WILLA WORKSHOPS' 4TH ANNUAL MONTH-LONG MIXED MEDIA COLLAGE ART EXPERIENCE
OCTOBER 2024
Have fun with 11 new mini courses, each from a different teacher with unique perspectives that will stimulate the way you approach mixed media & collage projects!
What are these things called "Collage Fodder" and Fodder Challenge?
Fodder Challenge is the answer to getting into the art and craft of mixed media art in a way that is fun and accessible.
Many, many years ago (we're talking 30 years ago now) I was very intimidated by mixed media art that I saw in magazines and eventually online, never thinking that I was capable of making art that looked so complex.
It wasn't until I found out about the magic of making your own collage fodder (that's any collected or hand altered materials that you can use in your art projects) that the secrets were revealed to me by many of the OGs in the mixed media art community.
I instantly fell in love with making my own collage materials. I became outright obsessed with it because the process of making my own materials never fails to be relaxing and pleasurable, AND EASY!
And then I get to use the collage materials that I collected and created in really cool projects? I was in HEAVEN!
Watch this video and
get a Sneak Peek at Fodder Challenge 2024!
FODDER CHALLENGE 2024
EARLY BIRD PRICING
JUST $27
+ your local sales taxes
Over $500 USD worth of mixed media collage art course content for the low price of $27 USD plus tax.
Fodder Challenge 2024 lessons begin dropping into our classroom on Teachable on October 1, 2024.
Early Bird Pricing ends on September 30, 2024.
Regular price of Fodder Challenge 2024 is $47 after September 30!
You'll have access to a new challenge lesson every 2-3 days in October until all 11 of the brand new, incredible Fodder Challenge 2024 lessons are released.
Access the lessons until November 15, 2024.
Many of the participants in the challenge have so much fun that they decide to continue with us for the year long experience!
Ready to unleash your creativity and dive into the world of mixed media art?
Imagine completing vibrant, inspiring art projects in just a single afternoon--projects that not only bring joy but also help you explore new techniques and expand your artistic horizons.
Welcome to the Fodder Challenge, our wildly popular online art experience designed to spark your creativity. With each project, you'll discover a treasure trove of mixed media art techniques that are as fun as they are inspiring. Get ready to create art that truly fills your cup-all from the comfort of your home, whenever it suits you.
Explore colour, play with pattern, build up texture, add botanical motifs, and more!
It doesn’t matter whether you are an absolute beginner or have worked with mixed media before; this course is for anyone who wants to connect with and nourish their creativity.
Meet Wendy from Willa Workshops
Hello! I'm Wendy Solganik. I've been an artsy craftsy person my entire life. About three decades ago I was introduced to mixed media art but I felt very intimidated by it as it looked so complex and beyond what I was capable of doing.
So I pursued other art forms like Watercolor Painitng, Hand Lettering. Bookbinding, Wheel Pottery, Scrapbooking, and Knitting. I even ended up co-owning a paper crafting company for fifteen years!
Eventually, through the magic of the internet and online art courses, I was able to finally dive in to mixed media and collage art. Once I got an insider's view, it became my personal mission to explore this art form to my fullest capability and that's where the idea for Fodder School was born. My goal is to make mixed media collage art as fun and accessible as possible for all of the people out there like me-the interested but intimidated.
Here's what you can expect in our 4th annual Fodder Challenge:
- On August 26th, we will be releasing the FC2024 Supply list. It will be available in the classroom on Teachable and we will send you an email to let you know to go there.
- During the month of October 2024, we will be releasing one teacher's challenge lessons in the classroom on Teachable every 2-3 days (see calendar below) until all of the lessons are released.
- You'll receive an email notification every single time letting you know that lesson is available for you and waiting in the classroom
- Watch the lessons, gather your materials.
- Make as little or as much as you want of each item or project.
- Enjoy the process, get into the flow of creation and have fun!
- Share your results with the community (totally optional!)
Fodder Challenge Lessons will be available until November 15, 2024.
If you decide that you want lifetime access to the challenge lessons, please consider joining us for Fodder School 4!
Meet the Instructors
Jack Ravi
Jack Ravi is a collage and assemblage artist who creates with found objects sourced from the past and from nature. Particularly drawn to old black and white photos, Jack likes to add a sense of memory and identity to forgotten faces. As he puts it: "My work explores themes of loss, memory, and identity, evoking a sense of simplicity and storytelling around the campfire."
