Art journaling

[wayfaringwordhack]

frigg  and I are going to start art journaling tomorrow. We've promised to do it each day for 5-30 minutes.  At the moment, 30 minutes sounds too daunting to me, but five, I'm sure I can handle.

Art and I have an uneasy friendship due to my fear of failure and desire for Perfection.  I always want to do something right and well the first time, so even silly sketching is hard for me to accomplish.  I hope journaling will help me let go and just "do."

The book I will be using for this project is a testament to how splendidly my grand designs and ambitions can fail.



I began using it for our first trip to Madagascar, and this watercolor, which I shared in this post (link opens in a new window), is one of the only ones in the book:




This unfinished sketch is the next, from our Madagascar trip in 2009, two years later, when a lack of wind caused us to make landfall in a village on the way to Belo-sur-Mer. We spent the day in front of this hut, watching Malagasy life go on around us, then slept that night on the beach wrapped in the sail with our two sailor "guides."



I don't think I'll be posting my journaling--it will be good and, hopefully, freeing for me to know there is no possibility of censure--but you never know.  

Does anyone else keep an art journal?  If so, do you keep it private?  What are your feelings about art journaling? I don't just mean art as in the visual but also writing, etc.

Comments

[frigg.livejournal.com]

So pretty! Now I will have to go to the basement to see if I can find such a fancy journal instead of that little red school notebook that I had in my office. :p

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

hehe. Book jealousy? I would not have thought it of you, pea!

[frigg.livejournal.com]

I just don't want to look half-arsed next to that. :p

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Those are beautiful sketches. Even if you're not sharing online (which I can totally understand), will you and Frigg at least be exchanging with each other? That could be cool--passing your journals to each other--but if it involves airmailing, I guess it could get expensive.

I don't keep a sketch journal, not regularly, but when we lived in Japan as a family, I kept a journal and did sometimes put sketches into it. And I used to keep a paper journal, but not any more--except for when I go on trips.

[nipernaadiagain.livejournal.com]

So tempting!

May-be what I want to do is not same as you do, but since my youngest son suddenly decided he wanted to study art (BTW, finished high school this spring, two weeks of exams to the Art Academy, got accepted to painting ... and picked philosophy in Tartu University instead, as he wants to study more theory as long as he can ...), I have been looking at his sketches and feeling that I SHOULD start drawing again

May-be I will now? Just for a bit and if I allow myself not just drawing, but also collage if that would be all I can do that day?

So tempting!

Thank you for bringing this topic up and for sharing th sketches - those are lovely!

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I plan on doing collages, too! As well as jotting down nice descriptions, prose, etc. that occurs to me. I figure it is my journal and whatever makes me feel creative is OK.

I wish I would have studied art more seriously. As it was, I took a drawing class at university, but whenever I mentioned wanting to go into art when I was younger, all I heard was discouragement. *sigh*

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

We will share, yes, but by posting photos rather than sending the books. However, I do plan on visiting her someday in Denmark and will be sure to take my journal along!

I always mean to journal on trips, don't, and then regret it. Julien is good about doing it, though. :)