Art Journaling

If you are an artist or an art student, art journaling is a great way to improve your art techniques, record your ideas, and to see your progress. It is also a real way to record your life, your thoughts, and your emotions.

If you are looking for a guide on how to make an art journal, my personal favorite is the book pictured to the right, True Vision: Authentic Art Journaling, which will help you add authenticity to your art journal. The point of the book is to give you more meaningful, authentic, and personal content.

Just as artists record their emotions and thoughts with visual art, art journals are filled with color, texture, and the raw emotions of life. This article is filled with art journal ideas: how to make the journal, what to put in the journal, and resources to help you.

An art journal is a collection of writing, found items, painting, drawing, and thoughts into one bound book.  Art journals can be healing to many people because they allow the writer / artist to really express themselves openly with no restrictions.

Art journaling is what you make of it.  You do not have to be an accomplished artist to create an art journal.  And actually it is a very good way to learn art techniques.  You can record your progress with your practice sessions in the journal.

Art journaling can take the form of a sketchbook, being the starting place for more involved paintings on canvas later.  It can be more of a collage, taking bits and pieces of collected and found items to create new artwork.

Art journaling can also be a mixture of poetry, prose, songs, and music.  There is really no limit to what goes in an art journal. 

Before you start making an art journal, you should decide what you are creating the art journal for. 

• For instance, is this a learning space for you? 
  
• Is the journal to teach someone else a type of art? 
  
• Is the journal personal or collaborative? 
  
• What types of things do you want to include in the journal?

Answers to these questions will determine what kind paper and binding you want to use.  Is this something that you are going to carry around with you?  Or will you take notes, then come back and put the results in your journal?

The next step is to pick out the construction of your journal.  Do you want to buy a book to put it in or are you building it from scratch?

Once you have made these decisions, you are ready to get started.

Art journals for children are a terrific way for children to learn about art, and the world around them.  The end result is something that they can truly be proud of and can review over and over again.

If you are creating an art journal for a child or with a child, give them some simple guidelines:

• Give them a time to work on the journal each day or every other day in the same physical space. 
  
• Each day give them a choice of two activities to include in their journal.
• Children do really well with collage, writing, drawing, and painting.  They can have pages they make separately, that you put in the journal later.
• You can define the journal by theme (nature, flowers, weather, art masters) or by learning a skill (watercolor painting, drawing).  You can also make it an observation journal.
• Let them use the journal to express themselves freely even if you do not understand what they are expressing.  Ask them about their work by saying, "Can you explain this project to me?" or "What is happening in this picture?"
  

Journaling in general is a excellent activity to promote healing, especially if it enables the writer to learn more about themselves, but some people do not express themselves well in words. Art journaling allows a person to express emotions that they do not necessarily understand well themselves in color, texture, and mixed media.

Art journals allow people the freedom to be the eccentric, weird, crazy, authentic selves that they truly are without any judgement from others. They can be totally personal or can be shared with others. Emotions can be let out in a constructive way, creating learning with the process.

You can create an healing art journal by yourself or in conjunction with a therapist that you are working with.  Or if you are a therapist, you can suggest it to your clients.

Creating an art journal through collage is a really cool technique, and give you a great way to record in an artistic manner without needing to be a highly skilled artist.  You can find bits and pieces of your life journey to put into the journal.

Some suggestions are:

• fabric from your favorite clothes or furniture
• leaves and flowers from around your home or that have special meaning to you
• articles from periodicals or online sources
• poems or prose that you have collected or written yourself
• your own artwork
• photographs that you have taken
• comments and signatures from your friends and family
• just about anything else you can think of

Collages can easily be collaborative projects with a group or family, and participants can be just about any age.

Art journaling is a relatively new art form, and the possibilities are truly endless.  And it is a fun project to work on.  There is no real time line for creating an art journal.  It can be a short-term project or something that you come back to over your life's journey. 

Whatever you decide to do, art journaling will be a positive experience, one that you will cherish.