Rebecca Chapman
Rebecca Chapman is a mixed media artist and teacher living on the south coast of the UK. She loves the outdoors and you'll often find her working in her sketchbook at the beach or digging in her allotment garden. Recently, Rebecca has embarked upon a mission to help us all to make more of the photos we have sitting on our phones and get them into our mixed media projects.
Sally Hirst
Sally is an artist based in Norwich, UK, who works with printmaking, collage and mixed-media paintings. Informed by the textures, colours, and structures of the urban environment, she is drawn to palettes of grungy browns, concrete greys, rusty reds and oranges, and a smidge of woody ochres. Of the city, she notes: "Shadows provide rich blacks, whites give breathing space. Pops of colour come from graffiti."
Liz Constable
Self taught Book Artist and Published Author Liz Constable, from Book Art Studios, brings her passion for handmade books to Fodder School 4. Author of five books including Dyed & Gone to Heaven, this New Zealand based creator is highly experimental and loves to explore, “What happens if...”. Liz makes learning fun and invites students to explore creative paths with her, simply to see where they lead.
Leaca Young
Leaca is an artist fueled by a lifelong love for creativity, finding joy in capturing thoughts and doodles through the boundless freedom of mixed media art. Inspired by botanicals, birds, and vintage charm, her creations reflect a passion for the natural world. Leaca is surrounded by stunning landscapes and vibrant communities, providing endless inspiration for her work.
Angela Kennedy
Angela lives in Southern Oregon with her Husband and two sons. She has been a designer for Penny Black Inc, since 2002 and has been into arts and crafts as long as she can remember. When she discovered mixed media in 2007, she started practicing everyday and taking classes; by 2010, she was teaching art online! Angela loves all kinds of mediums, but Watercolor is her true love (which she would love to teach you more about in Fodder School 4!).
Megan Quinlan
Megan has been a bookbinder and mixed media artist for over 25 years. Her journey began when she was in her 20’s, exploring shops and magazines that had a treasure trove of art inspiration. She got started with bookbinding and making her own journals: "I had always been an avid 'journaler' since I was a child, and being able to make the books by hand really connected me to my process." Eventually, she began collecting rubber stamps and added them into her practice to jazz up her pages. Later, she discovered collage, "and it kinda took off from there!"
Amanda Trought
Amanda is a London-Born Mixed Media Artist who has created and collaborated with a variety of artists around the world. Featured in group and solo exhibitions in London, Barbados, Montserrat, and US Virgin Islands, she also has her art loving welcomed into homes all around the world. She believes in the positive impact that art and creativity can have on health and well-being, having discovered the restorative and transformational power of art through being a caretaker for her mother with Alzheimer's and running Art and Creativity workshops at a dementia care center.
Tracey Wozniak
Tracey is an American mixed media artist, educator, and outdoor explorer. You’ll usually find her out on creative adventures expressing her connection with the natural world through her love of color and texture on hand-painted collage papers, altered fabrics, and imaginative watercolor illustrations. She has a keen eye for beautiful small wonders and is drawn to all things weathered, worn, hinted with history, journey, a touch of whimsy, and most of all, a story.
Stephanie Lee
As an artist and creative mentor, Stephanie creates luminous art that invites others to explore the corners of their own creative impulses and honor their own desire to create. She is the creator of over a dozen popular online art courses and eBooks which provide easy, step-by-step guidance on how to improve your metalsmithing skills in her signature “homesteader” style, how to create original sculpted forms with plaster and found objects, and how to combine plaster, paint, and encaustic medium in two-dimensional work.
Carrie Smith
Carrie is a self-taught collage artist currently living in the Bay Area. Before diving into the realm of collage art, she spent many years traveling the world and then teaching around-the-world art classes to children in her community. After taking an online art class with her daughter in 2023, the painting supplies never left the table and her passion for collage art exploded. Carrie continues to travel the world with her husband and two children (when busy schedules allow for it!), a lifelong passion that fuels her artistic journey.
How do I watch the Fodder Challenge lessons?
