I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I can’t art journal to save my life. “But anyone can art journal!” I’ve been told when I’ve said this out loud, but that’s not true. I mean, unless you don’t have hands or you’re blind or something, yes, you can physically art journal (and I’m sure some people could even overcome those obstacles and make beautiful journals!) but I don’t think everyone is particularly suited to it and I think I am definitely one of those people.

So first of all, for those wondering “what is an art journal?”, allow me to explain: an art journal is simply a book full of art, kind of like a scrapbook and sometimes using scrapbooking elements, but usually an art journal has more homemade elements in it than prefab ones. Sometimes art journals have themes, sometimes not. Most of the time it’s in a diary format in that each page is expressing something emotional or personal, but there usually isn’t a whole ton of text like you would have in a written journal.

I have many friends who art journal such as Eveline Timeless, Sirens Idyll, Nolwenn and Poetic Dreams and if you follow the links on their blogs, you’ll find both instructional videos on how to do art journaling, but also the blogs of other art journalers all across the internet. Suzi Blu, Julie Pritchard and Willowing have taught classes on how to art journal (and I’m sure there are more people out there teaching classes on it) and there is even a magazine dedicated to it. In the online mixed media world, or at least the corner of it I seem to frequent, art journaling is all the rage.

And I totally cannot do it.

I tried though! You can use any old notebook or sketchbook to use as an art journal but the standard is the good ol’ Moleskine, which I used it my latest attempt at making an art journal. Behold:

Introducing myself on the first page to any potential readers should I accidentally leave the book somewhere. I thought I was off to a pretty good start.

Page 2 was done shortly after laparoscopy #4 when the doctor wanted to put me on Lupron.
If you read my page on endometriosis, you’ll see how I feel about Lupron.

And then…

….

…yeah. :o/

The thing is, by the time I basecoat a page with whatever colour I want to use and wait for it to dry I’ve either forgotten what I wanted to express OR I’ve already written it all out and gotten it out of my system in my written journal, of which I have many many many many. Basically, art journaling for me, is way too slow of a process. I would LOVE to leave behind beautifully illustrated, mixed media books when I die for future generations to marvel over but I think they’re going to have to settle for just text because it seems as though that’s what I’m best at and writing is just how I express myself. (Although since becoming medicated, I no longer write hypergraphically so I’m not going through a notebook every month. This is both good and bad. Good because notebooks are expensive. Bad because I miss spending whole days just writing writing writing and documenting every little thing.)

In my written journals, I don’t even doodle. Sometimes I decorate the covers, like this one for example, but most of the time I leave the covers as they come and I almost always write in them using my beloved Pilot V5 extra fine pens in BLACK, although sometimes I’ll use Uniball Fusion pens because they come in colours, but that’s still pretty rare because I don’t like their tips. (Like, in a few weeks my current journal will be full and the next ones up to bat are a pink journal and a blue journal that are both sparkly and identical except in colour and I have Uniball Fusion pens in the corresponding colours – although Uniball Fusion pens are expensive and don’t go far so the ends of the books will probably be in my regular black ink.)

Anyway, the whole point of this post is that I’m envious of people who can actually express themselves through art journaling and I’m hoping that after participating in The Sketchbook Project, I’ll maybe dust off my Moleskine and give it another try. I think another part of it is that I’m actually pretty utilitarian and so my lizard brain is all “why make it pretty when you don’t have to? Writing’s faster!” and then there’s also my inner critic, who has the voice of my evil grandmother, saying, “you could be spending that time on art that pays your bills blah blah blah” and I really need to learn how to beat that voice back. Perhaps this will be my new year’s resolution for 2011.

In other news, my pink & green girls are coming along fabulously and if I didn’t need the money, they wouldn’t be for sale once they were finished because I am absolutely in love with them. Each girl is going to be on her own canvas, which is what I’ll be working on today, and be her own piece, but really, I envision selling them as a set. I doubt that’ll happen because when I make paintings intended to be sold together, it never happens, but hey, I still try. Here’s a sneak peak at my pink & green girls that are going to simply be titled “Pink & Green I” and “Pink & Green II” because I’m original like that:

And with that, I’m off to find breakfast and get back to work on these canvases. I hope you all have a wonderful day!