a new artjournal...

I have always been fascinated with stories and books. When I am drawing it feels like telling a story, although the story can remain vague and only for me to understand.

Some two or three years ago I started making books of old drawings and working in sketchbooks. People call it artjournaling. Look for more information at the work of, for instance, Dawn Devries Sokol.

Today I made a start with a new artjournal. I made it from two old magazines glued together. I already used written pages as canvases before, but I guess I took a wrong magazine (too many words maybe). Another time I used an old studybook (of which I had a second copy in the new edition) to paint in. That was a bit difficult, because it kept reminding me of the 'good old' times in a not so nice way. I saw what I used to know, but did not remember exactly anymore. The fading memory being a bit traumatic. So I did a couple of pages and stopped it.

Yesterday I saw this video from Jamie Ridler on the internet. She talked about using beautiful magazines as journals. That did the trick for me, I think, the choosing of beautiful magazines instead of the ones I do not want anymore.

I choose two copies of the 'Flow' and glued them together. The nice thing now was that I choose the magazines on purpose. I love 'Flow' very much and it tends to inspire me time after time. The articles about creativity and about artists make that I usually read it in one or two sessions directly after it has arrived in my mailbox ('please don't disturb me for the coming hours!').

But after I have read them I do not see much of the copies anymore. Sometimes I give them away, but I love to keep them to be honest.

Today I started using them as an artjournal and I discovered that the good thing about this way of working is that I get inspired immediately by reading a little bit here and there. At the same time I can cover everything I do not want to keep with paint, while leaving words, quotes, articles intact that I want to remember and see again and again.

So I think I will be doing much more of this and I'll let you know.

Here are some snapshots of some pages I did today