What Is Art Journaling?

I have previously shared with you some of my journal pages from some summer travel journals, both last summer and the summer before. But despite those attempts to include journaling in my life, I had not yet succeeded, nor did I really truly understand the idea behind an “art journal.”  Ding ding ding, today as I type this I can finally say that I am beginning to understand the idea of keeping an art journal as well as the purpose of this creative practice! The practice called art journaling involves a mix of whatever floats your boat, and whatever gives you joy to create!

Before I was so nervous about messing up in the precious journal that I didn’t find it to be that amazing place where I could experiment or develop creativity. Now, life looks different all together as I have started an art journal that is not about sketching or painting but rather mostly multi-media, which means I can have all the fun in the world, and if I don’t like the results I can do a collage on top, or paint over it! So, what was the game changer in my new love for art journaling? NOT starting with a blank white page, but rather preparing a really messy or colorful or patterned/abstract background which serves as the inspiration for what will go on top of that ground. And like painting, whether or not the background ends up being part of the final results, well that really is of no concern, because it is the journey and the creative process that count!

Interested in hearing a bit more about my new-found art journaling love? Keep on reading……

Okay, so I don’t have access to a store that sells quality watercolor paper journals, (and any ordered in the country would be very pricey I’m sure) and Amazon is not currently shipping to Israel (plus who want to wait?) so I decided to make my own journal. And since I was making my own I figured I’d prepare all the pages with backgrounds, and then fold them and sew them together. So I spent a few days first covering both sides of every page with gesso, and then creating colorful backgrounds using permanent ink and acrylic ink, which was truly amazing and so much fun. The gesso keeps the ink from absorbing into the page, so you can play around with it before it drys, and create so many drippy, or sponged, or blended color backgrounds that in themselves look like works of art. I also added some hebrew letters on some, as well a some geometric shapes on others, ah yes and before adding the color I lay down white paper stickers, and paper masking tape, which absorb the color of the ink differently and look amazing.

After all the pages were dry I tried to figure out a nice arrangement such that the resulting spreads would be interesting, and then I did a not so great job of sewing together the signatures, and voila, a journal was born. The page I’m showing you here is actually the first spread that I did, (starting at the beginning was too scary) and since then I’ve done almost all the preceding pages (I’m numbering them 1 through 50) and am on a roll, since the goal is to finish this little journal in time for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot.

We are now in the period on the Jewish calendar called the “Omer” which is a time in which we work on ourselves in preparation for receiving the Torah on the holiday of Shavuot, so this journal is a self exploration project of sorts as well as an art project! And most of all, I hope that after I finish this journal I’ll just have to start another. The lesson here is that with every creative practice you have to find what works for you, and for me, just painting or sketching or drawing in a journal was not the answer, I needed a creative challenge of making something from an abstract beginning, using paint, paper collage, white gel pens, etc.

That is all for now, I am on a schedule in order to finish this art journal, or rather to catch up and reach page #33 by Lag B’Omer, which is on Tuesday, and then I can relax a bit and do one page a day! Ah yes, did I answer that question “What is Art Journaling?” Well dear readers is it something that gets you so excited ideas come flying out of nowhere and you can’t wait to try them out the next day!