Jane Davenport Blog

Click play for your invitation!

I love art supplies and drawing faces…so that is what this entire Online Workshop is based around!
Which makes it sound like it’s all about me – but it’s not!

It’s for anyone who has bought lovely art supplies and hardly used them.

It’s for anyone who loves drawing pretty faces ( or wants to learn how!).

It’s for anyone who needs a break from the craziness of the world.

…wait a minute…it IS all about me!
But hopefully it is all about you too, and you will take that leap of creative courage and join me in my brand new School!
The class is $95 and we have had a wonderful sign up! Click here for all the deets!

x

Jane

Yes, its OFFICIAL. *she screams!*

I am teaching at Teesha Moore’s Artfest Annex in Seattle in Feb 2012… Hooley Dooley! I am so looking forward to seeing my friends, making new ones and visiting Seattle for the first time. I will be coming straight from the hottest part of the Ozzie summer to freezing winter for the Play retreat, and then Seattle-ing and preparing for my 3 day workshop. And I will be cramming all my energy into it…it’s going to be a face-drawing extravaganza!

http://www.teeshaslandofodd.com/annex/classes/jdavenport/dh/class.html

Click the above image to see the class descriptions. I would so LOVE it if YOU could Come along and draw, draw, draw with me. 3 intense days of creative juju, Journaling and joy…

I now have to go and fan myself…. attack of the vapours…. too much happy dancing can wear a girl out!

I am an advocate of courage in the face of drawing fear. I encourage my students to trust the mess, and have fun getting stuck into their creativity. But I certainly have a few creative fears of my own, and top of the list was sewing!

I’m not sure when or why I became scared of sewing machines. I’ve never been harmed by one, or even had a hairy experience. Yet in my mind I had built up a fear of the needle snapping and flying into my eyes, fingers being gobbled up and tangles of thread… I even signed up for some sewing classes last year and chickened out after just 2…before we even got to the sewing… ridiculous! Little did I know that this irrational fear was soon to come to an end…

Last Wednesday Angus and I found ourselves setting up our stand at the Craft and Sewing expo in Newcastle… And I was pretty much surrounded by sewing! Quilting, patchwork and textile arts, sewing machines, fabrics stores and every form of sewing accessory and tool you can imagine. There were very few paper based exhibitors. Eeeeeek,there were needles everywhere!

And then I noticed in the corner of the expo, an exhibition of intricate paper-quilting by Michaela Laurie. I was quite taken with her beautiful work, and inspired to try some sewn elements in my Art journals… Of course, that would mean overcoming my sewing machine heeby-geebies!

Michaela kindly offered to walk me through a few sewn details and I enjoyed it…Loved it! Over the following days, I visited all the sewing machine stands, and had a look and play on the entry-level models. I settled on a Pfaff ‘Hobby’ 1132. Simple, easy to use, great quality. Sally from Zig Zag sewing centre sorted me out, and gave me her patient attention and a couple of intense lessons, squeezed around the busy times during the show.

So after 8 live drawing demonstrations and 7 hours a day of talking about Art Journals and art supplies, I wasn’t tired, I was dancing around, doing the Pfaff can-can! I couldn’t wait to set up my new baby…

Today I spent my time sewing at my gorgeous parents-in-law’s before we head home to Byron Bay. Jenny worked on her latest amazing quilt and I made a stitching sampler, and a ….drum roll please… Journal cover!

I used some gorgeous ladybird fabric my expo neighbors, ‘Black Possum Fabrics at Tea Gardens, gave me. It felt so good to create something I thought impossible for me to ever get around to. My handiwork certainly isn’t perfect, but I love it! I worked without a pattern, just made it up as I went along. My confidence really is soaring, not only from a fantastic show, but from overcoming a long-held fear. I am looking forward to what the next few weeks hold because I know it’s going to be a really special time!

Is there something creative that you fear? An artistic hurdle that stops you in your tracks? Why not join me and tackle it this week, I dare you!

Choose happiness,
Jane

Look at the work my Draw Happy ‘Live’ students did! My goal at the beginning of the class was to get everyone to draw a ‘pretty face’ and …ta-dah! Mission Accomplished! My drawing is the bigger one on the right that I did on an easel, and my students followed along in the journals I gave them.

What I just LOVE is that they are all so different! Even though we all followed the same proportional scale and used the same colours and materials, I encouraged each person’s individual style to shine through. Some of my students were seasoned ‘drawers’ and others had not picked up a pencil in years, if ever! All did so well and smiled at the end results. I was pleased and proud as punch( which is such a strange saying…!)

All the sessions so far have been loads of fun and I am very proud of all my student’s efforts.  Some have absolutely amazed themselves at what they achieved! It was mostly gals, and Daniel did a great job as the sole bloke. My youngest students was 9. I had one very special student fly in from the other side of the country, especially for the Saturday workshop – what a ‘Treasure’ she is! It was cool squeezing into my Gallery space, surrounded by art and sharing my personal stash of art supplies.

Art Supplies: We used the Col-erase pencils to draw with, Prismacolor Premiers to add colour and Ranger Dabber Paints and White Posca Pens for highlights. You can see the linked supplies on my new website.

I had a ball and am thinking of new classes to add so I can join my students on their creative paths as often as possible.

Draw Happy Live

I made a video from the workshops so far (Angus was the cameraman!) so you can join in the fun if you live far, far away…and if you live near, why don’t you come along! I would love that! I have added new dates for the classes here: www.instituteofcute.com/draw-happy-class/

Angus and I are off to the big Craft and Sewing Show in Newcastle – it starts this Thursday until Sunday. I hope we win best stand again! I will be extolling the virtues of Art Journaling. I know what a difference it has made in my life, both creatively and in general, and I love encouraging as many people as possible to discover Journaling for themselves.

Choose Happiness,

Jane
P.s. If you want a sneak peek at my online workshop ‘Supplies Me’, that will be Officially launched next week: http://www.instituteofcute.com/supplies-me-online-workshop/
It’s starting to fill up already…I am swooning! We will be drawing LOTS of faces, plus other things of course, but, you know me… I love drawing eyes!

I had my first LIVE ‘Draw Happy’ class on the weekend inside my ‘Institute of Cute’ gallery. Sharing my passion for creativity and drawing was far more fun than I estimated! I mean, I knew I was going to LOVE it, but, I didn’t realise just how much. I must admit to feeling absolutely wiped out after though, as I exudied a lot of energy and really poured myself into every minute. I just adored sharing the wonders of Art Journaling, art supplies and drawing faces.

Here is a quick selection of the teaching work from my easel:

I had a full class of wonderful students at ‘Draw Happy’ last Saturday morning, and I have a full class this Saturday, and we quickly had to organise a Sunday session! I forgot to take classroom photos but I will remedy that and share after this weekend. I have just opened up a few more classes -and you can see them on my new store website…here.

Yes, you heard correctly – MY NEW STORE WEBSITE! Hooly Dooly… the angst of finding the right system nearly broke me, but I found the right software, and have built a very functional, clean, calm site – YAY! triple yay with a cartwheel and sparklers!

Click on the image below to go take a peek:

I’m still adding all the artwork, but the Art Supplies, gifts and book sections are up-to-date.

Let me know what you think!

x

Jane