Art Journal Every Day: A Weekly Plan
January 28, 2011
Hello! Hello! It's almost February! Can you believe that we've been on this journey for twenty-eight days? Wow! Thank you to everyone who has decided to come along for the Art Journal Every Day journey!
Remember, all you need is ten minutes a day, a notebook, and somewhere you can leave that book out.
I've gotten so many questions and comments about getting motivated to create every single day. I know that some of you are off and running and there are some others who have fallen off the wagon or haven't managed to start yet. And you know what? That's awesome, because we're coming up on a new month. So anyone who managed to (mostly) complete January, gold star! And for everyone else, let's start with a clean slate in February!
I realize that my way of art journaling is not everyone else's way. So I thought I'd share a few ideas on how you might incorporate Art Journal Every Day into your life, no matter your style! For each day I've indicated a task you can do that will take around ten minutes. I've arbitrarily divided art journalers into five categories:
- painty - love to splash paint and mist around and can't get enough gesso
- wordy - less of an art-er and more of a journaler and storyteller
- collage-ish - love patterned paper, magazine pages, and decoupage medium
- scrapbook-ish - used to using photos when you tell your stories
- doodler - can't stay away from the pens and markers
You may be all five of these or you may be none of these. And that may change from week-to-week. Remember these are simply suggestions. You can do Art Journal Every Day any way you wan tot! This post is meant to inspire and spark you, not tell you what to do. These are just a few ideas that can each be done in less than ten minutes! So if you're looking for some motivation, pick a style and stick with it all week long! (It might be interesting to play with a style that's not your own too -- get out of your comfort zone, you know?)
I've included some art journal pages along the way simply because I can't stand a post without images, but I have to admit they have nothing to do with the daily tasks. I just liked them. All images were borrowed from the blogs and flickr pages of Art Journal Every Day participants!
(image is from Jeanet)
Saturday
- If you're painty: Prep a page. For me that means masking tape and gesso. (See some notes about that in this post.) If you have time, prep more than one page.
- If you're wordy: Set a timer and write in your art journal for 7 minutes without stopping. Spend the next 3 minutes circling words that jump out at you.
- If you're collage-ish: Flip through a magazine and rip out images that interest you.
- If you're scrapbook-ish: Grab a photo and glue it into your book. Divide your page in half. Write everything that the photo makes you think about in one half.
- If you're a doodler: Fill your page with circles. Fill the circles with circles. Fill those circles with circles. Stop after ten minutes.
(image from Gil Jusara)
Sunday
- If you're painty: Apply acrylic paint with a credit card (see Linda's instructions here). Scratch into it with a toothpick.
- If you're wordy: Form a crazy poem from only the words you circled yesterday.
- If you're collage-ish: Take the pile of images and start to cut out the ones you really like.
- If you're scrapbook-ish: Set a timer for 60 seconds. Review yesterday's text. Circle all the words that interest you. Spend the next 9 minutes playing with lettering styles on the other half of your page (draw, stamp, use stickers, whatever you want). Or watch this hand lettering video instead!
- If you're a doodler: Draw two rectangles. Spend five minutes creating crazy zentangles inside each one.
(image from Lay Hoon)
Monday
- If you're painty: Add pattern: paint a pattern on your page or use stamps. If you've got the supplies on hand, think about taking seven of your ten minutes to carve a stamp (scroll to the end of the post for the tutorial)!
- If you're wordy: Time for some thinking. Spend five minutes analyzing yesterdy's poem. Now spend five minutes rewriting it with your own words. You may need a little tweaking or a lot. Think haiku.
- If you're collage-ish: Glue down your images. (My collage glue of choice lately is Liquitex Matte Medium.) And check out the collage-a-day flickr pool for some inspiration!
- If you're scrapbook-ish: Grab a photo of a person and alter the background: paint over it, replace it with patterned paper, sand it away -- have fun!
