This article will give you tips for art journaling for beginners all the basic you need to know and get a free mini art journaling kit to get started!
Art Journaling can be a visual journal of your thoughts and dreams.Art Journaling is way more than just simply a visual journal but it is also abstract art, collage, and mixed media art.
Art journaling is not about creating beautiful illustrations, it’s rather your creative outlet and a place where you can explore all kinds of ideas. It doesn’t have to be the same every time, but depending on what you feel like writing or drawing up, using an art journal may provide endless inspiration and creativity expansion.
Reasons you should start an art journal
There are many reason to start an art journal: writing thoughts, brain dump, collection ideas, goals, dreams and for relaxation, mindfulness exercise, problem solving and creativity exercise.
An art journal can be a valuable tool as you start your day, as it allows you to organize your thoughts and ideas so that they will not be forgotten.
Did you know that art journals are an excellent preventative measure against stress, insomnia and poor memory while improving creative thinking abilities?
Look at this article about doodling helping concentration. Art journal boost imagination and cognitive functions.
There’s no pressure or fear
Art journal is expression. People may think just artists can do art journaling but is quite the opposite.
There is no need to produce the best work possible, there is only one criterion: create and express yourself freely, completely safe with your own art journal you just need to follow your own creativity, with no concerns.
The goal is to get started and remember: There are no rules !
What to write in your art journal?
Art journaling is the art of self expression. There are no rules for how you wish to express emotion or barriers on what kind of page it should be.
Dream Plan and Set Goals
You can use just for doodling,for playing, writing thoughts, write your dreams and goal you have for personal life or maybe for your business. Some people use art journal as a planner, you can have many kinds of journals.
Gratitude Journal
Use it as a gratitude journal write things you’re grateful in that moment, on Wong and Brown (2017) paper they discover that gratitude brought tremendous benefits for the brain and for the mental health of their participants.
Dickens and DeSteno (2018) found an association between self-control (patience) and gratitude.
Use your Art Journal to Brain Dump
Many times we just need a space to “dump” all of our ideas, concerns, to do lists and all the things are stuck in our mind and make us feel overwhelmed.
Art Journaling as Mindfulness Practice
Sometimes art journal can take our mind off of some problem you can stop thinking about. Once we write, doodling, painting or whatever you decide to do in your journal becomes a mindfulness practice.
Jo Bohnes (2014) wrote about this in her book powerful journaling. She uses art as a mindfulness practice, honing your focus into invention. By doing so, we learn mindfulness and concentration skills at the same time. This can lead to creation of something new or unexpected, turning on that curious mind state before starting any creative work.
It helps us also to be in the now and not spending time over thinking about things in the past or things that are in the future.
What types of journal can you have?
Art journal can be practice in any kind of journal, even one made from your junk mail, and we can put together all kinds of paper to do some call: junk journal.
You can use mixed media journal, watercolor paper, cardstock even a notebook. Possibilities are endless.
You can create your journal from printables as well. Papers you get from your child’s school.
You can also create your own art journal papers to use later it can be as simple as scribbling with a sharpie to get random shapes.
Download our free printable and make your mini art journal.
Favorite Supplies to start Art journaling
Art Journaling can be done with a small or big amount of supplies it depends how you want to do your journal pages, in this post I’m going to post some great supplies for beginners so you can get started without overwhelming yourself.
- Sketchbook / art journal books – You can get started with a cheap composition notebook or a mixed media journal my favorite is the dylusion journal, or handmade journals
- Sharpie Markers of different tips.
- Acrylic Paints
- stabilo pencil, graphite crayons or anything to do marks
- stencils
- collage papers (magazines, printable papers, make our own paper, old books )
- glue stick or matte medium
- Stamps if you don’t like stencils my favorites are foam stamps from Art foamies.
This is a great list to get your start with art journaling if you don’t have art materials.
What are art journal prompts?
Art Journal Prompts are ideas to get you started with a page many times we want to have fun. If you’d like to use a journal to write more prompts will certainly be a great help for you with your creative process. Prompts don’t have also to be just to write but also to inspire you if you feel stuck to get started.
Example of a visual prompt:
In an art journal page use:
- 3 colors
- 1 quote
- one magazine picture
What else you need to create art journals?
Just curiosity and an open mind. Don’t be afraid to try something new. Art journaling can be extremely rewarding and relaxing and as we said in this post, we just need simple things to get started.
Get our Mini Free Art Journal Kit to do a mini art journal today check the video to see how easy it is to make art journal pages.
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More Links to Help you:
Benefit of Art for Mental Health Podcast Episode
Creating is Healing Podcast Episode