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Creating an art journal spread is one of my favourite Year End/New Year rituals. Here's the step by step process I use (and share with my Artful Life Collective members every January) that makes it quick and fun. I recommend you grab a journal with watercolour paper or mixed media paper for the most satisfying results.
Write First
Overcome the fear of the blank page by journaling a summary of your thoughts and feelings about the year that's just ended on the left side of the spread. Then move to the right side, and dream big on the page - invite in all the goodness, fun, and joy you crave in a letter to whatever forces are commanding your fate. I like to write these pages in coloured pencil - use whatever you enjoy writing with.
There's a couple of reasons to begin this way: Firstly, while it sorts out the problem of that scary blank page, it also adds a layer of pattern and marks to your page. Secondly, as you continue you'll cover all that up. You get to obliterate the awful stuff you're anxious to leave behind, OR tenderly tuck your sweetest dreams and fondest memories into folds of colour and nestle them safely here on the page.
You can freestyle this journaling, but if you'd like a prompt or two, I've got you covered:
Last Year Prompts:
What sucked?
What are you NEVER going to do again?
What are you ready to say goodbye to? Give yourself some love for the hard parts you made it through...
What was a highlight?
What did you learn?
What are you not willing to put up with anymore?
What fills you with gratitude? (try the prompt "I got to...)
Coming Year Prompts:
What are you looking forward to?
What do you want more of?
What have you always longed to do, but never let yourself?
What is a Wildly Impossible goal? (a WIG is something that is highly unlikely, but not totally impossible)
How do you want to feel this year?
If you choose a word for the year, what is it?
What are 3 things you'll do to bring that word to life in your life this year?
What do you want the movie title to be for the coming year?
Launch A Smear Campaign
With a key card or pallet knife, smear a thin layer of gesso randomly across the pages. This begins the process of obliteration or tucking to safety and also helps you get some interesting textures as you proceed.
Once that's dry, squeeze some small blobs of one colour of paint onto your page in a few different places and smear or smoosh those around in whatver way feels good. (key card, pallet knife, dry brush, fingers!), Repeat that with a second colour, and while that colour is still damp, pick up a stencil and a baby wipe or wet paper towel and rub through the stencil - thanks to the gesso you added first, this picks up paint from some areas, and moves some colour to new areas. Move your stencil around and try this in a few spots.
Add small amounts of a third colour and repeat - you want to keep a bit of white spcae and not overwhelm the page, so take it slow as you add these layers.
Focus On Collage
Now it's time to bring in some focal elements. You can draw or paint these yourself, but I find that riffling through my collage fodder and picking up whatever catches my eye, not only makes this quick and low stress, but you'll often find that the image of a single-eye or flamingo standing on one leg that you don't know why you reached for, turn out to be symbols that help you express - or give insight into - your past experiences or future longings.
Rubber stamps can be another fun way to bring in a focal element like the one I've used here from Jane Davenport that says "Stand back, Creativity in progress". Between the words and the magic wand feel of the image, it perfectly sums up the way I want to feel in my creative practice this coming year.
Finishing Flourishes
Add some final details with paint pens or more stamping. You might want to incoprporate some hand lettering, cut out magazine letters to make a ransom note style headline, add dots, dashes, swirls, spirals, flower doodles, paint spatters. Set your imagination free to do whatever it pleases.
Rewarding Reflection
If you ask me (and you didn't, but I'm going to tell you anyway!) this step is the powerful part! You may find as you smoosh and smear and glue and play that you suddenly realise WHY that lonely eye or flamingo grabbed your attention. If so, this part is already complete. If you're all done and there's some stuff in there you are still curious about, ask it what it wants you to see?
The lonely eye in a little box with a round window on my page, started as a visceral "oh yeah, that'd be cool!" feeling, and as it came togther, I realised there were a couple of circumstances last year where I felt hemmed in, stuck, and with a limited view of choices. This one element carries a load of weighty meaning for me.
One of my Artful Life Collective members found that from an enormous book of collage pictures, a flamingo standing on one leg jumped out at her, and as she brought her page to life, and realised as she worked that it symbolised her finding balance in the past year. Cool hey?
You can use this journaling process for processing any event or milestone, no matter the time of year, but using it to close out a year and welcome a new one feels especially juicy to me.
Let me know if you try it! I'd love to see what you create and hear what you discovered.
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