I created a series of “pieces” of an art journal page for my Teen Workshop Yesterday.

As you can see i simplified things quite a bit – backgrounds, borders, lettering (words) and main image. I showed the pieces separately and then pinned them to the background to demonstrate how everything can be put together.

Here is another sample with a more jazzed up background and an “L” shaped border. The border was created with torn bits of painted papers, book pages and a tiny doodle lady in the corner.

Yesterday there were 19 girls in the Art Journaling workshop – at the top of the hour there were only 4 and i began to panic – within 10 minutes an additional 15 girls poured in which really gave me only 50 minutes to demonstrate, talk, do tutorials and then let the girls go to it to create funky painted backgrounds and learn how to stencil.  Let’s just say paper, paint, glitter and stencils were flying around the room.  It kind of felt like “Speed Dating” only this was “Speed art Journaling” ! The girls had a blast! Thanks for all of your wonderful energy girls!  Thank you also to the White Rock Library for hosting this two part Art Journaling for Teens program. A big thanks to Jessica for organizing it and to Doreen for helping out! xo

When someone is new to Art Journaling it can be pretty overwhelming as to where to begin – that’s part of the reason why i wrote my book Journal Bliss to help people get over the fear of beginning and fear of the blank page.  You certainly DON’T have to journal in this way – it’s just one way to begin.  You’ve probably seen some of my completely drawn journal pages before – i don’t begin with a painted background at all.  I just use pens and coloured pencils.  These are fun pages to create as they can be done in one sitting – no waiting for paint to dry.

Feeling overwhelmed?

You have probably heard me talk about overwhelm on my blog quite a bit.  It’s something i struggle with.  Do you know how i often come up with solutions?  I imagine that i am teaching someone how to do what I’m struggling with and i end up chunking down the problem.  That’s how i came up with a recipe for art journaling.  Often when i have to do something with so many bit and pieces – for example creating a Workshop DVD – i use my flipchart and reverse engineer the process.  I start with the end in mind and work my way backwards to figure out the steps i would need to achieve my goal.  Sometimes I’ll use images, sometimes words – often i start with a mind-map – i love MIND-MAPS! 

The next time you are overwhelmed with a problem that seems just way to HUGE to tackle consider chunking it down.  I’d love to know how things work out for you!