Art Journaling

Many people find pleasure in journaling. Writing about their thoughts and feelings and expressing themselves on the pages in words. An art journal takes it a step further. You can write, draw, paint, color, decoupage or whatever you want to express yourself. You can use pages of paper, or a book or fabric, it's all up to you.

I encourage all kids to keep an art journal. It doesn't have to be like anybody else's, just express yourself in art as you go. You don't even have to fill up each page. You can go back and add to pages later.

There are many books written about art journaling and also try looking up art collage books. But you don't have to look at a book to create an art journal, just get your art supplies together and start experimenting.

Don't know how to start a page? Try painting a background color, mix it up a little by painting a couple accent colors on the page as well. Mix up the brush strokes a little, but not too much with the background color. Then add some stamps, magazine clipping, photos, old book pages, stickers, cayrons, pastels, markers, etc. Now ideas should start to build and expand.

When I start a page often I really don't know how it's going to end up. Sometimes it has a clear path and sometimes it changes completely from where I started. Most of the fun is in the creating. Here are a few of my pages from my art journal.