pthalo blue, Payne‘s Grey, or any other dark color that seems interesting, even an Alizirin Crimson or similar color will be beautiful on black.  Red is great too.  Don’t bring or try everything: you’ll only end up bringing too much and you wont be able to use it all. Limit your self to 2 extra colors. You will need at least two brush markers in different colors.  A graphite pencil- regular old number two is fine, but if you can get to an art store get an ebony pencil, or a 6B, or a graphite stick ( not charcoal.)  You will need black masking tape or artist tape - 1 inch thickness will be best.

Darkside Materials:  Most of these are optional- so choose whatever you have around.  You will need items that will work on top of dark surfaces:  gel pens, any color- pastels will show up best or metallics.  Watercolor crayons will show up well, (portfolio or water based oil sticks will be too messy)  china markers in any color, light colored pencils or metallics. You might want light or metallic stamp pads for your rubber stamps or letters, you might want metallic inks/paints.

Theme:  It’s important to set the stage: our visual journal is like a theater- and the more we act out, the more we can discover. It’s a time to play: like little kids at Halloween.  Brainstorm for images & themes by looking at spooky books or movies and brainstorming scary stuff like:  the Changeling, Brotherhood of the Wolf, The 6th Sense, The Other, Harry Potter movies, brainstorm witches, mummy, wolfman, vampire, Bride of Frankenstein, fortune telling, gypsys, familiars, mediums, Haunted Houses, candlelight, Nightmare Before Christmas, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Edward ScissorsHands,  even Grimm’s Fairy Tales.  This will help you come up with collage material.

Collage:  1 magazine to cut up and one poetry book to cut up.  Half the fun of creating is the research and collecting of images! You may want to gather images that feel potent to you or seem dark/shadowlike  in nature.  Stickers, gold stuff, silver tape, press on type in white- spooky stuff, magical stuff, stuff that will work on dark paper...

Each student will be required to bring an “Alchemy Bag.”  A plastic grocery bag or smaller will do.  Some suggestions are collage items, an old paintbrush that is all glued together, that orange paint you hate, stickers from when you were 14,  Artist tools and supplies you no longer use or never liked, torn up pieces of your artwork that didn’t work out (no recognizable artwork, please) books to cut up, magazines, sticks, markers, 2 inch chewed up pencils, you get the picture-sort of a grab bag.  What, and how much to bring, is up to you.  Don’t worry about trying to include nice things- we’re looking more for garbage items.  We all ready have our own nice supplies-we want your cast offs to really make us think!

Contact Juliana Coles at meandpete@msn.com with any questions or concerns.