Stamps and More by Eleanor

Meet Your Teacher

Diana C. White in her own words...

            I am Diana C. White – and when you go to the Class Schedule page on the Website, you will see that I have tried to include my name somewhere in the class title, just so you can find those at a glance, since you're kind enough to tell me you want a quick way to know which classes I'm teaching. I love to come to Eleanor's and teach. I had a classroom of first and second graders for thirty years – y'all are just taller and slightly older than my usual children. I did art with my children in some form every day, finding art to be a wonderful medium for social skills, and wonderfully healing and energizing in itself. So I come to Eleanor's, and you sign up for classes, and we get together and learn things and make stuff, and it's the most fun you can have right out in public.

            Some of my classes focus on a particular technique – watercolor, monochromatic magic, faux batik, direct-to-rubber (DTR). Some of my classes are for card-making – we usually have a Hero Arts class or two each year, one of them making Christmas cards, and even in a techniques class part of the focus will be how to use the technique in a card. So far we have planned a DTR class (technique and cards), a Hero class (card-making), and a watercolor class (technique). I hope later this year to work out a class about different ways to do Backgrounds. In most classes I work in some color theory. In card classes I love to offer the various media that use water – watercolor pencils, crayons, sponging, stippling, markers, Twinkling H2Os. I hope again this year to get us started on Christmas cards probably in August, and then more in October. We do some seasonal projects (in January we will do some Valentines). We do card-in-a-basket often – that is, for each card you will have the stamps, inks, embellishments, samples, and all papers cut, in a basket ready to take to your table and share with your neighbor(s). My problem is always to scale down how much stuff I plan for a class, so that you could maybe actually get it all finished...

            Anyway, I enjoy this stuff and I try to set up a class so that you can enjoy it too, and so that, whatever your level of stamping, you can gain skills and confidence, have your head buzzing with new ideas, add to your kit of Things I Can Do, and not feel overwhelmed. I want you to say to yourself, "Wow! this is fun!" and "Gee – I never thought of that!" and "I want to do more of this!" and even, "Hey, I'm good at this stuff!"

BASIC CLASS PARAMETERS:

            I come up from Atlanta one weekend a month. It will usually be the 4^th weekend, sometimes maybe even the 1^st weekend; since weekend 2 is Altered Book Club, and weekend 3 is Stamping 101, that leaves the 1^st or 4^th for me. I do a class twice, once on Friday, once on Saturday. I set up the classroom with everything you could possibly need on the table – if you feel you need more space, negotiate with your neighbors about what to move where or set on the floor or give back to me, or whatever. And I do my best for us to have fun, learn from each other, cover everything we can possibly cram into our time, and do exciting work together. I may tell kid stories, or recite for you a poem, and you are hereby deputized to help me find whatever the last thing was that I had in my hand and put down somewhere – in my classroom, I had to keep scissors, tape, pens, 3x5 cards, and Kleenex in all the corners of the room, and one of the end-of-the-day jobs for one of my children would be to find and restore items to their proper places. I came across my car keys on top of the Kleenex box one memorable day – one of the kids found them and figured the working tool space was where they ought to go.

            Eleanor and I have spent some time mulling over your input sheets and our take on what's needed and what works, and playing with ideas. For these first three months of 2008 the format will be a longer working day – we'll begin at 10 and work until 3 with a lunch break (pretty much a do-it-yourselfer; bring a sandwich, go get something and bring it back, whatever; the classroom as a fridge with soft drinks and snacks for 50 or 75 cents). The Friday classes last year ended up being slightly smaller than the Saturday classes, so if that suits you, sign up for Friday. We will charge $40 per class day for this quarter.

And the limit of 16 per class seems to work okay – if I feel we need a smaller class for a particular topic, that will be spelled out in the class write-up. When I get ready to cut paper on the Monday before a class weekend, and I call and there are 10 signed up for that Friday, I may ask that it be closed at 12, so I can better estimate how much paper to cut – but as you know, I have okayed 13 in a class that had a 12-cut-off, and one class with a 16 limit was fine at 17, so I'm not cheap but I am easy, and you just talk to us about your needs and I'll probably go along cheerfully.

            As before, I BRING EVERYTHING, so you can literally walk in the store with no supplies in your bag, learn of the class, sign up then and there, and be fine. OR you can bring your bare-bones working kit, detail scissors, a paper trimmer, your favorite brush if we're painting, whatever; please do bring tape or glue if we're card-making (I have some, if you're out). Some of us are happier with a few of our favorite tools at hand, and I want you to be comfortable and happy – we do better art that way. There's no need (or space) to bring your honkin' biggest wheelie, so don't.

Remember your camera! Do give me an email address on your evaluation sheet, so I can send out photos of all the cards and samples after class, but feel free to make your own pictures too. You will have handouts; you will receive a large plastic bag, to carry your goodies home in (bring some extra if you like). And you will have an input/class evaluation form to tell me whatever you wish to say – and you can call or email me afterward. Like now – if you have questions about classes, the staff at Eleanor's can pass it on to me.

CLASS WRITE-UPS:

CLASS: Diana teaches Watercolor: Spring and Summer Scenes
DATE: Friday, March 21   10:00 - 3:00 (5 hours)

COST: $40.00
LIMIT: 12 (maybe 16)

CLASS: Diana teaches Watercolor: Spring and Summer Scenes
DATE: Saturday, March 22   10:00 - 3:00 (5 hours)

COST: $40.00
LIMIT: 12 (maybe 16)

See above for Class Parameters (what to bring, and so on – do bring tape or glue). For watercolor classes, if you want to bring your own favorite brushes, feel free – but I'll have some pretty good brushes on hand for you to use, along with markers (our paint source) and palettes. Remember your camera!

            This really is a made-it-my-own very special love. This was the technique that really sealed the deal for me, when I was a beginning stamper. Art Impressions and its owner/designer Bonnie Krebs is our source; many of you have admired the examples around the store, sent out by Art Impressions for inspiration. I start from their examples, and do it my own way; my children complain because they own only a few of these so far (they prefer it when I frame them for presents). Now we'll pass on the magic to you. We'll use markers as our colors, an acrylic palette to hold our "paints" and regular or water-barrel brushes, good cold-pressed 140-lb. watercolor paper, and plenty of demos and samples, and we'll practice together. I have several of each of the basic stamps used as design units, so each table will have plenty to work with. We'll learn strokes and washes and terminology, try the various waterproof or permanent inks to lay down the basic elements for our scenes, and explore many stamping and painting techniques. We'll work on several scenes, one a small lead-up picture to practice on, and then we can probably expect to do a spring scene and a beach scene. If this kind of class goes over well, maybe in the fall we can do a couple of winter scenes for Christmas presents. You will be amazed (and pleased) at how basically simple and do-able watercolor is, done the Art Impressions-meets-Diana way.