Some Thoughts on Keeping a Journal, Taking Classes and Making it all Work

I've been a long time advocate of taking a minimum of fifteen minutes a day and using it to work in your journal. If you have 15 minutes to read blogs (including this one), watch tv, etc... than you have time to work in your journal. The only successful key to keeping a journal is doing the work. There is no wrong or right way to do it. The more you put in the time and effort, the more you will learn what works best for you, what you like and the best way that works for you.

I work in my journal every day. I don't always complete a page but I will work in stages. One day, I will start a page with collage, doing what I can until I have to stop. The next day (or later on in the day), I'll pick up my journal and working on the same page, I might start to add my journaling. Later, I may go back and add other things to the page. You never have to finish a page in one setting. It's better (and more rewarding) to spend your time working however you can in your art journal than to spend your time berating yourself that you never finish a page. Do what you can and think in terms of baby steps.

I've heard many students come back over time after taking a class and tell me what worked for them or what didn't work. I always appreciate good, honest feedback. Sometimes I hear that the students didn't like a class (my class, someone else's class, etc...). I've taken classes that I didn't love. Hell, I've taught classes that I didn't love (many years ago and now I will ONLY teach classes that I want to teach and am passionate about or else it shows!) as well as I've taken classes that I didn't love. The one question I always ask is, "Did you do the work?" or "Did you take what you could from the class, work with it and try to make it work for you?" Sometimes that's all we have to work with. We can have the best teacher and the best class on the planet and unless we commit ourselves to actually doing the work hands on, NOTHING will make that class beneficial to you unless you just dive in and just do the work. It's the same thing with art journaling. It's not going to "work" until you do the work.

What does this all mean? Am I writing this from a cough medicine induced stupor? Maybe. It's something that percolates in my head again and again and I had to get it out (just like with my journal pages) and onto the blog in the hopes that maybe it will percolate and brew in your head. It's food for thought and something that I muse on again and again.

What do you think? Do you think you have time to create daily? What about taking a small journal, a glue stick and a pen with you to work and gluing bits and bobs in on your lunch hour? What about using your time before you go to bed to just write about your day, reflecting upon what happened and thoughts that are swirling through your head? What about taking that little tidbit of information you liked from that last art class you took and seeing how you can get it to work in your journal? How can you make it work for you?

All in all, in the time it took you to read this, you could've started a page. What are you waiting for?