how to trick your inner perfectionist {and become an art journalist}
Thu, May 30, 2013 at 11:16AM "If you’re going to be a writer,
the first essential is just to write.
Do not wait for an idea.
Start writing something
and the ideas will come.
You have to turn the faucet on
before the water starts to flow."
Louis L’Amour
5x8" moleskine, watercolor, pitt pen
[originally posted january 2010]
A variety of wicked tricks to psych out your inner perfectionist so you can spend more time creating art. Trust that with practice and experimentation you will become more confident and comfy about your art journal work.
Try one or more of these ideas to break through the fear of the blank page.
- Start with a simple, inexpensive journal rather than the gorgeous leather-bound, monogrammed italian journal you received as a gift.
- Get out some acrylic paint, smear some on the page and doodle in the paint by scraping lines with a dull pencil, palette knife or edge of an old credit card. Just play.
- Consider your journal a place for experimentation. Call it a test or practice journal.
- Mix your mediums. Draw circles in ink and paint over them with watercolor and watch the ink run. Stitch a photograph to your page. Finger paint plaid stripes on your page with heavy body acrylics.
- Find inspiration in your day-to-day world. Draw a backgammon board with neocolors.
- Print a quote or lyrics and staple them to your page. Draw a frame around your words with a Sharpie.
- Hide a page you want to destroy. Revisit your decision in a week.
- Instead of a bound "art journal" use loose sheets of watercolor paper (i.e. Faded Blue), cardboard (i.e. Sunflower Kaleidoscope) or drawing paper (i.e. Art Journal: Summer). You can face a single page even if you get all wound up about "ruining" a pristine journal.
- Use an art journal prompt to get started. Let this be a constraint that you must work within.
- Use some journal pages to document your art materials. Paint a sample of each color of paint and label with the name or code number and brand. You can do this with colored pencils, neocolor wax crayons, pastels, watercolors and even fonts.
- Let kids design your background!
- Try creative experiments to venture beyond your comfort zone.
- Create art on an index card each day for a month or two.
- Try the Prompt6ix prompts with a focus on including all of the quirky prompts in one piece.
Grab some info on Art Journaling Materials and pop over to Art Journaling 101 for the basics on art journaling and there's even Art Journaling 101 for Kids/Teens and Other Beginners!
Reader Comments (20)
These are great ideas! Have you ever seen Keri Smith's Wreck This Journal? A group of friends tried it out for a while, and it was great fun. It definitely forced some of us out of our comfort zones.
Very helpful! I especially like the idea of a test journal. Thanks for all the inspiration!
Great ideas, as always, and thanks for the mention.
I also thought my week of ugly art journal pages might be of interest: http://bit.ly/4Pywn0 as another viewpoint.
great post! I'm a Studio Mothers contributor! :-)
Love these ideas. I have been dying to start an art journal and honestly haven't been brave enough to start. Thinking maybe I may try now. Thanks.
*diana, it's nice to meet you and yes, I'm familiar with WTJ but hadn't considered it as a way to ease into art journaling! I saw it as just a fun art project, so thanks!
*theresa, i've had a lot of positive feedback about the concept of a test journal. it's not only non-confronting, but it's quite useful! hope the sun comes out in Sitka soon!
*zom, definitely your ugly journal pages fit into this concept of finding a way to just push through the self-conciousness and get going on art, thx for adding this.
*kelly, thank you for visiting, and it's nice to meet you! i was laughing at your blog post about sewing being *sew stressful* because I cannot use my machine without crying... finally gave it away!
,
*toni, i hope that you will try whatever idea strikes you, just dive in, trust your creative instincts. i am so much happier since i started doing art for me. nice to meet you.
~ tammy
Hi Tammy, came to your blog via artiste nouveau. Your post " how to trick the inner perfectionist" is wonderful, just what I needed. Have printed it off and pasted it inside the front cover of my current journal, just in case I slip. point 9 is wonderful, just what I've come to realise. Now I buy books from charity shops with hard covers and thick paper (like design books) , gesso them and use as journals.
thanks for your words.
ps my blog is at www.ainelivia.blogspot.com though it says unrecognised when I entered it.
Hi I'm from the Uk - loving your website as i'm exploring it...more every day! Block printing sounds very similar to some monoprinting I have been doing for an art course - using a rubber roller and acrylic paints....
Thanks! My background is photorealistic painting and I am trying (so hard!) to be spontaneous and un-perfectionist-y. Thanks for the helpful words. I "started" an art journal by prepping several pages of a re-purposed book with gesso, then thought about prepping more until I was ready to actually make a journal page. I loved one so much - with a map on it. I had great aspirations for how perfect that page would be. After reading this post (and drinking a glass of wine) I wrote across the page in big letters "I am Tricking My Inner Perfectionist!" It felt good. I will continue to create art on these pages instead of JUST prepping them with gesso :)
Great ideas, thanks for sharing them with us. :)
Love this, just what I needed to get past the 101 stoppers. Thanks, love your blog and insight!
oooh. These are great tips!
May I use your idea's to teach some grade school age children. The art teacher they have wants color in lines and you understand. Daughter says all the time your art mom always looks so fun to make. I want them to understand with art there are no rules. Just rules you give yourself.
I too am very new to Art Journaling. I'm continually fastinated by Journal Artista's (Paula) 'stuff'...One of the problems I have though, is that every product she has, I feel like I have to buy. I can't seem to find what I'm really good at. I like the idea of the having actual pictures on the pages, yet some how it doesn't look as good as some I've seen. I love pastel colors ( not necessarily pastels themselves ), but my pages don't pop when I use light colors. Should it? There are certain colors I tend to like more than others, I'm wondering would it be boring if I just use the colors I love or should I try others...???? See told you I was new and confused! Thanks for listening and hope you can advise me in some direction...tee-hee....
As far as number six on this list goes, I sort of disagree with it. While picking a prompt is GREAT, I find if my mind starts to stray from the prompt and do something different, that's even better than sticking to the prompt. This is a great list, though, I'm glad I found it from the {celebrate imperfection} post.
Erica, Excellent point. I wrote the list as a set of possibilities for those a little nervous or unsure of what to do. While I agree that straying from a prompt is 100% awesome, I think for some folks it gives almost too many alternatives and they freeze.
Love this list! And your journal page of VI easy steps is great too, especially since you used Roman numerals =-)
Haha! Kiss your list... :) that's what I just did the other day to my bird painting ...just loved it so much. Happy & happy again, that's what one's art is supposed to be doing: make you happy, right?!
As always - really great post, Tammy.
Cheers, Jana
Hi, I think the Index Card A Day is such a great idea that I promoted it on my blog. Thanks for giving us a neat summer challenge.
I only started art journaling this year and I mostly manage to stick to my one rule: inner critic is not allowed anywhere near it. Mostly it's working but I think I'm still holding back a little.