Tinker Art: Journal of the Season

Yesterday's post reminded me, that it's been awhile since I showed you my sketchbook/visual journal. Since I love to looky-loo at others' sketchbooks and journals, I thought I'd share my latest one with you. Even though my blog is a journal of sorts, I'm really trying to get back into journaling more in the real world again, too. I kind of take to it in spits and spurts.

Meade Academie Sketchbooks are what I'm using now (though I also like Strathmore Recycled sketchbooks). I like the Meade ones because they're fairly inexpensive (under $5 at Wal-mart), with large (8-1/2x11), blank, unlined pages (even though they're spiral bound, they also have those nice tiny perforations if you want to pull a sheet out. I know everyone says "keep it all so you can see where you've been," but sometimes, if I really HATE something - and sometimes I do - that I don't want to come to my journal and see it everyday as a reminder. Sometimes it's actually a relief to write about or draw something really awful, and then just rip it out and tear it up into little pieces, lol. It's kind of cathartic.).

I like using unlined paper, even though my handwriting's kind of messy, so I can add images; it just gives it more meaning somehow. And a lot of times, when I don't feel like writing anything, I just sort of draw and collage what I'm feeling and let the pictures say it for me.

The Meade ones have pockets in front, too, that you can tuck things into for later, like collage clippings....

and other bits and pieces. Sometimes when I'm listening to the TV or radio at night, I'll sit and clip interesting pieces out of the junk mail or magazines (some people are happy to give you their old magazines just to clear them out - hee-hee! treasure!), just to have on hand. You never know when you might want a set of silverware or an egg! Or if I only like a little part of a drawing I did, I'll cut that out and save it for later.

I'm really loving collage more and more, especially for journaling - it feels really satisfying to have an image on the page, and as much as I love to draw, I don't always have the time to "flesh out" the image as much as I'd like (and one drawback to the Meade sketchbook paper, is it won't tolerate a lot of wetness). But I can draw on it a little, and fill it out more with the collage pieces, fairly quickly.

I like to alter the cover pages, too..

Inside (um, I'm sure the readers who come here often can guess who this picture on the bottom right was inspired by; I'll add more to it later - especially if she ever shows up!) ...

This is the outside front cover...
I want to add more to it, like some actual (lightweight) mosaic pieces or blue glass, but probably not until I've filled it...I'm pretty hard on journals/sketchbooks. When I'm really into journaling, I like to take them everywhere, even the bathtub; throw them in the backseat of the car, you name it... another reason I like the inexpensive ones! Trust me, you don't even want to know what happened to the cover of my last one...but I slacked off of journaling for awhile, till I got a new one.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I think I'm going to try an entry representing each month. I'll probably need a new journal before the year's over, though, so maybe I'll keep this one for the monthly pleasures, and get another one for other stuff (or maybe not - maybe I'll just make this fall and winter. Gotta think about that.) Another journal topic I'd like to try, is the ingredients idea from Kai.

Kai had the idea that wouldn't it be great if we could read each other's ingredients - and I've started thinking about what ingredients might be listed on my "bottle." I think I might be one strange bottle of taco sauce! Actually, now that I think about it, sometimes my ingredients change. I might have to do more than one ingredients page - what if somedays, I'm more like a can of soup or even a bottle of perfume..