CLASS WITH DINA WAKLEY

I finally got to take two classes with the awesome and very talented Dina Wakley at the Whim-So-Doodle in St. Petersburg, Florida.  If I had a "bucket List," this would definitely be on it!  Anyway, the classes "Random by Design," a class on how to achieve a random look using layers of paint, stamps, masks and stencils, and "Composition Basics," a class about achieving good composition by using the rule of thirds, proximity and continuance were a lot of fun and very enlightening.  I love how she breaks everything down into simple to understand steps using the "Principles of Design" that most of us learned in a high school art class or college. Many artistic journalers today follow the "there are no rules" principal.  Which is OK but it doesn't work for everyone.  Some of us need a good foundation of rules in order to make artistically pleasing art whether we follow those rules intentionally or by intuition.

ABOUT THE CLASS...At one point, Dina had us ink up our fingers with watered down acrylic paint, grab the paper with our wet fingers where the horizontal and vertical lines met in the design and set aside.  Done!  Leaving a beautiful contrast of paint in a pleasing position on the paper…adding interest and color to the piece.  (see the pink marks on the left side of my journal pages?) I loved everything about the classes but next time, I will take gloves.  I am a neat-nic….was one as a child and I still am as an adult.  Will my nails ever recover?  They look awful!

NEW ACRYLIC PAINTS...The Whim-So-Doodle is an awesome shop…they have everything.  I ended up buying many stencils and of course all of Dina's acrylic paints and writer tips that are new to the market.  Dina had them express shipped to the shop just for use in the class and we were glad that she did…they were big hit with everyone.  The shop had a big glass jar filled with them and by the evenings end…the jar was two thirds empty. I bought one to go with each tube of paint…and I wasn't going to buy another art supply. Who could resist?  Not ME!!!!

ABOUT THE TIPS...These little gems screw onto the end of the tube and have a fine line tip with a screw on cap. What makes these special is the cap…it has a needle in it that inserts into the fine line tip when the cap is screwed into place…this ensures that the paint tip does not clog.  The fine tips allows you to doodle, draw, and write with acrylic paint…almost giving a dimensional paint look. The yellow lines in the pictures below were drawn with a paint tip.  Don't you just love it!

Writer tip on tube acrylic

detail of writer tip

Until next time….

Hugs,
Ginny