Paintings With Soul

  Color Therapy watch the video It is a scientific fact that color can greatly impact our mood. So why not settle in and give yourself the chance to just play with it. No expectations other than to enjoy the paint and the colors you mix. In this surprisingly simple session, students will pixellate a favorite image and use that to fill a gridded page with color. While I worked in acrylics, this process could be adapted for any media involving mixing. So gather some friends and collectively enjoy this newest art journaling experience. Also, there’s plenty of other streamable free content, including nearly 3 dozen art journaling lessons, on   my youtube channel. Love to you all, Kim available paintings reproductions student membership online classroom on demand painting lessons & workshops intuitive painting workshop through Kara Bullock On the Fly, in person workshop (Tustin, CA), Oct 2025 Acts of Art project want more eye candy?

  My New Moon journal page, one of three new streamable journaling sessions now available for free. Back in the day (meaning pre-pandemic) I ran a local journaling group. Our meetings were one of my favorite nights of the month. We all moved our hands (and hearts) together while working in our books. During the pandemic, when gathering in person and sharing art supplies became too risky, Ardith Goodwin and myself began the online   #journalthroughit project . For about 18 months we streamed - for free - journaling lessons designed to heal and guide journalers through the challenging days. Those lessons remain accessible (for as long as Facebook keeps them up!) via my   website . Now it's safer to gather, but many of my previous students remain at risk for various reasons. It's costlier, too, to hold in person classes, and with reduced attendance, well, it seems like it isn't quite the right time to revive my journaling group. However, I deeply miss the connectio...

If you watched   today's #journalthroughit lesson , you saw me create this page live. While it looks complex, ir's really just a number of layers of marks, all done with simple materials you probably already have around your house. Collage papers and glue, a pen, and colored pencils or crayons. Also, if you are sadly quarantining without a spirograph, I showed a doodle substitution that was equally meditative and visually satisfying. And if you now cannot live another minute without a spirograph,   here's the one   that I used in class.   #journalthroughit continues to go strong, with   Ardith   Goodwin teaching Mondays (her class times can fluctuate), and then I chime in on Thursdays at 11:30 eastern. A   complete listing of the   37 classes to date   is on my website , along with direct links to the video lessons. Yup, you read that right - thirty seven lessons!! And we're still making more. Videos will be up for one year after air dat...

Above is a peek at some of the loose pages I've been journaling on while at my desk this afternoon. Ardith Goodwin   and I have kicked our online journaling project, #journalthroughit, off with live streamed content   yesterday   and   today . In our introductory segments, Ardith and I talked about our own journals, some favorite tools, and what the process could encompass. You also got a quick little tutorial on making your own book signature to journal inside. The fun continues   tomorrow morning with Ardith at noon eastern , and I'll step in on   Thursday at 10 am.   Each of us are doing our very best to adhere to this timeline, but as you well know, life may throw a curve ball or two. A reminder that the videos will be delivered via Facebook livestream on either Ardith's page or my own, depending upon that day's host. We are hosting content on our respective websites, adding active links to the videos as they are published....

When I stress, I may pull out my yoga mat and light a candle in a darkened room. I may eat an entire canister of Pringles and get nasty if someone suggests I share. If it's really bad, I resort to obsessively picking my cuticles until they bleed.  But I always, always reach for my art journal. I have been art journaling for about 18 years. What is art journaling, you ask? It's a combination of diary and sketchbook, where anything goes. The creator decides the balance of text vs art, and can bring any media they wish to it's pages. Journals come in a variety of sizes, shapes, bound vs loose pages. It's all about using what you have to express what you feel. Really, the only rule about journaling is that there are no rules about journaling. What do I put in my journal? I am a compulsive list maker, so there's plenty of those. I press flowers and tuck them into tiny folded envelopes of wax paper. Stickers from my morning banana. An overhead view of the ro...

An image transfer created from a Dr. Seuss greeting card, temporarily adhered to the inside of the front window of the Orion Art Center.   I love my grownUP Journalers - tonite we had a BLAST making our own image transfers using printed materials.   We got so caught up in making them that we didn't get to the intended collage part. One of the hardest parts of teaching was learning when it is ok to abandon the lesson plan in favor of encouraging exploration and adventure.   I'll just have to plan for collaging transparent layers in a future class. No harm done at all in the grand scheme of things!!   Meanwhile, if you want to join us, shoot me a note - we usually meet on 3rd Thursdays of each  month (but September 2013 will be changed) - Kim ksantini@turtledovedesigns.com

grownUPs journaler Toni demonstrating her understanding of contour drawing and exploring the use of positive and negative space, from this evenings art journaling workshop.     Things are settling down in the Santini household. There were no broken bones today and dinner was homemade spaghetti and meatballs. All three kids were smiley (although one's smiles were, admittedly, vicodin induced), homework completed, and animals fed and walked without complaint.   And then Mom got to escape to one of her happy places.   That being grownUP journaling classes.   We meet on the 3rd Thursday of each month for a couple hours in the evening. And tonite I savored every moment of our togetherness.   Our group was intimate (I'm not judging those who opted to stay home and watch the Tigers dominate the Yankees!) and all the more special for it.   We focused on edges, quality of line, and positive and negative spa...

This is detail from an in-process page inside my Gratitude Journal (the entire spread is pictured at the left). Done mostly in acrylic paint, it includes a word ticket given me by a student. At our last grownUPs Journal class, participants were given three word tickets. They labeled objects with their tickets, and I was tagged "Fortunately." One of the best gifts ever - thank you Toni!!   I've been a daily painter since 2006. That's a LOT of paintings to come across my easel. And a LOT of pressure to stay fresh, every day (we're not talking showering, kiddos!).   One of the creative habits I picked up shortly after making my daily painting pledge was that of art journaling. The idea behind art, or creative, journaling is that it is part sketchbook part diary part science lab with art materials. Anything goes!   I thought it would be healthy for me to have a place to work out frustrations or anxieties and be able to make marks without ...

From my journal, a spread carrying prayer flags, which I will be leading my grownUP students in creating during tonite's class.   Did you know that we all breathe molecules that Leonardo da Vinci breathed himself? that we have the ability to put positive, brilliant energy out for others to benefit from? I'm fascinated as of late by the idea of karmic attraction - like attracting like. Our personal energy fields impact more than we realize.   Prayer flags  are a beautiful manifestation of desires and wishes. Intentions are put onto a "flag" using symbols and text and a variety of media. That flag is hung in a window or outdoors, where the breeze can pick up those intentions and carry them into the world.   Ok, call me that kooky crazy artist lady. I've been called worse.   But the Princess and I made some healing flags together and strung them on the back porch - we talked about her baby cousin who's healing from heart ...

    It's nearly impossible to schedule any sort of workshop in the summertime that works with everyone's calendar. There's vacations and sunshine and working parents and travel sports teams and watermelon, and frankly, I can't blame anyone for choosing those sorts of things over taking a class (even though my physical class IS in a toy store).   I still wanted to tailor my offering to somehow flex around everyone's schedule. I spent some time on the back porch, just listening to the birdsong and wondering when life got so darned busy. I got all melancholy recalling the long summer days of my childhood - melty popsicles, the smell of hot pavement, the sting of sprinkler water on sunburned skin, the excitement of the mail's arrival (was there anything for ME?) - and BING - AirMail Journaling was born!   I've had the most fabulous time designing five entirely new lesson plans for this summer's journaling adventure. These...