Art Journals

Some weeks ago, one of my stitching friends led me to a blog called Balzer Designs. After browsing around for a while,  I came across a page about art journaling. What was art journaling ? So I started reading and researching and got inspired.

From what I understand , an art journal can be anything you want it to be. A place to sketch, paint, paste, colour, draw, write, in fact anything creative on paper.

I have been working on visual diaries now for some years, and have quite a few. So how is an art journal different from a visual diary? In fact, I think my pile of visual diaries meet the description of an art journal. I have drawn, pasted, written, and in a few cases coloured. These diaries are my inspiration now for all my stitching.

Possibly the difference between an art journal and my visual diaries might be the 'artistic view'. My visual diaries are quick sketches of things that inspire me, with simple notes written with arrows to help explain what I mean. Sometimes there may be pages from magazines stuck in, which could be anything that may inspire me. It could be a photograph from a travel magazine, a cut section from an advertising leaflet, a cut section from a textile magazine. I even have visual diaries now for specific things. I have one especially for lace, one for drawn thread work, and one especially for any kind of machine sewing, like possible applique or garment construction. My visual diaries may not be pretty to look at, and my not have pages that could be hung on a wall, but they are full of inspiration.

In my reading over the last few days, one of the things I found was that starting was the biggest issue, and staring at that blank white page becomes intimidating. It sure does, but looking around at our surroundings or thinking about our day and what we have done gives us plenty of inspiration. We just have to make a mark on paper. How many times have I been told that over the years?

So why start an art journal rather than a visual diary? In my case I want to explore my creative talent in a different form. I am so comfortable with playing with fabric, needles and thread, now I am going to see how far I can go into the paper/ art world, and yes it is uncomfortable. Sure, I have played with paper and paint before, but I always come back to textiles. It is after all in my blood.

I invite you all to follow me in this journey to see how far I go. At the moment I am just playing with a black ball point pen and white paper. Hopefully I may get the courage to delve deeper with paint, other papers and colour in it's many forms. The above pic is page one of my new art journal. let's see how many more I can create and how I grow.