ART JOURNALING

April 12, 2024

I’ve been doing this thing on FB and Instagram lately, posting Art Journal Prompts, partly as an exercise for myself and partly to encourage others to try it.

A bit of backstory is that a number of years ago my brother passed away and it was a pretty traumatic event for me.  Even into the following years I didn’t know how to find some resolution about who I was angry at and why, who I needed to “forgive”, and what part of my angst was just simply grief and that there was, indeed, no one for me to forgive. It was a jumble of emotions!

I decided to rent a cabin at a state park nearby and spend some time away from everybody else’s opinions and advice and just be alone to think. And maybe cry a little. And be mad.

On my way out of town I stopped at a Barnes and Noble bookstore, looking for something to read, to help a little and give me some direction. Lo and behold, I found a little workbook, published by the folks at Flow Magazine, about  “mindfulness”, which I had never heard of before!  Hmm. Looks interesting. I bought it and it changed my life.

I’ve always been an avid journaler. Did a lot of art in my teens. I’m not very good at art, words are probably my best.  So this little workbook combined the two: art and words!  And lots of pages about this new-to-me thing called mindfulness. Which is simply learning to live in the present.  In this moment.

Mindfulness has taught me to ask things like “Am I writing this article to get it done and posted and see who likes it? Or do I actually enjoying finding the right words to express what I’m thinking.”  Do I enjoy the process or just the result? Those are things Mindfulness addresses.

So in my cabin, with my newly found little workbook,  I drew a picture of clouds to express my feelings, and a flower I picked on day 1 and then drew it again on day 10 and what does it says about what I’m struggling with.

Much later, months after I left that cabin, I progressed to just really taking notice of the beautiful or interesting or puzzling things around me.  And I found that it calmed my troubled heart. 

To stop thinking about myself, to see things around me that are usually ignored. 

I don’t know where I picked up calling it Art Journaling. There are some ideas if you Google it, but I don’t know if they call it that.  Ann Voscamp is an author I like and she often suggests things, but in the long run, I’ve just adapted something from everybody else and made it my own.

So when I post on social media: “Go see how many patterns you can find today – and post a picture like the one above, something happens in my soul.  Just the doing of it – the paying attention, on purpose all day, to patterns that I’ve never paid attention to, is strangely calming. I’m focused in a way that carries over into the regular tasks of my day. I even think my blood pressure goes down a bit!  And it makes me almost giggly. Strange what a little thing can do for me.

Try it for yourself and see what happens.  You can find some ideas on my past pages on FB and Instagram.

And a few more to come each week.   Go have fun with it!