I really love my art journal - it feels like my friend. At night, while the bath is running, I do a quick page about my day. When I get a day off, I love to set up all my paints at the table and go for it for a few hours. I often go back and fix up pages I've done that week - adding colour and collage elements.
I'm always searching for more inspiration. I have a handful of favourite artists, and when I'm stuck (which is fairly often), I copy elements of their style in my journal.
I love the vintage style and colour palattes of Pam Garrison's work.
I've done page after page following Teesha Moore's journaling process.
I am inspired by the grids of symbols by Lisa Kaus. I've been working with grids since long before I discovered her work - but she really makes them look good.
I often leaf through my copy of 1000 Art Journal Pages and pick a style to try out.
The thing I've really been wondering though, is when I will develop my own journaling style? I try out the styles of other artists, become really inspired, and then suddenly I'm completely over it and move on, looking for my next inspiration fix. Other artists seem to develop their style, and their range of colour palettes, and make their own distinctive mark. What is mine? Is there any style that could sustain me beyond a brief fad?
This week I read Corey Moortgat's The Art of Personal Imagery. She describes an exercise to help us identify symbols in our own work. I adapted her exercise to help me search for my own journaling style as well as symbols. I looked through my current journal and bookmarked all the pages that I felt were truly MINE, not copied from another artist.
I was very surprised to see what themes emerged with my bookmarked pages:
- Most of my pages were a kind of vision: black ink line drawings of scenarios I might one day create: an aquaponic fishpond, a simple life, an amazing garden, the projects I'll work on this summer... And almost all of the visions were domestic in content.
- My colours were mostly dirty - ochres and smudges of black with dusty greens.
- The pages I did when I was unhappy were by far the best - expressive and rich with colour in ways that I hadn't planned.
So I asked myself, how can I develop these themes into an art journaling style that is MINE and that appeals to me?
Here's my plan:
- Focus on dirty colours with lots of layers, to create more texture in my work. The pages with a lot of texture are the ones that appeal most to me, so I'll try to expand this. I've been creating colour palattes for myself: when I see a collection of colours I like well together, I save them in palatte format, and later deliberately use them in my work. Now I'll try to expand my colours to incorporate some of these new palattes in layers along with the ochres, blacks and greens.
- Continue creating pages that are a form of vision, often presented in a kind of grid. This style feels very natural to me, so I'll do it a little more deliberately.
- Look for and reuse the symbols that have been developing, and consciously make use of more symbols. Corey Moortgat uses lots of arches in her work, which I really love. Almost everything I've ever built or created with an architectural slant has gothic arches, but it hadn't occurred to me to use the gothic arch as a part of my journaling grids. I love it. Also I've been wanting to incorporate wings in my work for a while, but haven't found much context for them. However, right now they symbolise the changes that are happening in my life - the hope that I'll fly upwards to something new and wonderful.
- Learn to make more of my ink drawings - use water and paint brushes as well as my ink pen, to create dirtier and more textured lines and images.
Here's my first page, created with these ideas in my mind:
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