One of my goals for 2011 is to art journal more. I love watching Donna’s Inspiration Wednesday and looking at journal pages of many of the artists I admire. There are so many art journalers that I admire and I want to make this more of a regular practice in my life. I think it will go a long way in helping me expand my art.
Here are few things I want to use art journaling for:
– explore new techniques
– try different mediums
– practice drawing
– play around with different color combinations
Here are some artists whose art journal pages (or just art in general) inspire me:
– Donna Downey
– Pam Carriker
– Dina Wakley
– Tam Laporte
– Misty Mawn
– Rebecca Sower
– Alisa Burke
– DJ Pettitt
– Judy Wise
– Julie Fei-Fan Balzer
(many more coming)
Here’s what I did to prepare for this project.
First of all, I bought a journal. I wasn’t sure what to go for and I might want to do stitching so my first hunch was to not go with anything bound but I did anyway. I went with a Strathmore Visual Journal in 5.5×8 watercolor paper. I wanted to make it personalized and have it represent my word for the year so I altered the cover with some fabric and put a bird and the word Free on the front cover:
on the back, i made a birdcage and wrote “no more cages”
so here’s how the whole thing looks:
The second thing I did was start a list of art journal pages that inspire me so that I could have ideas to pull from. I am not intending on selling or publishing any of these pages. They are for me to explore, experiment, and have fun. So it’s ok to try to recreate other people’s ideas. I find that this helps me get started and it also gives me the push I need to eventually develop into my own style. I used pinterest for this so here’s my board and I will add to it continuously and also I note what part of the page spoke to me so I can remember what idea I wanted to try out.
And finally, I plan for most of my themes to revolve around my word. So I collected a list of quotes on letting go of the past, being free to be anything you want, that you can accomplish anything, etc.
That’s it. Let’s see how it goes.
If you have art journalers you follow, I would love for you to leave their names/blogs in the comments. I really love discovering new artists!!
ps: I also wanted to add that if you’re interested in even going farther, Julie is doing an amazing project called Art Journal Daily in 2011. I highly recommend checking it out. Julie is amazing.
Lovely list of great aritst and your cover is beautiful. I totally agree on letting the bird be free…I’ve personally never really like the caged bird motif!
Love this idea. I love making art journal pages, and one of my resolutions for 2011 is to make more of them.
Julie Balzer are going to give a project about that. You can see more here: http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/2010/12/art-journal-every-day.html
About art journalers, I like very much:
Tammy, from Daisy Yellow: http://daisyyellow.squarespace.com/
Julie Prichard: http://www.julieprichard.com/blog/
Kelly Kilmer: http://kellykilmer.blogspot.com/
Hanna: http://www.ihanna.nu/blog/
And a lot others! I’m looking forward to see what you’ll make in art journal! Have a wonderful week!
thank you so much!! I had visited Kelly, Hanna and Julie before but not Tammy. I will add all of them to my list!
THIS IS A PERFECT IDEA!!! i will borrow this idea from you if you do not mind!
i do not mind at all!! I am so glad you liked it and i can’t wait to see your pages 🙂
Love the cover and can’t wait to see what you’re going to put in it. I would love to make an art journal but with 4 kids between 1 and 7 I seem to lack time. I am going to give it a go. Thanks for the inspiration.
maybe you can just do it for 15 minutes once a week? that doesn’t seem so bad. it’s amazing what you can get done in 15 minutes sometimes. i am trying to sketch each day for 15 minutes. I figure it’s still better than nothing!
LOVE what you’ve done with your journal. I’m giving this a go this year too. Mine always seems to peter out during the year, but hopefully this will be the year I stick with it! Can’t wait to see what you create!
mine do too but you know what? better to do a little than none at all!! 🙂
Thanks for the list of amazing blogs and the women who develop them. I am excited by all of the wonderful new ideas and the prospect of Art Journaling on my own. Thanks again for sharing, Ami
can’t wait to see what you do! isn’t it so wonderful that we have all this inspiration available to us?
Congratulations to you on the Pink Paislee honor – you should be so proud of yourself. Your work, your style, the life that it shows is really something so, so special. A wonderful, warm pat on the back – I can’t wait to see what is to come!!
thank you so much! I am so grateful, in awe but also deeply grateful. thank you 🙂
Love your journal. I started one after attending a class with Donna last year and absolutely love the free feeling and expression of her art! Thanks for sharing yours and the other artist you follow. I too follow them and get so much inspiration from all of them, including YOU!!
Karen this is inspired! I love it. There are so many wonderful art journal artists out there. When I started, not long ago, I’d go to flickr and just type art journal in the search box. Here’s the link to Julie’s Art Journal Every Day group http://www.flickr.com/groups/1562482@N24/
Thanks for sharing all of these amazing journalers! I am also a big journaler, and it really helps to look at other artist’s work for inspirtaion!