Things You'll Need:
- A journal
- A pen or pencil
- Eraser
- Art Supplies [optional]
- Colouring pencils, chalk, magazine cut-outs, felt tip pens, sharpies, anything else you like to draw with.
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Step 1
Purchase a journal or notebook according to your personal preference. Large or small, lined pages or blank pages, thick pages or thin pages. I recommend a Large Moleskine Notebook with thick acid-free pages (used by famous Artists such as Van Gogh, Chatwin, Hemingway, Matisse and Céline).
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Step 2
Purchase a reliable pen. Fine liners or Sharpies create beautiful flowling lines, unlike a boring ballpoint pen. Make sure you have thick enough paper so that the ink doesn't leak (see Moleskine above). You may want to use permenant ink as ink fades over time. You will want to keep your journal(s) as wonderful memories.
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Step 3
Find a place that you would like to begin writing in your journal, with good lighting. This may be your bedroom, a coffee shop, a park bench, your favourite place. Make sure you can concentrate and arent bothered by others.
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Step 4
You may want to start the first page with a short profile about yourself, your hobbies, likes, dislikes, age, and when you have completed your journal, on the last page you can write another profile to see how you've changed.
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Step 5
If you're having trouble where to start or how to start, choose a random page and begin from there! Here are some tips on what to draw/write: Draw what you've eaten that day, write about how you feel, write about someone you admire or love deeply, write about something you wish you never did, draw lots of circles and colour them in, draw something to visually describe how you feel.
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Step 6
Use your art supplies to create different outcomes. Try colouring an image, and going over the lines in fine liner to create a cartoony picture. Mix different materials to create different effects in your journal.
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Step 7
Add clippings or photos into your journal, such as train tickets, theatre tickets, movie tickets, receipts, etc. Write notes at the side about how much fun you had, what movie you saw, who you went with, the date, what was the occasion. These are fun memories to look back on.
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Step 8
Express yourself! Your journal is yours to do with as you please. Don't worry about 'messing it up'. It doesn't matter. It's yours, no one else will see it and as long as you do it and it means something to you, who cares! To get over this, try messing the first page up on purpose, or the back, or the middle - anywhere!
Comments
crdavis said
on 11/6/2009 Nice article butterflysignal. Interesting and well-written.
axll said
on 3/15/2009 I think this is a really interesting idea, I keep both a sketch book and a diary and this just seems like a much easier combination of the two. Good idea outlining the importance of pen choice as a lot of people overlook that.
robertsloan2 said
on 10/3/2007 Good article. I liked this, short and simple. A few images would have been nice, but you got across the idea of an art journal well. I especially liked it that you mentioned Moleskine journals, since I use a small pocket Moleskine for jotting sketches anywhere I am and it's very sturdy. There's a reason famous writers and artists use them!