One of my design teammates mentioned in our forums that she didn't feel like she could do art journaling, and didn't like the way it looked when she did it. This got me thinking...."wait a minute! no one should feel like that!" So, let's back up a bit. What exactly IS an art journal? Why should we do it?

Art diary

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An art diary, art journal or visual journal is a daily journal kept by artists, often containing both words

and sketches, and occasionally including Mixed media elements such as collages. Such books will frequently

contain rough workings, in cartoon form, of ideas later to appear in finished works,

as well as acting as a normal diary, by allowing the artist to record their day-to-day activities and emotions.

From an article by the fabulous Dina Wakley:

(this is a great article and her book Art Journal Freedom is awesome!)

"Simply put, an art journal is a journal in which you combine art and words to express yourself.

That’s it. It’s not complex, and there really aren’t any rules for art journaling.

It’s all about self-expression.

...I think artists (and that means you) all have different reasons for keeping journals.

The reasons are very personal and individual, and could include:

To experiment with art techniques & ideas.
To get your thoughts & feelings out on paper in a creative way.
To document your life, your being.
To enjoy the process of creating."

There are countless ways to do this and bazillions of resources available. I hate to see someone feel
like they can't art journal because their work doesn't look like someone else's. Guess what? It's not
supposed to! I have been keeping some kind of a journal or diary since I was a kid and started art
journaling about five years ago.

Even now, my art journal pages look extremely different from one another, depending on how I am feeling,

what technique I am trying, whose style I'm trying to emulate, etc.

Here's a smattering of my art journal pages from 2008-now: