Over the past few weeks I’ve been working hard to declutter my bedroom. Since leaving college I have been gathering piles of random paper and doodles that probably should have gone in the bin. I managed to bin most of the paperwork but I was amazed at how many random drawings I found. Instead of throwing them away decided to create an art journal, and make collages with them.

I’ve always flirted with the idea of art journaling. I kept a written diary for many years and found it therapeutic. I find art incredibly calming. When I’m feeling anxious or upset I often turn to drawing as a way to take my mind off it.To boost my inspiration, I joined Journal Workshops, an online art community created by JennieBellie. I don’t know if I’ll ever use my journal like she uses hers. She puts so much hard work and effort into them. Mine is a lot more scribbly and rough. That being said, I’ve really enjoyed working in this journal. I just know art journaling is going to be one of my favourite pass times from now on.

I made my journal out of a Morplan catalogue I had in the post that day. The pages were really thin so I grabbed random bits of paper out of the piles I was throwing away. It’s mostly college stuff, one of the backgrounds is actually my 2015 ucas application to study history. That page can be dedicated to my inability to make life decisions. The illustrations on that page where the first ever fashion illustrations that I did. It’s encouraging to see how bad I was at drawing last summer because it makes me wonder how good I’ll be next summer. I’m sure that I did the portrait of the girl with pink hair when I was around 14 so I was happy that I found that.

 I have a HUGE Morplan catalouge I’m keeping for when I finish this art journal. It has around 600 pages and would probably take about 4 years to finish. I want to have a big journal so that I can flick through it and see how much my skills have improved over time. I have some old university prospectuses that would make great journals too as they have thicker paper. A coat of gesso and they could probably be painted on.

As I work through my journal I’m going to start sharing recent pages here on my blog. I’m also going to be taking part in the monthly challenges on Journal Workshops. I like the idea of doing a monthly blog post reviewing pages in my journal, and sharing what I did during the channel.

Does anybody else keep an art journal? do you prefer to use sketchbooks, altered books or do you prefer to make your own journals?