I am such a big advocate of art journaling. For me it is not just a place to try my hand at art techniques. The main reason I keep one is it is hands down the best way to capture and develop inspirations.
ALL of my creative ideas start in my art journal.
It is the first thing we learn to do in art class when I was in college. It is how I hammered out many many graphic designs over the years. It has also expanded my knitting from hobby knitter to knitwear designer and fiber artist.
I have been keeping some version of an art journal since I was a teenager. But honestly, really getting into that habit of using it daily and regularly exploring my right brain was daunting despite my years of experience. Will it be good enough? What if I hate it? What should it look like? All my self doubts about my work bubbled up. I took online art journal classes. I studied techniques. I watched hours of you tube videos. I wanted to make volumes of beautiful work.
What I realized is I do have volumes of beautiful work.
I have a lot of ugly pages, pages of to do lists and budgets and notes. And little bits of art and doodles and sketches of sweaters. And places where I added washi tape and stamps. All of it is from my brain.
There is no right or wrong way to journal.
What I realized is by beginning my art journal, is to say I keep an art journal. I was already there with the first mark on the first page. I was already committed to capturing all the ideas be they right or left brain, good or bad, beautiful or ugly.
Art Journaling is looking at your ideas without judgement and giving myself one place to hold those inspirations for future use.
Journaling helped me get clear on colorways that I resonate with and can stand behind. Journaling helped give me the confidence to knit impossible sweaters with my beautiful stash yarn. Journaling helped nail down my style as an artist now and as it continues to evolve.
Art journaling is a process. You only need to overcome inertia.
The trick is to keep using your art journal as your visual sounding board for all you passing ideas, and time to yourself to just play with art be it cheap watercolor tins, doodling, or just pasting stuff. Every now and then I challenge myself to do so for 30 days straight.
So want to join me? The 30 day art journa challenge will start September 1.
I send out daily emails with encouragement and tips to get your journal practice going.
Fiber artist Stacey Budge-Kamison AKA UrbanGypZ lives and works in Cary NC. She can also be found knitting in public, hammering out her latest e-course at local cafés and spinning yarns in her booth at her favorite arts festivals. A designer at heart, Stacey has decided that her mission is to help fellow knitters, crocheters, weavers and felters embrace their own style and creativity by exploring fiber art as it is a part of their everyday life and helping them embrace the title of artist no matter where they are in their journey. 
I can’t say I have a designated journal anymore but my drafts of patterns are a beautiful mess!
Maybe it’s time to organize the chaos, then I will be able to find the brilliance when I need it. I reuse the kids duo tangs from school. I can add and remove pages at will.
Thank you for the inspiration to create a more sacred space for my ideas and inspirations.
My pleasure. Send me a picture of you new binder. I love seeing how creative people organize their work.
Please do this again. I found you after you had started
It is now an evergreen event, but in need of an update.Revised edition coming this fall.