#212 Vanessa Kiki Johanning: Creative in Art and Her Life

Artist Vanessa Johanning is also known as Kiki, and she’s a mixed media artist from Wisconsin. Kiki makes custom art journals and paintings. Kiki is fortunate enough to have three studios in her home where she can create her art. She also tells us about her upcoming book and two art shows.

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Vanessa Kiki Johanning

Kiki can be found on Instagram @vanessakikijohanning and on Facebook and YouTube.

Here is her Aprons in the Wind exhibit.

Kiki is in the current issue of Where Women Create magazine, which is created by Jo Packham. I interviewed Jo in Episode 121 of this podcast.

We also talked about artist and author Nick Bantock in this episode. I interviewed Nick in Episode 205 of this podcast.

Here are some great takeaways from our conversation:

You can think of art journaling as just a place to put a painting. It’s less expensive than working on canvases, it’s portable, and if you don’t like what you did, you can just turn the page.
Kiki prefers Canson 140 # cold press watercolor paper. She likes this because it takes anything: you can stamp on it, sew on it, and it won’t wrinkle. Fabriano brand is also a good choice.
Cold press has a little rough surface and hot press is smooth. Try them both to see which one you prefer.
She travels with a little art kit that includes paint, brushes, and paper. Kiki finds it’s a nice conversation starter when she’s on a plane or outside.
When painting mixed media pages for a journal, it’s easier to bind them later into a book. That way if a page is still wet, you can go onto the next page and not worry about pages in a book sticking together.
Take advantage of the video options on Instagram. If you’re showing off a completed art book, you can do a page-through video to show the whole book.
Kiki just uses regular acrylic paint on fabric, since she knows when she spills paint on her clothes it’s permanent.
She is currently working on a book. Kiki encourages anyone who wants to write a book to just do it. She says that if it’s popping in your head, then there’s a good chance that you are supposed to do it.