An Invitation back into the Art Journal

I love Art Journaling a lot. In previous years I’ve kept one big Art Journal that has housed all my art and experiments. But for a couple of years now I’ve let the journal expand into several different kinds of books at the same time, thus destroying the lovely chronology I had going, but also giving me more room to work in different ways.

I love them all, but it was easier to just snap photos and share the progress I made before this “split”. But I want to continue to share art journaling here. I still consider this to be a blog that is a lot about art journaling. Art journaling, along with collage and mixed media art, is my big passion in life.

So I’m inviting you, and myself, back into art journaling this year!

iHanna's invitation to you into your art journal, and into hers on the blog www.ihanna.nu #artjournaling

Art Journal Invitation

I want to work with all the different journals I have going, and document them here. I want to share more art journal pages, and most of all, I want to invite you to Art Journal along with me. As I share my pages, some made just for fun and others more personal, I want you to work along with me. I always hope that my sharing here will encourage you to start your own creative practice back up again…

Life is not a dress rehearsal. Stop practicing what you’re going to do and just go do it. In one bold stroke you can transform today.
Marilyn Grey

If you have never Art Journaled before but want to get started, let me know below and I’ll write up a Starter Guide. If you’ve got any kind of notebook with art going, here are some ideas I invite you to explore:

  • Find a journal that inspires you and decide you’re going to work in it a few minutes each day this week
  • Grab the closest magazine (that you’ve already read) and cut out everything that speaks to you
  • With a glue stick in hand, start gluing down (from big to smaller) images to the page, letting them overlap to create a new whole
  • Write words on top of the images if you feel like expressing something that’s on your mind
  • Continue to add stuff (tickets, stickers, ephemera, words) until you can’t add anything more. Then start on the next page if you have time/energy left.

Peek into my Art Journal

Today, to start us of, I want to share a spread from my altered book about Egypt, that’s now a lot about me cutting and pasting stuff. I made this page in the beginning of December, as I was also working in my Christmas Traveler’s Notebook journal. I’m sure you can tell it’s Christmas inspired.

A side view of my Cut & paste journal

Art journal detail: deer & journaling

So this blog to me is a lot about art journaling, like I said. But then I noticed it’s been quite a while since I wrote about it. In September last year I shared the painted circles ad infinitum and in August a spread from this altered book where I showed you how to make your Art Journal Page bloom, but that’s quite a while ago, isn’t it?

And now that I looked into my series of Art Journal Peeks, where I show one or a few pages from my own art journal in a blog post, it’s been way too long since I did such a post. I can hardly believe it’s been almost a year, and I still consider this blog to be about art journaling.

I hope to post a lot more art journal peeks this year! Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested to see and hear more about. What kind of art journaling do you do most?

Art Journal Peek: December thoughts 2017

Take care!

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Also read: Make this year your Art Journaling Year

4 Responses

  1. Oh yes! I will sure follow your further art journal explorations. I really like the vivid and colorful pages you make…Love – Irma

  2. I work in several at once… I always have an A4 Dylusions on the go, also a Dina Wakley journal with different paper and burlap pages so it’s more experimental. I have 2 altered books, a large/huge Egypt book and a smaller Alice in Wonderland. In 2017 I completed the Dyary by Dyan Reaveley which is A5 and great for keeping you going. This year I am going to do the new A4 version when it is out next week. I’ve also signed up for Life Book so have a separate journal for that. I love seeing into people’s journals more than anything. Hanna, have you tried the Dina Wakley journal? You would love the 4 different papers/burlap, it mixes things up and forces you to do something different. Great Post, as inspiring as always. Much love from England ❤️

  3. Definitely will be back to visit and read your Art Journaling posts! Thanks for stopping by my blog and leaving a comment!I’ve been faithfully journaling in my Little Hobonichi (love its paper) have gotten away from my other painting journals. Here’s to lots of creative success in 2018!

  4. I love to read your art journaling posts! They’re so inspiring! I used to do some art journaling but I don’t anymore, I just have so much I want to do! Since I started to create when I had all the free time in the world I haven’t quite mastered the skill of juggling my multiple interests and grown up life (I’ve left college almost 6 years ago but still not there ;D)

    I hope you continue to share peeks of your art journals!

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