Art Journaling

A little while back, I wrote about "travel-art-journaling" as a great opportunity to inculcate an art habit. When the setting is relaxed and beautiful, art just seems to ooze out of you, if you know what I mean!

Palmwoods Retreat, near Pune

However, I do find regular journaling an incredibly useful habit to adopt too. It has a number of benefits towards a person's mental well-being; but combine that with art, and voila! double the benefits! In the words of William Wordsworth, "Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” - and maybe allow it to breathe out a little bit of artwork as well.

If Michelle Obama can do it...

Let me remind you of some of the reasons why a daily or even weekly journaling practice is good for us. Remember Ann Frank? A journal is like a friend that you talk to, in private. You can tell her whatever you want, and she listens patiently, understands perfectly, gives no faltu gyaan, makes no judgement, holds nothing against you, and keeps your secrets to herself (unless you are silly enough, like me, to leave the journal where a nosy younger brother can find it - but that's a story for another day...) Pouring your heart out in a journal is a constructive way to destress and relieve anxiety. It gives concrete form to all those floating thoughts and feelings - I call it "mental flotsam" - and allows us to organize them into what needs to be kept or discarded. Some of my best ideas have come while journaling or doodling - ask any architect or artist! It allows us to problem-solve, pray, heal, create goals and even track them... the list is endless.

Art and Journal

As an artist and art educator myself, my aim is to push towards using art as an important tool for self expression. Just like using words, using colours, textures and little images adds to the experience of journaling, and makes it that much more fun. Sometimes using non-words for ambiguous feelings is easier... think teenage girls doodling hearts on the back pages of their notebooks in class! Fast and angry scribbles of colour can be highly cathartic, scribbling a repetitive pattern on paper is a possible indication of feeling "mentally or emotionally stuck"... I urge you to try it sometime. Try painting bright little flowers when you are happy - or want to be. Paint a red heart for your loved one, and no words will be necessary :)

With artwork, it becomes possible to record with more than just words - those intangible, fleeting "somethings"- your state of mind, the brightness of the colours, the contrasts in the sun and shade, the breeze and the sway of the leaves, the feel of the place - I could go on and on. It obviously differs from taking a photograph of the place because here you put in a little bit of yourself, you observe more keenly, you feel more keenly. It is about mindfulness, and being present right there.

Journal what?

Anything and everything!! Angry with your strict maths teacher? Make a wicked caricature in your journal! Read a lovely quote? Draw a little something on the side of what you have written, a little doodle maybe. Beautiful day out? Paint a little flower that you saw on the sidewalk, or maybe the colours of a beautiful sunset... why not? Who's watching? Nobody there to judge how good or bad the drawing is! It's a personal, private moment or feeling that deserves a mention. The point here was never to "create a masterpiece", it is simply a small, beautiful expression of a part of you. Or an angry scribble of a "negative emotion" expressed in a most constructive way - and that is equally helpful.

Apart from the fact that one gets better at art in the most fun, accessible way, it allows for your creative side to flower. I have very often seen art journaling done as a form of art; as the destination in itself, rather than the means. And that's beautiful! I highly encourage you and maybe your children to give it a go.... you might just get very pleasantly surprised!

Happy art journaling!