Art Journaling

Journaling Arts and Art Journaling

©2005 by aisling d'art

Personal journals are like diaries. You use them to tell your own life story, and sometimes to sort through issues and challenges. Your diary may be handwritten or typed. You can illustrate it with sketches, photos, or mementos... or allow your words to tell the entire story.
"Art journaling" is illustrating your personal journal or diary. You can use sketches, photos, paintings, or collage. You can glue in receipts, newspaper headlines or clippings, entries from the TV Guide for that day, or... anything visual, really. I've always kept a diary and illustrated it. As an adult, I still do. And, I've found that people--especially women--find new meaning and insights when they keep illustrated journals.

I have always tried to keep a journal, but after some time would become bored with my progress and put it aside. I have always loved putting things together visually like collages and scrapbooking. After browsing a few blogs that I like I became inspired to set out on my own "art journaling" adventure.

I had begun reading Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach over the summer and one of the ongoing activities in the book is to create and use an "Illustrated Discovery Journal". The idea of this journal is to gather together beautiful images and words that speak to your soul. She describes it as being an explorer's log to your authentic inner world. By gathering items from quotes, magazines, books, cards, and other things along your path your "inner self" will begin talking to you through your collages and thus give you a better understanding of what you truly love and long for in your life. Above is a picture of the cover I created for my discovery journal.

I will share more from this book it is overflowing with all kinds of wonderful activities and information. Now back to the task at hand...

Here I share the first few pages of my new art journal. They are each still works in progress as I will continue to add to each of them as I become inspired to do so.

This page I created for what I want to call my self portrait. It is a list of suggestion or affirmation for "being me". On the tags to the left I included 3 things the I wish to let go of. FEAR, DOUBT, and GUILT. All three are not shown in this picture, but did end up on the final page. I contemplated including words that I considered to be unpleasant or negative because I wanted my "self portrait" to only include items of positivity, but I followed my inner voice and included them anyways. Maybe because those three feelings often get in the way of me following my true self and rather than deny that they exist I need to be aware so that I can countereract them when they arise.

These other two pages that are included are still works in progress, but I still wanted to share them.