Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
GETTING STARTED
Many journaling books start with a discussion of materials and supplies plus some warm-up exercises. Instead, we'll look at why you're holding this book in your hands. What's far more important than the materials you use is what you do with your journal — when and how you use it, what you put in it, what you want it to be.
What intrigues you about journal keeping? How did you get interested? How long have you wanted to do your own illustrated journal? Many people wait years to give themselves permission to jump in. So, why did you buy this book?
I'm guessing that the reason, in part, is because you hope for guidelines and inspiration so that you will keep a journal — or, if you've tried before and drifted off, so you'll keep at it once you start. I can promise both guidelines and inspiration from a variety of wonderful journal keepers.
That's really what this book is all about — discovering what you want and why you're here. I can't tell you — no one can. It's all up to you. But perhaps I, with the help of the wonderful contributors to this book, can assist you along the way.
EXPLORING WHAT YOU WANT
Ask yourself three questions. In fact, write the questions and your answers right in your journal or on a separate piece of paper that you can paste into your journal if you like. Answer the questions as well as you can — and know that your answers may change over time. That's fine. Journaling has a natural, organic evolution.
QUESTION ONE: What do you want from your journal?
How you've imagined using a journal is important. You may not end up doing exactly what you imagined — or even wanting to do what you imagined — but unless you have a goal, a plan, a vision, you won't know where to start.
I've received requests to illustrate children's books, and a nearby botanical expressed an interest in my teaching a workshop on keeping a nature sketchbook. It seems that doors are opening for me that I didn't plan on. I'm curious and excited to see where journaling takes me.
— Vicky Williamson
QUESTION TWO: What will go into your journal?
Will you focus on a theme or integrate anything and everything into its pages — sketches, plans, paintings, photos, memories? Do you want to include more art, more words, only one or the other, or a balance of both? Some artists like to keep travel journals or journals for family memories or a record of a special workshop. It's up to you.
Watercolor pencils are excellent for sketching while traveling because I can take and use them anywhere. I can either use them as the main medium or just to add a wash to a pen drawing.
— Alissa Duke
QUESTION THREE: When or how do you see yourself journaling?
Do you expect to journal while sipping your morning coffee, on your lunch break, just before bed as you create a thumbnail overview of your day? Do you want to journal when something moves you? Do you see yourself journaling indoors or outside in a natural setting? While waiting? On a trip? All of the above? Do allow yourself the journaling time that you envision. It's important!
Set Your Goals
Think about these questions. Maybe you've always wanted to keep an illustrated journal to record your days or dreams or to learn from nature. And of course, do more than think about the questions: Write these plans and ideas down and set yourself a goal — or an array of them. Then set off in that direction.
OVERCOMING FIRST-PAGE JITTERS
Some people find the first page in a new journal intimidating. They're overwhelmed with questions: how to start? what to put there? how to get past the curse of Dread White Paper? (It is just paper, you know — paper mills are making more as we speak.)
Don't be afraid of ruining that lovely book because, the truth is, you can't! It's your journal, and your time on this earth is far more important than a blank book. I've done all kinds of opening pages, but these days, usually I just jump in and start.
Somewhere on that first page I do put my name, address, e-mail and the words, "If found, please contact kate@cathyjohnson.info for a modest reward!" (Or I paste my business card inside with that same request.) I've always been able to retrace my steps and find my misplaced, wandering journal, but I know several friends who weren't so lucky. Happily, almost all got their journals back eventually because they put their names and contact information inside.
Add the date to the opening page of your journal because years later you'll kick yourself if you don't remember when you took that special trip, had surgery, stayed at that terrific bed and breakfast or met that new friend.
Keeping an illustrated journal has been a life-changing experience for me. I see the same life-changing power of the journal with our students who journal regularly. I've found it doesn't matter how well you draw or paint. The power of the journal seems to be in just the doing of it.
— Gay Kraeger
A friend introduced me to watercolor pans in a field kit in December 2006. I instantly fell in love with them. Inspired by my friend's watercoloring and Danny Gregory's sketchbooks, I started my own watercolor journal in January 2007 with the intention of sketching regularly as "training" for a trip toEurope in September. Not only did I achieve that goal, but the almost-daily habit has become an end in itself
— Liz Steele
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Does your journal need a name — perhaps to fit a theme or a mood or to help you focus? (Or, hey, just for fun!) Some of my journals have names; some don't. The name or title can help you remember what's in your journal, or it can personalize the journal for you. Make the title as descriptive or whimsical as you like. Use your own hand lettering, or use your computer to print the name and paste the printout onto the cover. You can print and paste whether your journal is commercially made or made by yourself.
