Art Journal Every Day: Take a Peek into My 2022 Art Journal (part 1)

If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, the concept is simple: It's a commitment to take ten minutes each day to do something in your art journal.  No need to finish anything or even like it.  It's about making the time to nourish your creativity every day!  If you have the time to flip through your phone, you have the time to Art Journal Every Day.  If you'd like to share what you make, use the hashtag #artjournaleveryday so that we can all take a peek.  You can find new Art Journal Every Day posts here on the blog most Fridays.  The archives go back to the first Art Journal Every Day post in 2010.

After a decade of having a regular daily art journaling practice, I abruptly stopped.  It was around the time I had my son.  Around the time the pandemic began.  I kind of limped through 2020 and 2021 with some sporadic art journaling -- and did manage to fill a journal during those two years.  But I found that I simply wasn't as interested in art journaling.  Or at least, not in the same way.

For almost two years I vacillated between being angry at myself and mourning the loss of the daily practice.

Then, one day, I was interested again. 

My art journal called to me and I found myself returning to a daily practice, albeit a slightly altered one.

Instead of an art journal filled with journaling (aka writing), I found myself creating layered pages that were purely color and pattern.

Over the next few weeks, I'm delighted to be sharing the pages I created in 2022.  Here's the first installment:

One of the things that I like the most about working in a junque journal is that it's a place for the old and the new to meet.  Old bits of paper or even old bits of art, like this face.  I get a chance to breathe new life into these old things by mixing them with new ideas and new skills.

This entire spread is just strips of bleeding tissue paper.

I loved weaving this paper leaf into my art journal for #weavethroughwinter last year and I'm so glad I finally got around to photographing it. My goal for this journal spread was to create something beautiful out of disparate scraps and junk, and I'm proud to see it come together.

This is the back of the weaving and what I call "a glue page."  I simply take whatever leftover scraps of paper I have and glue them randomly onto my page. Sometimes I cover up parts of the collage and sometimes -- such as in this instance -- I leave it.

"Strive for Progress, Not Perfection" is my personal motto.  Especially as a teacher of art.

Something I do in my art journal all the time is complete an image.  What does that mean?

The right side of this spread was a gelatin print.  The left side was just white.  So I painted the left side to match the right side. This helps me to train my eye, practice drawing, practice color mixing, and more!

The thing that hasn't changed about my art journal over the past 13 years is that it's still a place to experiment.  It's a place to test out terrible ideas.  It's not precious.  My art journal is a place to slowly build ideas over time.  It's a place to practice.  It's a place to dream.

It's different from my Studio Notebook (aka sketchbook) because it's less directed and more free-form. I rarely plan anything or have any goals.  I just sit for a few minutes and see what happens.  Sometimes I finish a page and sometimes I just add to the chaos.  My Studio Notebook is much more focused and laden with notes to myself.

There is no right or wrong way to art journal.  It's whatever feels good to you.  I look forward to sharing more pages in the coming weeks.

Thanks for stopping by!