In January this year (2023) I started an art journal practice that’s been really helpful for me, and I’m sharing all about it in this post! If you struggle with staying organized and motivated, maybe it will work for you, too.
I know this practice is working for me because I stuck with it all year. Before this I kept a million different sketchbooks and journals (this one’s for this thing, that one’s for that thing, etc.), and lists on little pieces of paper everywhere, which made it really hard to find something when I was looking for it. With this method everything is in one place.
It has also helped me develop as an artist. By documenting and organizing everything together in this way, I can keep track of connections and ideas, and anything that crosses my path that might have potential in a future project.
What I’m doing with my art journal is pretty simple: I use a Moleskine Classic Notebook, hard cover, large (5" x 8.25"), with 240 blank pages. This has been a favorite recordkeeper for me for a long time. I love how smooth the pages are and how my favorite pen (Paper Mate Flair, medium tip) writes on them. I also like the binding and that the pages lie flat when open.
Each week in the art journal is a two-page spread. My art week begins on Wednesday. I write the date at the top and color the header so when I’m flipping through the journal it’s easy to identify the weekly records.
Then I divide the pages into four sections: the top left I keep blank initially and use it throughout the week to note things that are specific to the week. Or I’ll write how I’m feeling, what I’m reading, or I might just scribble some color there. It’s a flexible area.
To the right of that section is the to-do list for the week: everything that needs to get done that week gets written there, and I cross it off when I complete it. This can be write a Patreon post, write a blog post, see art, prep for a workshop, reclaim or coat certain screens, things like that.
Similarly, the bottom left section is where I keep a day-by-day list of every art-related thing I did. I like this because it reminds me that art is work that takes effort and time, and that I put a lot of effort and time into my artist practice.
To the right of that section at the bottom is a scratchpad, a place to dump anything that comes to mind that I want to remember or look into later. So together I sort of have past (“did”), present (“to do this week”), and future (“scratchpad”) all represented in these sections.
To demonstrate, here’s a week in October:
In between the weekly spreads, I also sketch and draw. Right now I am into drawing upside down in my art journal (more on that someday):
And in my art journal I also record meeting notes and book notes and workshop notes:
I use little sticky tabs to mark pages I think I might want to come back to later, like I have a running list of blog post ideas and a list of things I want to improve on my website:
Keeping an art journal this way helps me manage my artist practice — when it comes to lists and notes and things, I’m mostly a tactile, pen-and-paper, IRL person. It’s fun too to flip through the journal later and see what I was thinking and drawing six months ago. It’s a nice, tangible record that can get stacked on the shelf to look at later.
An artist’s journal/sketchbook process is a personal thing and surely can vary a lot from artist to artist. So far, this technique has been working well for me, but we’ll see if it continues to develop!