As we get ready for the new school year, we at Gazing Through Glass thought it would be a good idea to talk about artistic journaling. According to The University of Rochester Medical Center the term journaling is the modern term given to "keeping a diary". By journaling you can reduce stress, deal with depression, organize your thoughts and life, improve your mood and track what makes you happy or sad. Journaling does not have to be the plain old “right a paragraph” about your day. Creative journaling is in itself an art form. You are encouraged to doodle while you think, draw tracks to lead your way through the page and in general make it unique.
Supplies
- Empty Spiral notebook, Empty Journal Book, Blank notebook pages enclosed in a notebook (although this last method makes it too easy for you to tear things out).
- Uniball signo gel pens to decorate in various colors
- Uniball Signo blue pen to write with
- Scissors
- Old magazines that will be cut apart
- Your own drawings cut up to fit into the journal
- Various stickers, I do encourage you to make your own stickers
- Glue stick, Ad tech Dot glue Runner (Elmers glue can be used but will have a tendency to make the paper buckle)
- Washi tape, for decorative purposes
Instructions
- Before you attempt to write in your journal go through magazines and cut out pictures, words, phrases....that speak to you. At this time you might have an idea what you think you want to work on. For example, since this is the start of a new school year, I concentrated on words that were positive and inspirational.
- Once you have a good selection of words it is time to organize them into categories that fit together. I worked on 3 pages "or groups of words that were similar during the part 1 of the journaling.
- Spread 1 became "Summer". I used this topic to talk about the good and bad things about my summer. I used footprints to walk my way through the thoughts. I used paragraphs to write during this spread.
- It is here that I will note that I concentrated on doing 1 spread at a time. If I were journaling at my leisure I would have gone ahead and organized the 3 spreads so that I would not lose myself in the thought process. For teaching purposes it was best to concentrate on 1 spread.
- As you fill in the journal it is ok to leave space to come back and re-read and re-evaluate your topic.
Journaling is a very personal form of art. We are creatively putting our words on paper as an artistic means of expressing ourselves. It is up to you if you want to share your journal with someone, keep in mind that you are telling others about your most "inner" thoughts and feelings.