Art Journaling Classes with Dyan Reaveley!

Yes, you are reading that right!  I took two days of classes from the one and only Mixed Media Dylusions Queen herself…Dyan Reaveley!  And let me tell you…it was absolutely amazing!  The Friday night was a meet-and-greet at the scrapbook store (Scrap Addicts) that brought her here.  I hope she couldn’t tell how “in awe” I was of her.  I’m surprised I could get any words out!  She sounds just like my Grandma!  I’m not meaning that in a bad way…she doesn’t sound old or something like that.  She just speaks just like my Grandma did!  It just took me back to my Grandma’s house for tea…

She was such a delight to talk to.  So down-to-earth, and very funny!  All Brits are funny, aren’t they?  LOL!  At least in my family they are.  I do have some Brit in me.  That sarcastic type of humor is so awesome!  Anyway, back to the meet-and-greet.  I told her I was a bit scared of the classes because I’m still leery of the whole art journal thing.  She said not to worry, it will be lots of fun!  I was holding her to that.  She had lots of her own journals on the tables to look at while you were standing in line to see her.  Her work is frickin’ amazing!  I was thinking how could I even come close to that.  Oh boy, what did I get myself into?

Oh no!  My hands are such a mess!  If you know me, you know how much I had messy stuff on my hands.  But somehow….I managed.  LOL!

The first day, I must say, was a bit tough for me.  Dyan said that if any of us had a problem then we needed to go up to the front and get one of her lovely straws from the package, suck it up, and move on!  Boy, let me tell you…I was tempted to go up several times for one.  I did enjoy it…don’t get me wrong.  But I was just not liking what I was producing.  Sheesh!  What is the bloody problem here?  Why do I hate my pages so much?  Then towards the end of the day it dawned on me…you know what I mean…I had an “a-ha” moment.  I am just automatically drawn to colors that are opposite of one another.  Duh!  So simple to fix.  So I know have a color wheel to help me choose colors for my backgrounds.  As soon as I realized that monumental thing, it was smooth sailing from there.

The second day…I loved EVERY page I did!  Wow!  I couldn’t believe it!  I had a miracle breakthrough!  I know feel I can go off on my own and start art journaling!  I have taken many classes before, and enjoyed them, but that color thing just never dawned on my before.  It just didn’t sink in.

Thank you so much Dyan Reaveley for going over those complimentary colors so much in your classes!  I think that is why it finally sunk in.  She went over it so many times that it finally went in one ear, then stayed there!

Thank you, thank you, thank you Dyan!  You have no idea how much this means to me to not be scared of this art journaling beast anymore!  Now to find some time to finally play in my journal…

So, has anyone else out there had trouble with art journaling?  I would love to hear your comments!