The Joy of Art Journaling

I’ve shown this one of my three cats before, but it’s one of my favorites. I found the shape of the cats on Pinterest, then made a stencil of it with card stock.

I fell in love with art as a sophomore in college when I happened to take an art history class. I didn’t know much about art then, but the class fulfilled a humanities requirement and it had open seats so I grabbed it. The class covered the time period from the earliest cave paintings through the Roman Empire. I remember the professor seemed so ancient to my 19 year old eyes, but was probably in his mid forties, not old at all now that I’m in my mid forties myself. He was a slight, slender man in his khaki pants, polo shirts, and sweater tied around his neck though it was summer in the San Fernando Valley in California. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone as excited about their subject as that professor was. He spoke with such enthusiasm, describing the hieroglyphics inside the Egyptian pyramids as though they were indeed messages handed down by the gods. I remember the professor leading a class expedition to the J. Paul Getty Museum, and I remember the feeling of complete enchantment as I studied the Greek statues and pottery. I found the professor, and his subject, endearing, and it was because of that class I developed a lifelong love for art in all its forms.

My first attempt at watercolors. I’ve since learned that you’re supposed to paint watercolors on wet paper. I like the whimsical look because it’s not supposed to be realistic.

As much as I love to visit museum exhibitions of the great artists, I never thought of myself as much of an artist. I was a writer, so I had to content myself with the fact that I got my creative expression from writing. A number of years ago I dabbled in painting with acrylics, but I really didn’t know what I was doing. I tried to take a painting class at the extension university where I was teaching creative writing, but the teacher wasn’t all I hoped she would be. She 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 huge round black glasses that took up the whole of her face. She tottered around the classroom shrugging at the students’ paintings the way only the French can. There was no instruction. There were no 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. That was it. I looked around and saw students painting, but I didn’t even know where to start. I had never taken an art class. Yes, I loved to look at paintings, but looking and painting are two very different things. I started painting the flowers in the vase the best I could. Finally, Dobby stopped besides me and shrugged. “You are supposed to paint what you see,” she said. “This is what you see?”

This one is kind of busy but I love the colors peeking through. I was using molding paste for the first time and got a little carried away.

“Yes” was the only answer that seemed appropriate. She shrugged again and moved on. A little while later she stopped near me again.

“Why is your canvas so small?” she asked. Now 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!”

For this one I was trying out some new stencils I had just bought. Stencils are great for someone like me who doesn’t draw too well.

I told her the truth. I didn’t think I was going to learn how to paint from her if she didn’t give us any instruction. 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 money I paid for the class. I practiced a little on my own, but then decided I wasn’t good at it because I didn’t know what I was doing so I stopped painting. I still considered myself a wanna-be artist, but I limited my non-writing artistic experiences to watching craft shows on TV.

Last year I started coloring, which I enjoy. It’s stress free because someone else has done the drawing. All I have to do is choose which colors I’m going to use and have fun. Then earlier this summer I was watching one of my favorite craft shows, Scrapbook Soup on PBS with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, and she had a guest on who talked about art journaling. Art journaling? What’s this? Certainly, I knew what journaling was. Like most writers, I’ve been keeping a journal for years, but art journaling was something new to me.

This is one of the first art journal pages I did. I was just playing around slapping some paint around the page.

If you’re not familiar with art journaling, it’s really 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. When we keep writing journals we don’t worry about what we’re writing—we’re just writing. In Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg calls it writing practice. It’s the same with art journaling. It’s art practice. We’re not trying to create completed pieces of artwork for display. We’re playing with the supplies, trying out different paints and different styles and different color combinations, not worrying about the final result. We’re doing it just for the enjoyment. You can art journal on whatever paper you have handy—a bound journal, a composition book, even junk mail, old books, or magazines. You need only a few basic materials to get started. You don’t need to take art classes. It’s the same learning by doing mentality that helped me become a writer, and since no one is going to see what’s in my art journal but me, I don’t have to worry about some little wide-rimmed Dobby hovering over my shoulder shrugging as if I had no business even passing an art supply store.

Here are some circles I turned into easy flowers.

With my interest in art journaling piqued, I began watching videos on YouTube. Mimi Bondi’s videos are great. Mimi is a French woman living in Australia, and she’s nothing like Dobby. In fact, she’s exactly the opposite. Her art is all about having fun. She’s the one who taught me that art journaling should be about playing as if you were a kid again. She spreads the paint for the background on her pages with her fingers, and now I do the same. If you’re interested in art journaling, check out Mimi’s videos. There are a whole lot of great art journaling examples on YouTube. I found a wealth of inspiration from Pinterest too since there are thousands of examples of art journal pages to see and learn from.

When I began art journaling, I started slowly, buying some cheap acrylic paint at the discount store, and I already had a pretty good stash of colored pencils, crayons, and markers because of my coloring. I had an old sketch book from the Dobby days when I tried to paint the first time, and that became my art journal. Now that I’ve been art journaling for a couple of months I bought myself more acrylic paints, and I love stencils because I don’t have to worry about my drawing skills. A lot of art journalists use stamps, but stamps are expensive and I haven’t gotten there yet. You can make your own stamps, but I haven’t tried it. I’m happy with my acrylic paints, colored pencils, and stencils. I’ve also started doodling (there are many easy to draw examples of doodles on Pinterest). I added a few paint markers to my stash, and I had 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 the freedom to express yourself in whatever way you feel in the moment.

My first attempt with mini gelli plates.

Now, if you’re anything like me and have suffered from compare-itis, you’ll find it’s very easy to fall back 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, so it’s very easy to look at their examples and think, “Well, I suck. What’s the point?” But that goes against the very purpose of art journaling. You need to look at the examples as what they are—examples—and then do what you can do in that moment. You can make your art journal pages look however you want—you can make them more like scrapbook pages, calendar pages, bullet journals. You can paint flowers, stencil flowers, doodle flowers. If you try something and don’t like it you can either paint over it with gesso or try to work with it. You can’t do it wrong. How cool is that?

I watched an Angela Anderson tutorial on YouTube to paint this one.

I feel as if art journaling was invented for someone like me—someone who loves to play with paint and color but doesn’t have much background knowledge about how to actually make art. I’ve been having a lot of fun playing around in my art journal, and that’s all that matters. Some pages I like more than others. For some pages I use examples I’ve been on Pinterest or YouTube as my inspiration, and some pages come completely from my imagination. Some of my pages are kind of cool, and some are kind of weird, but you know what? It’s all good. Anything I do in my art journal is right for me. So there, all you Dobbies of the world!

While I will always be a writer first, I’m enjoying having other artistic pursuits. I can’t write all day, and coloring and art journaling give me something to do that is stressless, fun, and still creative.

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