I’m setting up materials for a mixed media journaling project/practice. (Or, rather, to resume a journaling practice.*)
I did some journaling October/November for a project – which will come out eventually but I’m not ready to talk about – and really enjoyed it. The one I did was a mix of daily entries and short stories, with a few sketches thrown in for illustrative purposes, and I thought, “I really like the doodling aspect here.” I really like the idea of mixing words and art right now. And the last time I was at Target I spent waaaaay too long staring at the colored pencils. So I spent some time this morning considering it, decided to try it.
The reason this is appealing to me right now it that it’s hands-on and offline. If I feel like sharing it on social media, I can just take a picture and post it.
With the way the world is going right now, even though I’ve weeded out my socials to the point where I’m reasonably safe around people to take risks, I’m not safe from giant corporations or institutions, and that’s something that could become really relevant, really quickly. Which is stifling what I share online.
I want to be able to say that I should have been more discreet in the past, but I don’t actually have any regrets. Writing extremely posts on Facebook helped get me past some blocks about living authentically in the world–and I wouldn’t change that.
But the situation is changing and it’s time to adapt, preferably in a way that feels fun rather than as a loss. Even though it kinda is.
Materials:
–Midori MD notebook and clear cover. I really enjoyed going nuts on the cover of the jourals I did in Oct/Nov, and right now I’m finding the idea of sourcing some cardboard and fabric to use as simple covers. MODPODGE FOREVER.
–Prismacolor color pencils, botanical box (12-count to keep it simple).
–I already have good pencils and a rubber eraser, a Most Favored Pen (Zebra Sarasa) and markers (Sakuras) and an en plein air watercolor set. And waterproof modpodge, of course.
Plan:
–Write/doodle/decorate a page a day (ish).
–Page numbers in lower corners.
–Dates in upper corners.
–Make the cover AFTER the notebook is full, to sum up how the contents went, and so I can glue down ephemera with the correct notebook, instead of leaving them loose in a box.
*I’ve done a lot of journaling a la The Artist’s Way (3 college rule notebook pages a day). Artist Way-style journaling is about disgorging the mess in your head in the morning, and not summing up memories for future reference per se. I want to try writing down things I want to remember.