Keeping an art journal is a good idea for many reasons. I will share several of those reasons here in this blog post. Feel free to add more reasons in the comments!

A Spring Board

Art journals often become springboards for future paintings! The beautiful thing about art journaling is, you are not trying to create a finished artwork. Oftentimes when you remove this pressure, beautiful “accidents” can happen which can lead to an idea for a future finished painting. Additionally, sometimes an art journal is a great place to mess up and make mistakes to save yourself the time and money you would otherwise lose on a canvas.

Freedom

Another wonderful thing about art journaling is the freedom you have! You use journaling time as playtime or a time to relax and really loosen up with your creativity. Throw away some rules you learned in art school and see what happens! The pressure is off to create a masterpiece.

Speak What you Cannot Say

Sometimes there are things in our minds or hearts that we cannot say or put into words. This where color and images come into play. Art journaling is a healthy way to let out the emotions you feel in a creative way. You may not be able to articulate what you are feeling so putting your emotions down in color may be a great release. Different colors can represent different emotions. For example, if you are happy you might choose more yellow and orange warm colors. If you are sad, you might choose more deep blue cool colors.

Testing the Waters

Art journaling is a great space to test out new art supplies before you use them on a stretched canvas. Additionally, I love to come up with new color schemes in my art journal that one day I will use on a finished canvas painting. Journaling allows trial and error which can save you time and money in the long run.

Lastly, I recommend journaling on either a mixed media or watercolor notebook. I have found that mixed media and watercolor papers seem to hold up the best for art journaling with multiple art supplies!