What is an art journal and what do I put in it?

Welcome to the first day of Journaling in July! I hope you'll join me as I pick up my book and create. My goal is to have at least 4 pages done this month. That's one per week, so I hope you will all strive to meet that goal with me! Post your pages on your blogs as you finish and at the end of the month I'll share them all here for everyone to see! If you're going to be journaling along and you don't see your name on the side bar, or it doesn't link to the correct blog (I know some of you have a few) let me know. Let's all try to visit each other throughout this process. Encouragement is key. :)

Are we ready to embark on our adventure? Good! Onward to the information!

An art journal can be any number of things to a person. It can be a pictorial diary, cataloging daily adventures and ponderings letting pictures speak instead of words. An art journal can be a travel journal filled with tickets and photos or writings about trips, a dream journal to record the ones you remember, a day planner of sorts filled with things as mundane as the weather and as lofty as your goals. It could even be your Grimoire or a place to simply try out art techniques and styles. It can be all of those things or none of them.

The beauty of art journals is that they are completely 100% your own. Do what you will! You can have one ultra large journal like I do and put all sorts of things in it, or you can keep several small journals with individual themes. I drag my book every where with me. You never know when you'll be struck by inspiration.

As for the type of book you use, that's another one of those personal preference deals. Some folks use sturdy sketchbooks, some use journals they made themselves from recycled paper, some (like me!) use old books that they find at garage sales.

Personally, I enjoy the fact that using a book filled with text adds another dimension to my work. I'm also a big fan of the fact that I'm repurposing something that would otherwise have ended up in the trash. The down side to using an old book is the pages are thin and don't always hold up so well to large quantities of paint. To get around this, I like to glue two pages together to double the thickness.

As for what to put in your book? Anything your little heart desires! You can use magazine clippings, paint, fabric, computer print-outs, ticket stubs and journal about anything that flits through your mind.

However, if you're anything like me, jumping into an all new project completely blind may lead to creative shutdown. To prevent that from happening lets take it slow.

Firstly, what sort of journal are you looking to keep?
- An all purpose journal housing a hodgepodge of everything?
- A day to day journal with doodles and paint and writings about your day
- A Dream Journal
- A nature journal
- An experimental journal for art techniques
- A themed journal which creates a story over time (Put your own spin on an old fairy tale perhaps?)
- A travel journal, chronicling your worldly adventures
- A travel journal, chronicling your emotional adventures, struggles and triumphs
- A Book of Shadows or Grimoire, with pages devoted to deities, holidays, etc
- Something completely new and unusual!

Don't stress this part too much, ok? I did and it kept me from starting my journal for a solid two months. If you aren't sure where you'd ultimately like to go with journaling, go with option 1... a hodgepodge, limitless book where you put no restrictions on yourself. You can always start another book, or two, or three later and if you absolutely hate a page, you can always collage, paint and re-journal over it!


Now that you have an idea about the types of journals some people keep, what the heck do they put in them? Well, anything pertaining to the theme of their journal really.

If your journal doesn't have a theme, even better because you can put anything your heart desires in there! Each page can be about something completely new and different. Every page can have a completely new technique and medium on it.

Here is a list of themes to get you started. Some are ideas and some are techniques, art styles and color theories:

A Foreign Language
Acorns
Adventure
Black and White
Bugs
Chakras
Circles
Circus
Collage
Comic Books (either the story or the style of)
Curiosity
Cut Outs
Crytozoology
Dreams
Fairies
Fairy Tales
Fear
Flight
Forest
Home
Hope
Melancholy
Monochromatic (A single color only!)
Mushrooms
Music
Mystery
Mythology
Nature
Ocean
Primary Colors
Psychedelic
Quotes and Sayings
Rain
Rainbow
Reading
Sabbats
Science Fiction
Secret Door
Self Esteem
Sleep
Stars
Stripes
Surrealism
Tea Party
the number 13
Time
Turtles
Vintage
Watercolor
Weather
Whimsy
Witches
Words

If you're indecisive like me, a good trick is to put all the suggestions into a hat and pick one or two (or three if you're really adventurous) to use on your page! You can always put them back into the pile for next time or put them aside until you've worked through several themes. If there are some themes you'd like to see on the list, let me know and I'll add them.

Let the creating begin!

For anyone interested, the journal page I posted at the top is a completely random one I did after picking the themes 'vintage' and 'psychedelic' out of a hat. See what sort of funny little things a list and a hat can create?