Art journaling is the art of opening up a journal or notebook and just let your thoughts, images and creativity flow.

It can be with paint, crayons, mixed media, collage…
It can be in black and white or full of colors.
It can be about your day or about what’s on your mind.
It can be done with a plan or intuitively.
It can be small or big.
It can be in a journal or on canvas.
It can be any way you want.
There is no pressure.
There is no end goal.
There is no need for beauty.
It flows.
It delights.
It releases.
It speaks.
It calms.
It creates.
It soothes.
It helps.
It balances.

Today was a BALANCE kind of day.

I have not painted much these past months. Collaging however has taken a new place in my life. I used to collage on canvas and use it as a layer to start my art. Now collaging has become smaller, in a journal, on a page, in a notebook.

I take a prompt from my art therapy class for example, or just a word, or a quote and something I heard that day or that made me think, and just start flipping through magazines, looking at pictures, words, colors and simply rip out what delights me or speaks to me.

I hardly ever have a plan.

Things evolve while I am ripping and cutting images, strips, words. Oh this could become this. Or maybe this colour fits well with this. I start arranging the images on the page. Without thinking too much. I work quite fast.
Some images do not make it on the page. I work intuitively. When I search for a certain image I won’t find it. But the right image, the one that is supposed to be there, always shows up.

Is the result always beautiful?

NO.

But that is not the point. The process is the point. It’s fun, therapeutic, mindful, cathartic, relaxing, releasing.

🦋Do you art journal?🦋