21 SECRETS Summer Studios 2018

THIS PROGRAM IS NO LONGER FOR SALE.

21 secrets summer studio 2018

Have fun. Keep it simple. Learn a lot.

The Summer Studios were designed to inspire and support artists in keeping our art-journaling practice fresh, fun, and totally do-able no matter what season.

Because we know how jammed packed your life can be, each teacher designed a lesson that will slip easily into your schedule while still enhancing your creative practice and helping you strengthen your skills.

And — because it’s more fun to create in community, there’s a private Facebook group dedicated to each Summer Studio where you can share your work, receive feedback, and mingle with your peers.

Plus, the downloadable eBook is yours to keep.  You can return to these lessons again and again.

THIS PROGRAM IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE.

 

In Each Summer Studio You Will Receive…

  • Eleven Mini-Workshops in one downloadable eBook that is yours to keep.  Each mini-workshop consists of three videos (Introduction, Instruction, & Reflection).
  • Membership to a private Facebook group dedicated to the Summer Studio.  This is a great place to receive support and encouragement.
  • The opportunity to learn a variety of mixed media techniques and approaches from the comfort of your home/studio.  At 21 SECRETS we celebrate everyone’s unique expression and support artists in becoming confident and courageous while creating from the heart!

Click here to see the suggested supply lists.

Just-Add-Water--e1523204009499

Here are the 11 exciting lessons in 21 secrets just add water

In 21 SECRETS Just Add Water we make a splash by diving into watercolor techniques we can use in our art journal. Anything watercolor goes—washes, patterns, resists, blotting, masking and more! Each talented teacher listed below shares one main watercolor technique or approach to prompt exploration and experimentation — all we got to do is just add water!

Click here to view the teacher bios for this edition.

artist-block-connie-solera

OIL & WATER

with Connie Solera

I’ve been in a ménage à trois with oil pastels and watercolors for decades now. I just can’t get enough of these two materials together, especially in my art journal.

In OIL & WATER I invite you to join my sizzling love affair as I share with you how to combine oil pastels and watercolor into abstract figures. Though I need to warn you —this technique is addictive, it might become more than just a Summer fling!

artist-block-cynthia-morris

Garden of Values

with Cynthia Morris

Our personal values are the little seeds from which our natural expression sprouts and thrives. When we tend to our values and nurture them with our attention, life is easier and full of more joy. Surrounding ourselves with art that reflects our values is a wonderful way to support our efforts to live in alignment with what we hold most dear.

In this class, Cynthia will begin by helping us harvest a list of our values using a simple explorative process. Then, we’ll intentionally create a work of art that reflects this list as well as our personal expressions and energies! Drawing inspiration from nature, Cynthia will demonstrate simple line drawings and watercolor to depict your interconnected values as a beehive, a flower, a tree and a vine as suggestions to either mimic or riff from. These works can be completed in an art journal or on loose paper to later be framed or posted on an inspiration board to water and fertilized our life intentions regularly!

artist-block-evan-leah-quinn

Saturation and Flow with Ink and Watercolor

with Evan Leah Quinn

Using concentrated watercolors and acrylic inks, we’ll create highly saturated, colorful backgrounds to use in your art journal, and as a base for other mixed-media pieces. Working with high-flow paints requires largely trusting the process. Relying heavily on a spray bottle and puddled water, shifting the page, and air (through a straw or a heat wand, if you have one), we explore the balance between intentional movement, and letting the colors flow into their own unique form.

artist-block-faith-evans-sills

Tide Pools: Exploring layered shapes while working with contrast and added details.

with Faith Evans-Sills

In this workshop, we’ll explore ways of using your sketches and doodles as a springboards to developing personal mark making in your work! We’ll be layering playful watercolor washes with intuitive shape drawings that become intricate forms and microcosms as we layer them.

artist-block-gina-lee-kim

Watercolor Monoprinting: An Innovative Way to Draw, Paint and Print

with Gina Lee Kim

Monoprinting is a type of image transfer that combines free-hand drawing, painting and printmaking. Traditionally, monoprints are made with either specialized ink or acrylic paint.

Gina will show you how to create magical and effortless monoprints using transparent watercolor—along with other watersoluble art supplies—that will truly make a unique, one-of-a-kind art journaling page.

artist-block-gina-rossi-armfield

Watercolor—Fast and Fun

with Gina Rossi Armfield

Have you always wanted to learn watercolor but were afraid to try? In these lessons Gina will show you how to use watercolor in a fun, fast and unintimidating way. She will give you simple exercises that can be used in any journal or sketchbook.

artist-block-julie-comstock

Blossom in the Borders

with Julie Comstock

Learn to paint beautiful watercolor florals to frame your art journal pages. I’ll teach you how to achieve complex looks like roses, with techniques that are so easy, you’ll feel like you’re cheating. We’ll explore different flower shapes and what brushes to use to get them. You’ll learn how to bleed flowers into each other, and how to keep them separate depending on the look you want. Most of all, I hope to help you relax and have fun, while getting gorgeous results.

artist-block-kathy-glynn

Be the Star of Your Own Show!

with Kathy Glynn

In this lesson, I will show you how to create a sparkly galaxy effect using traditional watercolors along with the finetec gold watercolor palette. We will pair this effect with the pointed pen to design a favorite quote.  It could be a quote about stars, magic, the galaxy, unicorns—whatever magical, special quote you want to use!

I began my journey in calligraphy as a therapeutic ritual after a difficult time in my life. It helped me to slow down, be still and journal my thoughts and feeling in a special way. What I love most about modern calligraphy is that you can develop a lettering style that feels natural, expressive and authentic to you.

artist-block-kristin-bunker

Flowing Florals – Going with the “flow” while painting beautiful flowers!

with Kristin Bunker

This workshop leads you through the process of painting layered florals in watercolor with an emphasis on keeping them loose and fluid. Artists will explore the beauty and surprise of what water and paint can do!

artist-block-mou-saha

Wash, Dapple ‘n Roll!

with Mou Saha

What holds you back when you finally make some time to create? For many of us it’s the blank page staring back at us! In this workshop, you’ll learn a three-step watercolor technique for adding instant vibrant colors and incredible visual texture that will help you dive right in and conquer the blank page. So, gear up for some water-splashing fun in your art journals this summer!

artist-block-tanyalee-kahler

Intuitive Art with Watercolor

with Tanyalee Kahler

In this lesson you will learn how to be intuitive with your watercolors. You will create a layered artwork that can be made in your art journal, on a canvas, or on a piece of watercolor paper, ready for framing. Through this process you will learn to immerse yourself in the act of creating art while being inspired by your surroundings.

21-SECRETS-20180-thegreatoutdoors-large

Here Are The 11 Earthy Lessons In 21 SECRETS The Great Outdoors

This 11 lesson Summer Studio brings the Great Outdoors right into our art journals! Peek though the kitchen window or take a leisurely hike on the nearest trail — this Summer Studio invites us to welcome Mother Nature as our muse. Each teacher listed below crafted an inspiring lesson that either refers to nature directly as inspiration or uses nature itself as a means to create. The possibilities in 21 SECRETS The Great Outdoors are as endless as the sky is wide!

Click here to view the teacher bios for this edition.

artist-block-annamieka-hopps-davidson

Lush Foliage: Botanical Layering with Paper and Acrylic Paint

with Annamieka Hopps Davidson

Learn to build up a lushly layered environment with paper and acrylic paint. In this lesson, you will begin with a walk outside, and gather color and imagery inspiration from the nature nearby. Next, you will choose a simple plant shape that you found on your walk and use collage, resist, and painting techniques to make it into a loosely repeating pattern in your art journal. You’ll learn about positive and negative space, and how you can use contrast to your advantage when layering. These jungliscious nature art journal spreads are beautiful on their own, or can be used as a vibrant background for further exploration.

artist-block-annie-obrien-gonzales

Patterns and Colors in the Garden

with Annie O’brien Gonzales

Summer means flowers and gardens. In this workshop we will capture the colors and patterns in the summer garden using acrylic paint, mixed media and paper. Create small collages as well as reference pages for larger paintings.

artist-block-connie-solera-TGO

For the Love of Pods

with Connie Solera

I have an obsession with pods. I collect them. I paint them. People give them to me as gifts and I go full on gaga over them!

In For The Love Of Pods I share with you my obsession and invite you to find one natural element in your environment (a leaf, an interesting twig, a rock, an abandoned nest, etc) and begin a relationship with it in your art journal using mixed media and the grayscale.

But watch out! Next thing you’ll know you’ll be the crazy lady collecting nature bits and pieces too!

artist-block-jamie-ridler

Me, The Moon and Music

with Jamie Ridler

The great outdoors gives us the deep and powerful blessing of natural rhythm. We feel it in the daily sunrise and sunset, in the power of waves crashing on the beach, in the familiar shifting of the seasons. As human beings, we respond to rhythm and we create it – in poetry, in dance, in music and in art.

