Normally, the last Saturday of the year or the first Saturday of the year, I have a small group of friends over and we do some sort of soul cleaning or brain cleaning or something that cleans out the old and starts our journey for the new year fresh. In the past years, we’ve done prosperity workshops (worked on our goals for the upcoming year and how we met our goals from the prior year), Soul Sisters (researched the types of spirituality in the world) and SoulCollageā¢ (sort of like vision quest cards, but better). This year, I introduced them (or most of them) to art journaling.
It was a small group, six including me. Two of them were artists, one a photographer and the other two grandmothers just enjoying life. Since absolutely no artistic skills are required to do art journaling, they all had fun and were all very successful in creating their first books.
What is Art Journaling?
That was the first question that each asked, even one of the artists. As we were all getting settled in around the table, I passed around my art journal and several of the ART Journaling magazines by Stampington. Still, there was that look on their faces, like “WHA?” Then I explained MY process.
- Find the inspiration source
I flip through magazines until I find that ONE image that speaks to me. Or, look at some of the things I’ve collected throughout my day (example: fortunes from fortune cookies or receipts from odd purchases). - Cut it out if needed
- I sit and just look at it for a bit to see if I can figure out why it really jumped out at me. What in the back of my sub-conscious made this one thing so important?
- Once I figure it’s meaning, I then start looking for words or other pictures from magazines, stickers and even old books
- I place them on the page and figure out what kind of background I want to use. Then I paint the page or glue on art paper or pages from old books or whatever I think will work with my image of inspiration
- Then the gluing begins and I put it all together
- Once everything is on the page, I start writing. Now, please understand that I’m a numbers person. Let me do a spreadsheet for you and I’ll be happy. Make me write up what I did…oh, no…not my thing. But, for some reason, that image of inspiration just draws out the thoughts. The page gets filled up fast
That Student Look of AHA! I Get It!
As I looked around the table, slowly the looks on their faces begin to change and that look of AHA! I Get It! started showing up. Then, questions and conversations among themselves – how did you do that? I want to do that! YES! and so on.