I went to Seattle to take a natural indigo vat making class with Kathy Hattori of Botanical Colors. I learned a lot about different kinds of indigo vats. I think I like the henna vat the most. Everyone was awesome. I took the class with artist Stephanie Sykes who was a hoot! I looooooove learning new stuff.
I’m so lucky to have the help of Jenina Mella. In addition to doing most of the organizing and all of the cooking, she’s been trying out bag designs for our retreat swag bags.
These are laminated envelope bags
And this one (my favorite) is a clever origami drawstring style bag.
She’s a super talent! The retreat is getting closer and closer, I can’t wait!!!
We’ve decided to extend the early bird pricing through the end of June! We want to give everyone a chance to join us.
I hope you’ll take advantage of the extension to sign the heck up. It’s going to be awesome!!
Click on the pictures below for more info!!!!!
I’ve been slammin’ busy like, woah! Run run run! But in a good way. I’m not complaining.
I’ve had a couple of awesomely fun classes at Paradigm Gardens. They’ve been full of creative and inspiring people.
They were Mother’s Day classes, though all kinds of interesting people came and not all brought their moms.
![IMG_6370[1]](https://www.jenniferfalkowski.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/IMG_63701-1-e1462203761685.jpg)
The classes were like parties.
I hope everyone had as much fun as I did.
Right in the middle of the classes I had an opening for MMOCA’s gallery night at the Monona Library.
All in all, it was a stone cold blast!!!!
I love being this busy!
I’m always on the search for inspiration and for ideas that just make me happy. I’ve been listening to the Tim Ferriss podcast. I really enjoy it. He’s a very curious person which makes him an excellent interviewer.
He recently recommended the super cool Five minute journal that is such a freakin’ good idea that I decided to share it with you. Yes, I already bought my copy so you can have one now. 🙂
I do love me a journal. For someone who like to doodle and paint in a sketchbook though, I have a hard time figuring out what to write. I like to stay positive yet introspective. I worry that the topics will get too dark and deep for me to actually enjoy writing. If I do have something big on my mind, I’ll write it down to get it out of my head but that doesn’t happen every day. Generally I’m a happy person.
This journal is totally perfect for that. It’s hardback and the cover is really simple so, obviously, it wants me to decorate it. It has a template for stuff to write about it for about two or three minutes in the morning and then two or three minutes at night. The idea is to set yourself up for an awesome day and then to review it quickly in the evening. I just love it. I’m waiting for my copy to come in the mail and I’ll totally show you it when it comes.
Here’s a picture lifted from their website because I couldn’t not put a picture in here. Seriously, a page of just text? Not from this Jennifer
Last night was my Indigo Dye and Shibori workshop at Olbrich Gardens. It was so much fun!
Everyone was really nice and had a great time. I had everyone make four different patterns and then dip them in the indigo as the sun went down.
It was a lovely evening but it was not very conducive to taking pictures of beautiful finished pieces.
There were lots of beautiful finished pieces, but you’ll have to take my word for it. Because the sun set.
But I did get this shot. I’ve been promised pictures. If I get some, I’ll share them with you. Everything was really gorgeous. I’m always struck by the little temporary positive community that gets made in a class like this. I love it.
I have class times coming up at Paradigm Gardens. The next one is September 13th and is an Indigo 101 class.
My site was down for a couple of days, there were some gremlins (not monsters!) in the servers. At least that’s what I assume it was, I don’t really understand a single thing in the email that customer service sent me. But it’s up now and I have some monsters to share!
First from Jo, who was on top of it, she sent them right away. She said that she didn’t see many monsters but I think she found some truly creative dudes in there. I love that they are titled, too.
Heidi sent some more monsters in, too. I love how simple and basic the shapes are. They still have tons of personality.
And Vicky sent in her week one monsters. She played around with multiple colors. She said that too many colors made it harder to find the monsters. I’m going to try that out, I’ve only used one color. I love it when people bring in variables I haven’t even considered.
I hope this inspires more monsters! I’d love to share them. You can email them to Jennifer@JenniferFalkowski.com.
Thanks!
Sometimes I find it hard to make time to make art. Since I work part time and I do get quiet time to myself in the mornings, I realize it isn’t really my schedule that is getting in my way. It’s totally that repelling magnet thing between the chair and my ass that happens when I try to sit down and work.
So I decided to go google the question. You can always google a question. I had plans to find a bunch of good advice in different places and, sharing links to the original articles, post the ones that spoke to me the most here.
HOWEVER, I stumbled on this article by Rice Freeman-Zachery:
and I’m just going to stop searching right now and shut this time sucking machine away and go play with my kitchen implements.