All content is pre-recorded and accessible anytime in the Fodder Challenge 2024 on the Willa Workshops website. There are no live sessions so you can enjoy the lessons at your own pace and convenience until November 15th.
Want lifetime access? Many of our challengers decide to join onto the year long course to get lifetime access to the challenge lessons and 11 months of Make Fodder . . . Use Fodder . . . Repeat in Fodder School. If you want to learn about Fodder School, you can visit willawanders.com/fodder-school.
Meet this year's Challenge Projects:
Tracey Wozniak
You will be making color explosion paper alongside Tracey. Using watercolors and color stain pigments, she will show you various ways to practice with the way the mediums respond on sketchbook paper, encouraging you to embrace the messy, inky water and have fun playing around with color. As a bonus mini-project, she will also provide instructions to make cute little "Marvelous Mushrooms", which you can personalize by exploring mushroom anatomy and shapes with Tracey.
Rebecca Chapman
Rebecca will introduce you to the world of physical photo manipulation in her exuberant style. Although she has chosen floral imagery as the base for what she will teach with, she encourages you to use your photos with a subject matter that excites you! This mini project will encourage you to frame your photos and collage fodder in a Polaroid frame, perfect for adding to a scrapbook or gifting to someone in a card.
Amanda Trought
You will collect and preserve dried leafs to decorate with a wide variety of Amanda's favorite techniques, such as sewing, painting, and stenciling. "What would die and return to the soil, is given new life through these leaf sculptures," she states. Amanda will also show you how to display your finished embellished leafs by themselves in frames or sewn onto fabric for a mounted mixed media aesthetic.
Jack Ravi
Jack will teach you how to use antique photographs, old bottle caps and scrap fabric to make a Memory medal: a fun and textural memento you can use to embellish a textile book cover, accessorize your outfit with, make magnets with, or fasten to anything you can stick a safety pin through!
Angela Kennedy
Angela invites you to break out your text-based fodder collection and your preferred mark-making mediums as she will show you how to make her version portrait photo card. Along with walking you through her techniques to enrich the texture of an upcycled document using ethereal watercolor washes, she will also show you two methods of preparing a portrait by either following along her drawing tutorial or sourcing photos to collage onto the background.
Stephanie Lee
Stephanie will show you a very unique way to make textured fodder using gesso and plaster! She will walk you through her method of finding a substrate to apply these mediums onto, giving suggestions on what works best with the trash and fodder you may already have laying around. You will also be guided on how to properly mix and apply these mediums before pressing in found objects to make an impression, then finishing your fodder with a wash to bring out the texture.
Liz Constable
You will learn to use the rubber stamps you already have in your collection in a few ways you may not have considered before! Liz will walk you through her methods of choosing where to place a stamp on existing fodder and how to make new fodder centered around the stamp's mark. Additionally, she will share some tips and tricks for photocopying your stamps to extend the range of what they're capable of. All of your stamp experiments can be documented in an A6 notebook that Liz will show you how to create and bind.
Sally Hirst
You will work with Sally to make found object impression prints. She will introduce you to the amazing properties of Plasticine, show you how to use it to make a texture plate for printmaking, and how to prepare the paints for gel plate transfer onto paper.
Leaca Young
You will be using vintage papers and your existing fodder collection to make affirmations on repair tags, great for hanging somewhere you need a little motivation or tying onto a gift bag for a loved one. Leaca will walk you through a number of techniques she often uses in her art, such as stenciling, stamping, and sewing, and encourages you to have fun and play alongside her in this laid-back collage project.
Carrie Smith
Carrie will show you how to make these breathtaking Sacred Hearts, her version of an iconic symbol of Catholicism in Mexico. She will introduce you to her process of color selection and invite you to the meditative flow state she enters when getting into her painting zone. After painting a few of these hearts, with matching 'flames', Carrie shows you how to attach some traditional "Milagros" charms and rhinestones, also encouraging you to add your personal favorite small embellishments.
Megan Quinlan
Megan is adapting a lesson she taught in a previous Fodder School year to show you how to make these insanely cute paper animal dolls! She will give you some guidance on using the paper and textile materials you already have in your fodder collection to assemble and "dress up" your new animal friends. Megan will also show you how to easily draw, color, and embellish these animal figures with the aid of stencils--no stress at all!
