Need to Tell

This past weekend I had the pleasure to co-teach a workshop with Roxanne Evans Stout and Elizabeth Wix at Little Bird Creations Studio in NYC. 

The class was called "The Need to Tell Stories" and focused on the intersection of book making, art, and story telling. It was a two-day workshop with ten students and it was a very special experience.
We started off the weekend with clean tables and organized supplies...
But quickly created creative chaos as people began to make their own handmade books...
Here is Karen, ready to start work on putting her book together ...
Cecelia was deep in thought and bathed in sunlight as she pondered the theme of her written story...
Roxanne had everybody work on art exercises that became part of the art on the book pages...

Each person in the workshop took their plain white pages and made them come alive with backgrounds in their own personal palette...


And even the actual palettes were a vision to behold...


Rivers of color filled the workshop...

An assortment of mixed media supplies filled the tables and made artful vignettes...


Magic began to happen when beautiful artwork was then layered onto the pages...



Some pages were were light and breezy, like the wings of a butterfly...


And some pages were dark and earthy...

The book covers were layered with each artists' creations...


When silence filled the air, I knew that people were focused on their creative process...

And in the end, every person left with their bound stories...
To Roxanne and Elizabeth: thanks for holding this workshop with me and doing it so creatively. To Michele, who runs Little Bird: thanks for being such a stellar host. And to all the artists who took this workshop and put your faith in the three of us: thank you for being the perfect students! Your books are all creative treasures!

For more thoughts and images, you can read Roxanne's post about the workshop here and Elizabeth's post here...