If you like, you can create an index collage for the cover of your journal after you've finished it. Again, that works with either commercially made or handmade journals.
I printed the title with a computer font called La Figura. Then I collaged it onto the spine and antiqued it in colors to harmonize with the old marbled paper of the book's cover.
TO SHARE OR NOT TO SHARE?
If your journal evolves into a more personal tool for growth — or venting — you may not wish to share all the details, even among fellow art journalists. Or you may. Such sharing can be helpful — kind of like a twelve-step program.
Try not to censor yourself. You need to feel free to put whatever you want into your journal; it's therapeutic. In order to do that, even the most extroverted may need to find ways to protect sensitive entries.
Sometimes friends, family or even interested strangers may ask to browse your artist's journal; they'd never ask that if it were your diary, but what we do as artists simply fascinates people. If there are things you'd rather a casual observer not see, you can paper clip pages together. Of course, you can also just say, "I'm sorry, this is my personal journal." Most people will understand. (I once forgot I'd done some life drawings of my husband in a journal and was a tad embarrassed when perfect strangers got to see more of him than I'd intended.)
One of my students vents in her pages and then writes over and over her venting in several directions. She gets the anger out of her system, but no one can read the words — a brilliant solution!
Author Hannah Hinchman suggests writing very, very small. Some great journal keepers of the past created their own personal code for keeping their words private. For example, Leonardo da Vinci used mirror-writing (my illegible handwriting is almost sufficient).
If you scan or photograph your images to share with friends, simply lay a piece of paper over any notes you prefer to keep private. Self-adhesive notes are great for this.
If you use photo-editing software, you can blur words. In Photoshop, create a rectangle with your selection tool directly over the words you want to hide, using a blur filter. Or select that rectangle and fill it in with color. You can write or sketch on the rectangle later.
WHAT IF YOU MAKE A MISTAKE?
Define mistake. Often we put too much pressure on ourselves to be perfect. Ignore those mental tapes of remembered criticisms. The Inner Critic can take a walk!
Speed-sketching techniques can never be perfect. Neither can blind contour drawings you create without even looking at the page. Who cares? These images will act as triggers for your memory or will help you mark your progress toward being able to capture images in the way you want to. Don't tear them out or paint over them unless you really feel the need.
If you really, really hate an image, you can paint over all or part of it with gouache (opaque watercolor) or acrylic. Then either write on it or make a new image. (Be aware that acrylics can cause pages to stick together. Gouache doesn't.)
Sometimes, even a light haze of gouache can soften an image you don't care for. Simply paint a new image right on top of your "mistake" with a thicker, more opaque mixture.
You can redraw an image on a new piece of paper and glue it over the part you don't like, or you can glue the patch on first and then redraw.
Add interesting items like a business card, photo, ticket to a play, airline boarding pass or menu over bits you're not fond of. The pasted-on items may become an integral part of the page, telling their own part of the story. Collage over an entire offending page, if you must.
JUMP RIGHT IN
Remember, it's your journal, and although you'll like some pages more than others, there really are no mistakes. Even a single, quickly drawn line can express a mood or capture a memory. So can a bold, angular scribble.
If you've ever started a journal and then faded, ask yourself why. Were your expectations too high? Did journaling take too much time? Did you get bored? Did you imagine your life wasn't interesting enough? Write down what you think was the problem, and then see whether you can find creative solutions.
Enlist the support of your family and friends. Make sure they know this is important to you and that you'll be a happier, better spouse, parent, child, sibling or friend if your time with your journal is respected. It's true! If creativity is thwarted, something within us withers. If you're traveling with others, you may need to do fast sketches and add notes or color later, but do it, in any case. (I've been at it so long, my husband worries if I don't journal.)
Don't you love it when the integration of all that we are can come together in one art form? When I discovered I could do it all in one journal, it integrated everything in my life. It's effortless now. And if too much time passes without journaling, I begin to feel like a piece is missing from my center. Keeping an artist's journal puts me at peace.
— Maria Hodkins
PHYSICAL JOURNAL
Once you decide what you want out of your journaling and how to get there, then there are a few necessary matters of lesser importance to consider. One of these is what you will use as your actual physical journal.
