Journaling for me began as a yearning. Upstarts of recording a feeling. Or to write a memory of an event.
Then as years past, gaining momentum, there was the adding of images and sketches. Water colors illuminated pages. Finally, a day of realizing everything had flipped!
Where I had been an artist who journaled– now I was a devoted journaling junkie where visual arts were there to serve that.
Visual Art Journaling! It’s my passion. It helps me laugh, it absorbs my sorrows and pain, and gifts me expression and experimentation in a freedom of discovery that’s unexpected. Instead of limiting my art, journaling has given me a fresh framework in which to bloom. Journaling to explore, and to graft it to emotional context.
Where once I “taught painting”. Now instead it’s grown beyond that, to a more soulful endeavor. My mission is devoted to exploring how images and words and spirit intersect within the pages and process of journaling. If there’s a gentle whisper with in, saying explore yourself through words and art, through memories and vision, then this direction is for you too.
Journaling with a bent to visual arts takes many shapes. A desire to create a colorful genealogy chart for your family. A push to capture plein air painting with greater frequency or looseness. A sampler of images to send back to your family. A revelation of the beauty that has you living where you do.
And all of these forms, and more, can be enlivened beyond the status quo. You can transcend standard journaling and scrapbooking to make art of melding images and words a regular practice. It’s a practice that transforms and invigorates.
Visual Art Journaling is a glorious expression of life at the heart of all our programs. We have a blend of quick classes and experiential retreats, new locations and friends. Some of our programs are introductory and some are advanced level. Yet all blend teaching and inspiring, learning and growing. Growing as artists, and becoming more aware as a human being.
And you are invited.
I have a dear friend who is exploring this venue, and is absolutely enamoured with it! I heard you have a workshop coming up soon in Big Bear, and I have been trying to find it on the website. I will keep looking! Also, do you have any plans to do something similar in San Diego County? We have the Cuyamaca Mountains, and the Anza Borrego Desert is lovely in the Spring when the wildflowers are in bloom.
Julianne Noll
Hi Julianne – just checking in to see if you got my response to your inquiry. Please email me at: elainefrenett@live.com for a more direct communication! Love to have you along at either retreat!!
Your art is amazing and wonderful.
Thanks amazing artist that YOU are – – how wonderful to hear!!! I just keep doin’ what I love … keeps my heart happy and my head sane!