- If you're a doodler: Try doing something totally rebellious today...zentangle in color! That's right. Instead of a black pen, grab a color (or seven) and go to town!
(image from giogio)
Tuesday
- If you're painty: Apply gesso with a credit card - apply and scrape so that the layers underneath are just visible, and yet obscured. While the gesso dries, grab some book pages and paint some shapes on them (circles or hearts or birdcages or whatever you'd like -- You can see some book page hearts and how I used them in this step-by-step post).
- If you're wordy: Make a list of your favorite foods.
- If you're collage-ish: Embellish your collage with pens, paints, markers -- your choice. Don't be afraid to ruin it. Go for it!
- If you're scrapbook-ish: Journal about the person. Stuck on how to find the words? This isn't school. No one is checking your spelling and punctuation. Start a list and don't censor it. Write in fragments, talk in colors. There's no right way to write!
- If you're a doodler: Let's try an experiment! Doodle with something other than a pen or a marker: paint, crayon -- okay -- but let's think really far out of the box! What can you imagine? How about a toothpick and food coloring? What's an unconvential idea that's just waiting to be discovered?
(image from Didi)
Wednesday
- If you're painty: Cut out your shapes and adhere them to your page randomly.
- If you're wordy: Write the answers to the following questions in your journal: (1) Where are you? (2) What time is it? (3) What are you looking forward to? (4) What are you regretting? (5) What do you hear? (6) What do you smell? (7) What do you feel? (8) What's the last dream you had? (9) Where do you wish you were? (10) What's a question that's percolating in your mind?
- If you're collage-ish: Add text to your collage. Print it out, stamp it, write it, use stickers. Even if it's one word, get some text on there, baby! You can spend nine minutes thinking of the perfect word and one minute putting it on the page!
- If you're scrapbook-ish: Create four different picture frames on your page. (Check out my hand drawn frame in the middle of this post, or use rub-ons, stickers, or even print them out!)
- If you're a doodler: See this pattern? It looks super complicated. Try to doodle part of it. Break it down in your mind until you can! (Don't like that pattern? Awesome! Choose a different one!)
(image from NaNa)
Thursday
- If you're painty: Time for text. Write down a few thoughts. But do it with a paintbrush. It doesn't have to be legible. Think of the text as a design element and don't worry about what you're saying. Let the words flow out of you!
- If you're wordy: Draw nine circles. Fill each one with a hope for the future.
- If you're collage-ish: Pick a color. Start cutting squares from patterned paper or magazines that are in that color.
- If you're scrapbook-ish: Fill the frames with photos.
- If you're a doodler: Put away that clean white paper. Grab some notebook paper and doodle away like it's geometry class and you're sixteen again.
(image from Sarah Harris)
Friday
- If you're painty: Prep a new page. If you already managed to prep a few pages on Saturday, then go ahead and paint some wide stripes on your prepped page. And congrats! You have now art journaled every single day for one whole week!
- If you're wordy: Review yesterday's nine circles. Choose a color that fits each one. Use paint or markers or colored pencils or whatever you'd like to color each circle appropriately. Feel free to color over the text and obscure it1 And congrats! You have now art journaled every single day for one whole week!
- If you're collage-ish: Glue down your monochromatic collage. (Check out iHanna's amazing green collage here.) And congrats! You have now art journaled every single day for one whole week!
- If you're scrapbook-ish: Find a quote or song lyric that ties the four images together. And congrats! You have now art journaled every single day for one whole week!
- If you're a doodler: Take a peek at yesterday's notebook paper doodle. Cut out a chunk of it that you like and glue it into your art journal. Continue the doodle from the chunk you cut out onto the rest of your art journal page! And congrats! You have now art journaled every single day for one whole week!
I'm ready to go! How about you?
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P.S. Tomorrow I will have a new linky list for you to sign up to participate in February (short month, only 28 days!). So be sure to come back and sign up. You'll have the ability to include a small image with your link, and I think that's going to be so cool! So think about what you want your image to be!