In this experiential workshop, we will delve into the organic rhythm of the moon’s phases and our creative soul’s connection to the rhythm of music to find a deeply personal expression of our artistic heart.

artist-block-jana-bodin

Painted Herbarium

with Jana Bodin

I fill my art journals mostly with nature-related drawings and paintings. Botanicals have been my favorite subject to capture in one way or the other for a very long time. “Painted Herbarium” is a workshop to get you started on preserving small plants, flowers, leaves or twigs through paintings in your journals.

We start with a walk around your neighborhood or in your backyard or garden or wherever plants might live to find a small piece of nature to bring home. I will show you how to go ahead and not worry about the empty page and how to capture the found botanical in a way that it will keep reminding you of the time you gathered it among other thoughts. We will be using watercolors, fine liner, and pencil to accomplish this.

artist-block-laly-mille

The Poetic Botanist

with Laly Mille

Vintage botanical prints have such a delicate, slightly-faded charm. The artists who created them may have done so for scientific purposes, but they did take the time to pause, observe and really notice every little detail. There is something so mindful about this, and these drawings radiate beauty and poetry.

“The Poetic Botanist” is all about honoring this beauty in our art journals: we are going to play with botanical image transfers and a few simple sketching tools over a background of collaged book pages. Then we will invite serendipity and weave a few words together to complete this beautifully imperfect spread!

Immersing myself in Nature instantly connects me to my soul. It makes me feel more alive, more peaceful and inspired. When I come closer and really look at the intricate patterns of a leaf, the mesmerizing shape of a pine cone or the translucent color of a rose petal, it feels like entering a whole new world, magical and poetic.

artist-block-laurie-blackwell

A Bird’s-Eye View – Gaining Altitude in Your Art Journal

with Laurie Blackwell

Sometimes it takes a change in perspective to better appreciate or explain a location in your journal. One way to do this is to create a view of a place as if you were looking down on it from the sky (as a bird would see it!) In doing this, you can label important features or activities and show how different points or features relate to each other geographically. This isn’t about achieving perfect perspective or scale; it’s about recording what you find important about a specific spot. As a cartographer (fancy title for one who makes maps), you get to decide what to record and why it is special or meaningful.

This technique works for both small areas (your backyard or a sandbox) and larger areas (your trip through Yellowstone National Park or a drive across the state of Kansas.)

Your aerial view can be simple (just paper and pencil) or elaborate with color, collage, and special effects. It really just depends on how much time you have and how detailed you want to make this vision.

Let’s put on our imaginary wings and give it a try!

artist-block-louise-gale

Botanical Beauty: Art Journal Page with Louise Gale

with Louise Gale

Nature is living, breathing and ever-changing. Once you start to closely observe the beauty that is abundant in the great outdoors, you will also tap into an endless source of inspiration for your art journal.

In this class, I will lead you through the process of creating a mixed-media art journal page. I’ll show you how I love to create pretty layered backgrounds and we will then draw and paint images inspired by the different perspectives of a beautiful living flower over the top. This process and technique can be used to create a whole journal full of nature studies and many other art projects! I look forward to celebrating the beauty of nature and the great outdoors with you.

artist-block-melanie-april

Many Moons

with Melanie April

The landscapes of our surroundings might look completely different, but as each of us step into the Great Outdoors of our evenings, one thing is certain: we all walk under the same moon. We are all connected by this glowing natural satellite that governs our tides and cycles.

In this workshop, we’ll use wet-in-wet watercolor techniques and basic geometric shapes to create a colorful journal page that reflects our environment, inside and out. The moon will be our guide. Just as she reflects the light of the sun, we will reflect our stories in color and form. Nature herself will provide the most fundamental element for our watercolor journey into the “Many Moons” of our lives.

artist-block-tari-goerlitz

Imaginary Landscape

with Tari “TJ” Goerlitz

Use inspiration from your natural surroundings and cross-fertilize it with a newly imagined landscape. Expand your creative horizons by exploring your personalized foreground, mid ground and background by using meaningful text, imagery and pattern. Plant the seeds of your hopes and dreams while designing your very own hybrid of nature and imagination!

ToniaJenny-artistblock-TGO

Curious Cairns

with Tonia Jenny

What is the meaning and the history behind the act of stacking rocks from the landscape? In this workshop we’ll not only learn how easy it is to paint a cairn using simple watercolor techniques, we’ll also learn a bit (just a wee bit) about what stacked rocks signified for some of the ancient cultures of the past and we’ll also ponder what these made-from-nature sculptures can mean for us in the present.

Cancellation & Refund Policy

21 SECRETS is non-refundable and non-transferable.
But please email us if you are having an issue.
We want you to be happy and make art.