Art Journals

What is an Art Journal?

An art journal, also known as Junk Journal or Visual Journal is a visual diary that combines record keeping and creativity! We’ve all been obsessed with planners and journals to track our everyday activities, while these are great and have a lot of room for creative interpretation, they can’t compare to the freedom of an Art Journal.

An art journal can be used to keep record of visual ideas and concepts, expressed using a multitude of media with the intention of interpreting the thought in image form. The process is meant to be almost cathartic for anyone creating since it allows you to make with no rules. Even a page, filled with scribbles is a page of an art journal.

How to start one?

Pick your Medium

The very best part of art journals are they can be made with anything. You can use traditional media – paper and pen or digital media, or even both. If you prefer traditional media, you can use a notebook, loose paper, an old book or magazine to start; if you prefer to make a digital art journal, you can use any software that lets you place and arrange pictures and text on a blank canvas. We recommend Microsoft Powerpoint Online, Google Slides, Adobe Spark; for free – and any professional design software for a price.

Anything can be used for art journaling!

Set an Intention

It helps if you know what you’d like to project in your journal. If you don’t have a specific idea, you can always seek the help of a prompt list.

Techniques

Here is where things get fun. There are hundreds of ways you can fill your journal. From finger painting to full detail sketches, collages and even pages just filled with stickers, you can use any method you feel like in the moment.

**ILLUSTRATION** – A dated journal page documenting travels and food! (Source)

COLLAGE – “Junk Journal Cards” as offered by an Etsy shop. (Source)

PAINTING & COLORING – Just a Pink Page. (Source)

COMBINATION – Journal constructed of fabric and lace. (Source)

Prompt List

Here’s a Bujo spread created to track some inspired ideas for art journal.

References

Tumblr, Instagram and Pinterest are all great resources for ideas on techniques and prompts. Some sites like https://mindfulartstudio.com/how-to-start-an-art-journal/ have free courses, resources and tips to create and better your journal.

Share some of your journal pages with us! Let us know if you have some interesting prompts for journaling. How’d you like the post? Let us know in the comments below!