PART ONE
Journaling is one of the best ways to know your heart, delve into your subconscious and gauge your personal growth. Journaling records events that mean something to you. Journaling is a great way to solve problems, vent frustrations, and dream dreams. Journaling is a door to your soul."Creative Journaling" is a method of journaling that I developed after attempting to keep written journals. Each Jaunuary I would start a new journal (usually a beautiful leather bound journal or a cool, artsy journal given to me as a gift), and I would dutifully make my daily entries for the first week. By the second week, I would journal 2 or 3 days. By week 3, maybe one entry would make it into my journal. By week 4, the entry would read "May".
Finally, I gave up trying to keep a written journal at all. It was too much like work and half of my entries were devoted to bitching about the difficulties of journaling!
Meanwhile, I was involved in other activities that I was having a blast with including online ATC (Artist Trading Cards) swaps, magazine swaps (yes, we each created our own magazines to swap. Mine was called "Ang-i-tude"), and altered books. I was also reading and completing the activities in Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" and I was constantly sketching and collecting new ideas for paintings in my art journals. Out of all these activities and others, my "Creative Journaling" course was born.
If you have been contemplating keeping a journal, if you have tried and failed to keep a journal, or if you have never thought of keeping a journal but think it's something you might like to try, you've come to the right place! This method of journaling is one that's been proven to be easy to stick with and a no fail method for those who have insisted to me that they are NOT creative! I've taught this method to family and friends, and I've had the pleasure of teaching this method in workshops through The Women's Center at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland, Ohio. I hope you will consider giving yourself the gift of "Creative Journaling". It's a wonderful, inexpensive way to know "you"!
NEXT WEEK: PART TWO - "GATHERING MATERIALS "
Great detailed information! Your art journals are inspiring! I too gave up on journaling ...I think it made me depressed. So after many many years of keeping journals, I think I will go back and create over the writing!:)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about writing journals... the same thing happened to me... it just didn't keep my interest. But art journaling... I fell in love and it has brought me so much peace and healing and joy. I am going to try and start an art journaling class through my Church because it has been such a blessing to me, I hope I can teach others too!
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