I am huge fan of using Altered Books

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

— William Hutchinson Murray

My go to “notebook” for art journaling will always be an altered book. I mean, a new, blank notebook will cost anything from 5 to 35 dollars here, so a thrifted text book for 1 dollar always wins in my book. Especially as the pages are almost entirely covered anyway, the process can be messy and the pages should not feel precious before you even start. I feel like the pages of an altered book offers so many opportunities to respond that a blank book filled with white pages could never. So yes, I am firmly planted in the altered text book or coffee table book fan club.

One of the altered books that I am currently using as my Art Journal is a lovely colorful coffee table kind of book. It is filled with fun photographs of kid’s rooms. There are playful interior design, painted walls and furniture and lots of toys on the pages, and as I am just a big kid myself, I love this look.

Picking it up at my local thrift shop is a bit of an experiment for me. Many of my previous altered books are older and contain lots of maps, black and white photography and illustrations. They’ve been about cultures, nature, continents and animals mostly. So this is new to me, having a newly published book to work in. One that has new color photos and a more modern design.

The jury is still out on wether I will use a similar book next or ever, but I sure enjoy looking at the pages so far.

Try something new

This altered book is newer and more colorful than the books I have used in the past, but it’s always fun to try something that is new to you. I think it pushes our creativity in new directions and in ways we could not predict if we didn’t give it a try.

I have written about this before, the idea of switching your practice up to challenge yourself in a small way. If you always pick notebooks with white pages maybe try a grid notebook, a notebook with different colored pages or switch up the size. Go from rectangle to square, or from medium sized to big. I am confident to say that all these metrics will factor into what comes out on the page when you art journal, in one way or other.

Or why not copy me, and find yourself a newish book filled with colorful, modern images that you really like, and experiment with that. Who knows what will come out of it?

I have created a lot in this altered book so far, since I started it a few months ago. But like I said, I have not decided yet if I will search out something similar or totally different next. There are always advantages and disadvantages to any creative decision we make for ourselves, right? I love the colorful photos but they also hinder me a bit as I try not to cover all of them. I like that it’s colorful and bold already, but maybe it’s not the best canvas for my bold and colorful self? One step forward and sometimes two steps back, but eventually we find our voice and the road we want to walk on, if we keep pushing forward. Once you know what you like and want, keep doing that for a while. Then mix it up for a bit, by changing location, style, size, medium or notebook. And always mix it up if you are feeling stuck or in a rut. That’s how you keep evolving as an artist.

Here are some other types of art journal type books that I love creating and using in my own practice (with link to more information):

If you haven’t given art journaling or altered books a try yet, I think today is the perfect time to get started, as always.

Here are some ideas on how to get you started altering on your own:

• How to altered a book and make it into an art journal
• Altered book labels – a download in my shop
• Flip-through of one of my chunky altered books – take a look at all the yummy pages
• How to altered postcards – another fun idea
• Free tutorial on how to prep an altered book – coming soon

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