Journal types and preferences are a very personal choice, and getting started is more important than finding the Perfect Journal. There's no magic trick to selecting a physical journal — actually journaling is what brings the greatest satisfaction. I've used everything from spiral-bound notebooks I picked up at the discount store to handmade books with the best watercolor paper. Although not all mediums will work as well on the notebooks, they're just fine for ink or pencil observations and note taking.
That said, I definitely do not suggest starting out with a commercial journal filled with cheap, slick, lightweight paper (unless you really like the feel of it). If you plan to work in a variety of mediums, you don't want to get frustrated before you begin!
Paper with a bit of texture is most versatile — just be sure to choose paper you like, that feels good to the touch and that doesn't have too much tooth or texture, so you can use a variety of mediums if you want to. A surface that's too rough can be frustrating. Some of the handmade papers, for instance, will catch your pencil or pen point and make lines that skip.
Stay away from a journal with paper that's overly absorbent. That's fine for Chinese brush painting, in which each stroke is supposed to show, but frustrating for just about anything else.
I personally avoid journals with very slick or lightweight paper, though many swear by the Moleskine type, especially for ink or pencil. (If you don't get the Moleskine specifically made for watercolor, you'll want to add a bit of soap or detergent to your paint water to make the paint adhere to the slick surface — or use watercolor pencils, crayons, colored pencils or something else to add color to your pages.)
If you plan to use watercolors, watercolor pencils, or even acrylics, you'll most likely want paper that's easy to write or draw on with pencil or pen, but that will take some wet media. (For obvious reasons oils don't work as well in a journal because your pages would need to dry for a long time before you could shut the book.)
Generally speaking, avoid those journals with lined pages, as well as those with inspirational sayings or art printed on the pages. This is your journal, and those lines or printed matter are far too limiting.
That said, I've seen some wonderful journals kept in old ledgers. Muriel Foster's Fishing Diary is one of my favorites. Begun in 1913, the diary covers thirty-five years of a Scottish woman's love affair with fishing. The French artist and illustrator known as Lapin also works on ledger paper to wonderful effect.
Many artists enjoy painting and sketching right on the pages of a printed book, but I find that limits me too much. There's no room for my own words, and I love the combination of my own text and art, which truly does give the feeling of an illustrated journal. I also need good paper to work on.
If journaling in a printed book inspires you, though, go for it. If working on old printed matter, bothers you, scan the pages, print them out and then work on them. Paste the scanned pages right into your journal. Alissa Duke recently worked in ink and gouache on vintage sheet music for a wonderful effect.
I go to the flea market a lot, and I started collecting old notebooks years ago. The quality of this old paper is amazing and, to my mind, the color of the paper, and all those lines add a lot to my sketches.
— Lapin
Whatever you use, find a journal that will open fairly flat so that you can work in it easily. You may like a spiral-bound sketchbook or even a day planner. One traveling artist I know does lots of small sketches on these pre-formatted pages.
Some people feel that a spiral binding is too much in their way or that spiral-bound pages tear out too easily; others love them because they lie flat for working, photographing or scanning. Spiral-bound sketch pads are fairly inexpensive, so you can experiment.
Strathmore makes a spiral-bound watercolor pad (400 series) that I've used with pleasure. It alternates sheets of nice, hard-surfaced, cold-pressed (medium texture) watercolor paper with lightweight sheets of paper you can sketch, draw or write on easily. American Journey makes a similar spiral-bound notebook that a lot of people like.
A hardback journal is the choice of many journal keepers, myself included. Most open fully so you can work in them easily, and that hard binding can take a lot of wear — even abuse! I carry mine everywhere I go, so a sturdy binding is important to me. My journal often looks a bit dog-eared by the time I'm finished with it, but that's part of its charm.
Format and size are up to you. You may want to choose a journal that fits easily in a pocket, field bag or purse — or you may like working on a larger surface so your whole arm can move.
I've used just about every kind of journal available, and there are advantages and disadvantages to all of them. Mainly, I prefer those that easily open flat for journaling and scanning, that don't tend to snap shut as I work, and that are of a size that's comfortable for me. (My first handmade journal was an extreme landscape format, very wide but not very tall, and I quickly discovered how awkward it was to use.)
One way to get exactly what you want is to make your own journal out of the paper you really enjoy in the size and shape you like. I'm spoiled; I make my own journals now so I can have paper I love. That's usually a combination of hot press, cold press, and colored papers — even black. Sometimes I use 90-lb. (190gsm) paper but more often I use 140-lb. (300gsm) so it won't buckle when I use wet media.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Artist's Journal Workshop"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Cathy Johnson.
Excerpted by permission of F+W Media, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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