Be the change you want to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi
A spread in my current Art journal/altered book. View this page large!
Chris thinks she needs to say thank you to me in her open letter, but of course I’m the grateful one! This is how she describes me:
- Hanna, maker of plushies, taker of pictures, writer of books, painter of canvases, collager of journals, and lover of little SmillaPie…
Read Chris’s Open letter to me!
She is making 2009 her Art Journaling Year and I think that is so fantastic! I’m thrilled and excited because I know how fun Art Journaling is! My Art Journals are my favorite books to look through even though that sounds pretentious and boastful! But they are so full of stuff they surprise even me when I look through them – did I do this? They are full of so many different things it is a truly amazing experience to have them and to have made them!
If you haven’t started an Art Journal yet I think you should, right now! Today. Take any blank book and do some doodles and you’re on your way. It is not difficult and there are no rules. It’s just you and your imagination. Plus a thousand ways to experiment with a glue stick, tape, scissors, ephemera, crayons, pens, ink, stamps, prints, fabric, embellishments, yarn, postcards, glitter… So if you’re longing for more play and fun in your life, and haven’t tried this yet why not make 2009 your year of Art Journaling?
Make it your own Art Journaling Year
Join Chris and me (and the rest of the journaling world – maybe I’ll even convert crafty sister Diane to something arty now that she has got pretties from Hanna) and fill a notebook with your sweet nothings! You’ll get your creative juices going for sure with the fun job of filling that notebook!!! :-)
Katie is very creative but on her blog What Katie Did you can read this her confession right now:
I collect blank books. I always intend to write in them – useful things – important events – musings – ideas – but I never do, because the pages look so nice and clean and I think I will spoil them – so I have a lot of blank books. This is why I visit Hanna so often because she really knows how to fill up those blank books!
That’s true. I do. It’s a passion and I almost never hesitate to start in a new blank book. Do you want to know the secret to that? It’s not that I’m always confident that what I create will be Beautiful or even Artistic or Worth Saving (though I always save and never rip out – I just turn the page and keep going!)… It’s a simple truth that I believe in: a filled notebook is a happy notebook! And I think (truly) that a notebook that is bursting with doodles and ideas is so much more beautiful than that crisp newly bought one!
And more love! Miss KoolAid sent us gifts! I got a handmade macramé owl that she did, I’m the faraway friend she wrote about when she made the owl! Who knew? Well, she knew I like owls anyway!
Sophie (Miss KoolAid in Canada) is doing a project called The 29-Day Giving Challenge which is described like this: “Give one thing away each day for 29 days. Why? Because to see your world change, you have to DO something to change your world.” Isn’t that a nice thing to do? I love my macramé owl, it has a honorably place by my bed.
Smilla got a crocheted white mouse, but I don’t know where it is. I think she might have eaten it. She attacked it aggressively when I gave it to her, but with a cat that’s just love as you all know.
But most of the time she is a friendly sleeping piece of art next to my Art Journal!
Thank you to everyone who is sending me e-mails, comments, adding me on twitter, flickr etc. and to you who have linked to the collage pack and entered the giveaway!
Thank you, thank you thank you!
Inspiration for your Art Journaling Year
Oh, and these links might come in handy today…
* Properties of gesso – Crusade no 25 is up!
* Create an Artist?s Sketchbook! – new article at Creativity Portal that will get you going on your Art Journal (or sketchbook, diary, life book, visual diary or whatever you want to call it)
* Journal inspiration set at flickr by joeilau- yummy mark making!
* More reclaimed Artist book pages post and journal inspiration by Kelly who writes:
One thing about when you work in a journal, remember: It’s a journal. It’s your safe haven. It’s your place to explore and test and play and document and see what happens. It’s not a place to judge. It’s your journal.
Hear hear!
Here’s to your Art Journaling Year!
YOU
are
so
FABULOUS!!
Excellent post! Thanks for posting about the 29-gifts challenge. My 29th day was yesterday. I’m a natural giver so it’s easy for me to informally continue this challenge.
I feel that I have slightly abandoned my art journaling this year so I think that I will make 2009 about my art journals. I have so many blank books! Of all shapes, sizes and colours! I even bought more saturday at a warehouse sale. One of the journals is handmade in Belgium, limited edition. Worth over $50 and I paid it $3! Insane, no? It’s gorgeous and I want to make special and pretty things in it.
*hugs*
Sophie
Me, again. I just went to Diane’s and is that wonderful, or WHAT? You are so nice.
And look here at sweet little Smillahead! I love that.
That’s a great comment, that a full notebook is a happy notebook. It makes me feel like I can give it all I’ve got.
Thanks for the links. I’m checking them all out!
