Art Journaling is Another Way To Express Creativity

Last week I shared some ideas for journaling for writers. I’ve had a lot of great feedback from that post, so this week I’d like to share a little bit about art journaling, another kind of journaling that helps to get my creative juices flowing

The same rules apply in an art journal as in a written journal, meaning there are no rules. You can create your art journal however you wish.

Learning I Was Creative the Hard Way

I fell in love with art when I took an art history class at university. As much as I love to visit museums, I never thought of myself as an artist. Years ago I dabbled in painting with acrylics, but that didn’t last long.

Once, I tried taking a painting class at the extension university where I was teaching creative writing. The teacher was a short French woman with the oddly elfin look of Dobby from the Harry Potter books. Her dyed jet-black hair was cut into an ear-length 1920s flapper’s bob and she wore round black glasses that took up her whole face.

She tottered around the classroom shrugging at the students’ paintings the way only the French can. There was no instruction. She didn’t give the class any directions. She put some flowers in a vase on a stool at the front of the classroom and told us to paint what we saw.

I looked around the classroom and saw students painting, but I didn’t know where to start. I had never taken an art class. Yes, I love to look at paintings, but looking and painting are two different things. I started painting the flowers in the vase the best I could. Finally, Dobby stopped beside me.

“You are supposed to paint what you see,” she said. “This is what you see?”

Before I could answer, she shrugged and moved on. A little while later she stopped near me again.

“Why is your canvas so small?” she asked. It was my turn to shrug (I’m French too, you know). I didn’t remember there being a canvas size requirement in the class materials list, I said. Dobby opened her arms wide. “If you want to learn to paint, you paint big!”

I told her I didn’t think I was going to learn how to paint from her if she didn’t give us any instructions. I was a complete beginner and knew nothing about painting. Her only response was “Hmpf!” as she tottered away.

Another student next to me said that was just the way the teacher was. I grabbed my materials, left the room, and got a refund for the course fee. I practiced a little on my own but decided I didn’t know what I was doing so I stopped. I was still a wanna-be artist, but I limited my non-writing artistic experiences to watching craft shows on TV.

Finding An Artistic Medium I Could Enjoy

In time, I started coloring, which I loved as a child and still love. Coloring is stress-free since someone else has done the drawing. All I have to do is choose which colors I’m going to use and have fun filling in the blanks.

One Saturday afternoon I was watching one of my favorite craft shows, Scrapbook Soup on PBS with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, and Julie had a guest who talked about art journaling. Certainly, I knew what a written journal was, but art journaling was something new.

So What is Art Journaling?

If you’re not familiar with art journaling, it’s the same as writing journaling except you’re using art supplies like colored pencils, paints, stencils, and stamps. Just as with writing journaling, art journaling is about the process and not about the finished product.

As I mentioned last week, when we keep writing journals we shouldn’t worry about what we’re writing—we’re writing for the sake of writing. It’s the same with an art journal. Art journaling is practice. We’re playing with the supplies, trying out different paints, different styles, and different color combinations without worrying about the final results.

You can art journal on whatever paper you have handy—a bound journal, a composition book, junk mail, old books, or magazines. You don’t need to take art classes. It’s the same learning-by-doing mentality that helps us become writers. Since no one sees my art journal but me, I don’t have to worry about some Dobby hovering over my shoulder shrugging as if I had no business even passing an art supply store.

I started slowly with art journaling, buying some cheap acrylic paints at the discount store, and I already had a pretty good stash of colored pencils, crayons, and markers from my coloring. I had an old sketchbook from the Dobby days, and that became my art journal.

I love stencils because I don’t have to worry about my drawing skills. I added a few paint markers to my stash of art supplies, and I have a box of patterned scrapbook paper because I’ve created scrapbooks on occasion. Art journaling is simply about playing with what you have and allowing yourself to express yourself in whatever way you feel in the moment. The only way to do it wrong is to not do it at all.

Avoiding Comparisonitis

Now, if you’re anything like me and suffer from comparisonitis, you’ll find that it’s very easy to fall into that trap when art journaling. Many of the people who make art journaling videos on YouTube or post their artwork on Pinterest are professional artists. It’s easy to look at their examples and think, “Well, I suck. What’s the point?”

Such thinking goes against the purpose of art journaling. You need to look at the examples as what they are—examples—and then do what you can at that moment. You can make your art journal pages look however you want. You can make them more like scrapbook pages, calendar pages, or anything else that comes to mind. You can paint flowers, stencil flowers, or doodle flowers. If you try something and don’t like it you can paint over it with gesso or work with it. 

Using Your Art Journal For Writing Projects

You can even play with your art journal as a way to work through your writing projects. You could storyboard scenes from your story in your art journal. You could draw or paint portraits of your characters or the setting. You could piece together a collage of various scenes from your story.

Don’t worry about how “good” your art is. This is a journal, not something you’re going to hang on a museum wall. Draw stick people. I do. Just like your written journal, your art journal is for your eyes only. Your art journal is a no-judgment zone where you’re playing with ideas.

Here are some ideas for art journaling for writers from Become a Writer Today. Here are some more art journaling ideas that include writing along with the mixed media element from My Modern Met. Here are even more ideas for your art journal from the good trade.

I studied mixed media journaling as part of my Ph.D. dissertation, so I’m biased about the benefits of such a practice. I won’t bore you with the details, but there is a lot of research about how the mixed-media approach helps people think more deeply.

You can easily incorporate elements of your writing project into your art journal. The only limit is the limit of your imagination.

Unleashing the Inner Creative

Art journaling was invented for someone like me, who loves to play with paint and color but doesn’t have much background knowledge about how to actually make art. Some of my art journal pages are kind of cool, some are kind of weird, and some are kind of cartoony, but you know what? It’s all good. Anything I do in my art journal is right for me. So there, Dobby!

Anything that sparks our inspiration, whether it’s a written journal, an art journal, coloring pages, reading books by other authors, cooking or baking new recipes, or even going for a walk to enjoy the warmer springtime sun, will be important for our writing. It all goes into the well, and we must keep our creative wells full if we want ideas to work with as we pursue our chosen projects.

Spending time with my art journal reminds me that I am a creative person, and as a writer, I need to keep my creativity close.