Art Jornaling

For those of you who are not familiar with art journaling, it is exactly as it sounds, a combination of art and journaling. I first decided to give it a shot about seven years ago when I was inspired by the published journal of artist Sabrina Ward Harrison. Her book was called "Spilling Open- The art of becoming yourself." I have always been a big journaler and then this adds one of my other greatest passions, art. Now let me make something clear, when I say that it is one of my greatest passions this does not necessarily mean I am good at it. But the wonderful thing about art journals is there is no right or wrong. You CAN"T mess it up. There are NO rules! You can use any and every sort of art supply or found objects in your journal and just let yourself and your emotions just spill out onto the pages.

Its an incredibly theraputic process. Its not something that has to be pretty. If you're angry you can scribble in black or red, the point is to give your emotions some place to go so that you can get past them. This is also great way to figure out things. These pages started a series of pages answering the question, "Who do I want to be?" One of the things I love is trying all sorts of different techniques. I will try to share some of these with you in the future. There are also some great tutorials on Youtube. (I've decided I LOVE Youtube! You can learn how to do anything on there!) You might not be able to tell, but on the above right hand page I printed one of my favorite quotes on acetate and then just used stickers to tape it in. This is what the quote says:

"I want to be a woman who lives with TRUTH and without fear. I want to reach the highest vibration of humanity possible. I want my LIGHT to shine so brightly that others will be attracted to it and be compelled to SHINE as brightly. I want to be truth in the universe, to SEEK it, to STAND for it, to BE it. "

~Oprah Winfrey

You'll notice that I like to put quotes in my art journals. I find it a perfect way to keep favorites that I hear or read. Its a nice way to keep them accessible.

This last one I did recently, but the others were from my first art journal. I can see my style changing as I learn new things. I will share more pages soon. These were kind of similiar because I happened to choose several with quotes, but I journal all sorts of pages. Sometimes there is alot of journaling and sometimes it is more art. Sometimes I may not have much to say, but I feel like creating, so I'll just work on backrounds and then another time, go back and add to them. Or other times, I may not be feeling very creative but I have alot to say or just need to get stuff out of my head so then I'll just fill a page or two with writing. Like I said, NO RULES!!