Our next group meeting is on  Next dates are Friday March 20th 12-3 and 6-9 PM You can join our group meetings at any time, but you do need to call us to get your name on the list.  I want to be sure we have room for everyone.   When you come to the group meetings, please bring your paper towels, heat guns, paint brushes, adhesives and color mediums of choice. Click here to go to the Art to the Fifth Blog Post  March Theme Making Your Mark (Doodles & Mark Making) March 7 Art Challenge:  As A Layer Element Journal Prompt:  Surviving the Elements March 14 Art Challenge:  Borders Journal Prompt:  "Borderline feels like I'm going to lose my mind." Here is Art to the 5th designer Rae's blog post. Leaving white space isn't always easy, but sometimes it helps define where a piece is going. It doesn't mean you will finish with the white space, but it is a great way to help you lay out where certain elements will go as you work through your journal page. Another trick that helps me is to turn my work as I go. I don't overwork one area this way. I used areas of white space to position where my border would go. Filling in the space inside first gave me insight as to where I wanted to go with my marked outer edge later in the process. I love marks and marking making. They are a great way to place meaning into a piece. Using them in, and as a border puts a new twist on fringing your piece too. A FEW SIMPLE WAYS TO CREATE A MARKED BORDER ON YOUR JOURNAL PAGE Building layers is a different process for each artist. Some like to save all of their mark making for those final top layers, while others, like myself, use marks to give all of my layers definition. As a layer element, marks and doodles can help give your piece a personality early on. I like to add journaling through out my layers as another form of mark making. This way, as I continue to work, not all of my words remain legible or visible. I like having only part of my story weather the art storm that occurs on these pages. Some of it survives the added layers, but not all. Maybe just enough to remind me to keep writing it down.