Mrs. Panetta was one of the few people that made a big impact during my high school years. She helped me to improve my skills, teach me new techniques, give me the encouragement that I needed, and be a person I could talk to. Not only was she a teacher, but a friend. I can’t tell you how many days, hours, minutes that I spent talking to her about art… and college.

When I made this page I was a junior in high school. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. She introduced me to UGA’s art school and answered a very wide range of questions. I don’t think there was a question left to ask by the end. And because God’s plan is different than my own, I am now a freshman at GCSU and the art school is much smaller than the one you would find at UGA. But I still feel prepared, thanks to her, as I take these art classes and figure out exactly what I’m going to do with this degree.

When I was 16 I wasn’t ready for college. But after many talks I started to get more and more excited about the thought of going away for school and pursuing a degree in art. Mrs. Panetta was the spark. I wasn’t looking forward to college until after we spent so much time talking. The thank you note says just that.

Supplies & How To

For the visual journal page I used: Internet images, masking tape, packaging tape, a magazine page, book pages, small envelope, and some scrap paper. I found the yellow and orange image you see repeated three times while looking for “sparks” or “flames” or something similar on the Internet. The water candle was found on the Internet too. The 3 “spark” images are tape transfers (overlapping strips of tape on an image and washing away the paper so that the ink is left. Laser printers work great!). The blue pieces you see are from a magazine page I ripped up.  The note is written on scrap paper I found in our art room.

I started by making the outline of blue magazine pieces in the top left corner then filled in that space with ripped up book pages. I also glued down the ripped book pages in the top right and bottom right corners. Then I took my three tape transfers and staggered them to make the placement interesting to the eye of the viewer. After careful consideration I placed the water candle in the bottom left corner and the note in the corner diagonal from it. For “You are the spark that started the flame” I did a tape transfer of the words, and placed that on the masking tape. I glued the blue magazine pieces down to make a background for the masking tape and words and to make them stand out more on the page. For the note, I took paper that matched my color scheme and cut one piece smaller than the other so that there would be a small border for it. I wrote the thank you note with a regular ink pen.

Continue to think outside of the box and happy visual journaling!

-Kalin