Accordion Folded Watercolor Journals about Hiking or Boating

Update of a post from November 1, 2007 also true for this years work shop, November 7, I will be teaching two workshops starting at 10:30 AM lasting an hour and a half each at the Oregon Hatchery Research Center. I will be presenting safety musts for artists and the environment. Participants will gain skills for painting memories while journeying through the wilderness either on foot or on a boat.

Backpacking and white water rafting in the wilderness was the nursery so to speak for my accordion journals. I wanted to keep my backpack less than 30 pounds. So I brought black lead just a stump of lead and no wood covering. The paper was simply an index card. On rivers at first I used index cards but later found I could just fold cotton rag watercolor paper and keep it in a zip lock bag. In recent years I have experimented with different folds. The equal sized pages folded as a box is suitable for wrap around views. Mostly the folded paper is for my own memory.

Full Sheets of watercolor paper 22" x 30" can be cut many ways to being 5" tall and then folded.

Sometimes the paintings are nice enough to give as a card. The box is a favorite of mine for gift cards. Sometimes I want to look at the paintings over a long period of time and I have put them under glass and framed them.





I use the accordion journals in numerous ways. They stand up rightwhile being used as reference for larger paintings. They are memories of places made stronger by focusing maybe on the criters or the color or the linear energy. In the workshop participants will think about the short comings of photographas and select what short hand notes they will place on their accordion journal. There is no reason to duplicate photogrphically nature while standing on at rail or moving along in a boat.

The accordion folded journals are easily and conveniently stored in a shoe box. They store neatly as compared to my sketch books of various sizes and thicknesses.