Come to think of it I do have a bunch of unused blank books laying around…I guess I could start a new art form…I never really “got” what one “gets” from making such books, even though I often find myself intreged by looking at those of others (sometimes) ;-)
I’ll think about it after I finish the large art quilt wall hanging i am currently working on…
Oh s? mycket roligt att titta p? h?r, b?de i ditt inl?gg och i l?nkarna! (Blev larvigt nostalgisk ?ver Konsumm?rket p? ditt art-journal-uppslag… Minner om tjusiga tider d? Domus i Esl?v var v?rsta grejen, typ…!)
Tack f?r all inspiration! Jag vill nog g?ra en art-journal n?sta ?r, p? n?t s?tt. Vill ha en st?rre bok ?n den jag har i ?r, kanske rent av A4… vi f?r se. Men definitivt inte A6 so jag har nu – det ?r f?r pluttigt. Men visst – det funkar till det jag g?r nu – testverkstad. Men ska jag g?ra n?sta ?r ska jag vara mer dagboksm?ssig, mindre temam?ssig. Enklare s?. Nu m?ste jag ha n?n slags kronologi, och det ?r h?mmande som tusan. D?lig id?. Men en 2009-bok k?nns som en bra id
I’m putting making an art journal on my list for 2009! Your are super lovely!!
~Journal Magick~
Melissa
love love love your pages ;)
I really need to fill my books. You have such interesting pages. Makes me want to grab my books and get to work. I did start writing more since I started visiting your blog. You inspire me. =)
Yes! 2009 should be the year of the Art Journal and I think they are such a wonderful combination of a journal and scrapbook for you or others to look back at. Love your journal spread too as usual. Lots of fun images to look at.
Your pages are just so awesome!!! You are such an inspiration to so many people…thanks for sharing.
I love your pages and Smila is so cute sleeping there. I like to a mix of text and images. Sometimes pages of one then the other. It does make a journal come alive with all the color and images.
I am really thinking about getting a sketchbook and doing an art journal. There is also an exhibition focusing on this at Art House in Atlanta, Georgia. You might want to google it for more information.
Thanks as always for the links.
If anyone wants yet more information on art journaling, that is what my blog is about. Come by for a visit.
Thanks so much for your wonderful, positive comment on my blog. I have spent time perusing your space, which is amazing, so full and alive and real. I love that your blue days make you appreciate the sunny moments, and the way you embrace all areas of your life with tremendous initiative and creativity. I’ll be back again and I hope you’ll visit too.
regards,
patti
Hanna!
Once again you inspired me. I’m starting another art journal. Reading your entry I got a new idea I wanted to try. I love your owl. I’m owl crazy too. He’s the cutest. I love how pink she or he is. I love the give away idea. I try to give something away every day even if it is small. I love Smilla so much. I know I keep saying that. She is so beautiful & always makes you smile.
Inspiring! Discovered you via twitter (searched for journaling) … I recently started art-collage-journaling ? and it is so great! ★
Hi Hanna,
Your work has inspired me.
I am making 2009 my Art Journaling year too.
Alma
Like Katie, I collect blank books…….I used to have a sketchbook journal that I would fill with words and drawings top to bottom…..but I got out of the habit…..I am inspired to make a better effort now, thanks!
[…] If you’re here directly from the crusade I think you should check out my post Make 2009 your Art Journaling Year before you go – after you comment of course! […]
Art journaling will change your life. Thanks for your colorful inspiration!
[… and if you just cannot stand a page… GESSO to the rescue!].
I’ve loved the idea of “art journalling” since I first heard the term on a limenviolet podcast when Violet was talking about her art journal, and thought that would be a neat thing to do, but I had no idea what an art journal was. I’ve kept a written journal for years and years, but was intrigued what an art journal was, how you do it, blah blah blah. How excited am I to find that it’s much the way I keep my travel journals; those have my train tickets to my destination, little maps of places I’ve been, receipts from events attended there, business cards for shops I visit… so how thrilled am I to find that I’m already an art journaller! Art journalling is now on my 2009 to-do list!
[…] Is 2009 your Art Journaling Year yet? Is trying new things something you avoid or long for? What have you tried recently that was new to you? What will you try for the first time during 2009? […]
I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with some of the inspirational energy I have bottled up in me. Your website is insanely fun and I love looking at all of your amazing creations. Even though I left all my creative supplies at my parents when I moved to my Tiny Brooklyn, NYC apartment, I might have to splurge and resupply my stash to start an art journal for 2009. I do have a blank moleskin sitting on the shelf that I could easily convert… and I have had many past moments of enjoyment through art journals — before I let my busy life get in the way.
Thanks for sharing your creativity and hopefully I’ll join the art journallers starting this weekend!!
Just what I was planning to do! *Grabs a journal*. Hahaha! What a beautiful journal you got there! I wish that you’ll post even more pictures and inspire even more people.
[…] Taking a photo of one hand with the other hand is difficult. I love this one though. So far 2009 is not my art journaling year but today I’ve made a page from start to finish, and that’s unusual these days. […]