Join The Art Journal Challenge

The official art journal challenge is over, but this post is packed with links to tutorials and inspiration for what we made. ENJOY!

After a lovely summer of art journaling, nature walks, beach time, sketching, and allowing my mind to truly REST, I’m filled to the brim with ideas I want to share with you. The first being an art journal challenge!

I’ve created a mini course about journaling in its many forms (you can access that one here) but this challenge will be focused on the art journal, or fancy happy journal, as I like to call it.

Why art journal?

Before we jump into the details of the challenge, let’s chat a bit about some of the wonderful reasons we should all keep some sort of art journal.

It’s a personal space for you to spill your thoughts with no judgment.

I’m a big fan of creating secret projects that are just for you. These little (or big!) works fuel the larger projects and ideas you share with the world. They are a safe place for your mind to wander, for you to try new things, and for you to be YOU.

The world doesn’t have to see EVERYTHING you create. Your art journal (or happy journal) is the place you document your ups and downs, the swatches of color that delight you, the little moments of your day. And when you close that final page, you have quite the document of your creative and LIFE journey!

You get to experiment with mediums to your heart’s delight!

Oooh, this is my favorite part. Last summer, I started playing with dye-based inks. I experimented with them alongside watercolors and oil crayons, water-based crayons and markers. I learned SO much by drawing and playing in my art journal with these various mediums, and you definitely can too.

And the best part? If a page doesn’t turn out how you’d like, you can always turn the page. 🙂

It’s easy to fill a small art journal page in a short space of time.

I like to create an art journal page every day if possible. It might be part of a page, say an initial sketch. Or it might be a completely finished spread. Because I’m working on such a small area (rather than a large canvas), I can usually move faster in my work. And because I’m not pushing for perfection and am just there to play, that helps me loosen up too.

I’ll be talking about these points (and more) throughout this art journal challenge. Art journaling is such a great way to get those 20 minutes of creative time for your sweet artist’s soul every day (and you ARE an artist!) It’s like giving yourself a little vitamin boost.

So let’s see, about the challenge itself . . .

Join the Art Journal Challenge!

Here’s how the challenge will run.

For the next several months, I will share a prompt every other week here on the blog, on Instagram, and in my email newsletter. (It will be the same prompt in each place, but just in case you don’t have Instagram, etc., you’ll be able to see it. We’ll do two prompts a month.)

The challenge will include prompts of things to draw, paint, doodle, and collage, but it will be much more than a “draw this” kind of challenge.

It will also include ideas of supplies and mediums to use . . .

Art journal backgrounds to try . . .

The process of creating itself . . .

We’ll also have some specific prompts, but I want this to be more encompassing of the entire creative process that makes up art journaling.

The point is to get us playing in our art journals and moving forward in our creative lives! If you need an “excuse” to create, this is it!

Starting September 3rd, you can participate in the following ways:

• Follow my blog, Instagram account, and/or subscribe to my newsletter to receive the latest prompts.
• Create an art journal page (or a few) using the prompt.
  • I will be creating a few pages for each prompt and will share them on Instagram. You can make as many as you like since we’ll be sitting with the prompt for two beautiful weeks!
    
• Share your art journal page using the hashtag I will provide. And tag and share with your arty friends so they can play along too!
• To start, you will need an art journal with medium-weight pages (so you can paint on them), a black waterproof pen, and whatever paints and mediums you already have on hand. I’ll be sharing more supplies and how to use them as we go along.

Many creative challenges out there have you making something Every Single Day, which is a great practice, but I purposefully am keeping this one to twice a month so we can really ENJOY the process rather than feel panicked that we’re getting “behind” or worse, feel like we need to scribble something down in our art journals so we can check it off the list.

Creativity is so much more than a checklist!

Join me September 3rd for our first prompt. Can’t wait to do this challenge with you. <3