What Is Art Journaling?

Bonjour!

After slogging through the pandemic and pregnancy, I was ready for a new creative outlet. I happened to find an online art journaling workshop hosted by the campus wellbeing services center at the university where I work. Today’s post introduces art journaling and its benefits for self expression and mental health and wellness.

Art Journaling 101

Art journaling builds on the concept of writing in a journal to express your thoughts or process emotions and experiences and combines elements of painting, scrapbooking, and pastiche. Teacher and artist Suzanna Challen led a three-part workshop covering the process of art journaling: tearing, gluing, and finishing.

You can learn more about Suzanna’s art journaling and health journeys on her website.

Tearing: Every art journaling project begins with tearing. You can tear up magazines, catalogs, books, pictures, postcards, greeting cards, and other ephemera (ticket stubs, clothing tags, labels, receipts, etc.). Pieces can be any shape or size. You can also use scissors to cut out images, but rough and unpredictable edges remind us that the pieces don’t have to be “perfect” or look the way we expected.

Gluing: The second step to an art journaling project is gluing down the torn pieces. Suzanna keeps an actual journal with large, blank pages on which to create her projects. I used a thin piece of canvas board and mounted my pieces – some torn and some cut – using Mod Podge.

Finishing: The third step of art journaling is adding some finishing touches. Suzanna shared examples of using paint, pen, or marker to embellish and trim our projects. After I glued my torn pieces down, I used white acrylic paint and black Sharpie markers to add details and designs. When all was dry and set, I sealed the canvas with a clear varnish.

My Artistic Process

Suzanna encouraged us to be in the moment, follow our gut instinct, and not overthink the process or the product of our projects. She reminded us that art journaling pieces don’t need to “look” a certain way to be “good” – each one is a unique and authentic expression of a certain mood, moment, or experience. Check out this article on six ways nurture your creativity here.

I used the art journaling workshop as a way to practice clearing my mind and being in the moment. I also wanted to make a decoration for Le Bebe‘s nursery. And I’d never taken an online art class before and figured I’d better lean into the new normal of online programming (merci, COVID).

My approach was simple: I grabbed a few Vanity Fair magazines and a stack of inspirational quotes torn from a gift book and got going! Having spent a lot of time during the last five years feeling drained and overwhelmed by moving, work, and the world, it was to connect with a creative activity that let me relax and focus on just one thing with free of expectations or judgment.

Artist Statement

Suzanna encouraged us to draft an artist’s statement to accompany our art journaling pieces and capture the inspiration for and process of making the project. I wrote my artist statement shortly after completing the finishing touches on my first collage and share it below. It gave me a chance to consider why I wanted to try art journaling in the first place and what I learned through the process.

I was inspired to make this piece by the birth of my first (and only) baby, now six months old. I wanted to make something for the nursery using the décor colors of black, yellow, and white. I have long nurtured an interest in and passion for pastiche in both film and art and have dabbled in painting, drawing, scrapbooking, and collage since childhood. This piece expresses my deepest hope for my baby – “start each day with a happy laugh” – and for myself as I recover from a high-risk pregnancy and journey into parenthood.

How will you channel your creative energy into a positive outlet?

Merci for reading and please subscribe and share!

À votre santé,

Katie