The "Keep Going" formula for your Art habit.
Ask yourself these questions to structure a journaling routine that will last.
One of the most common reasons people tell me they’re struggling to keep an art journal is that they don’t know what to do. They don’t know where to start, and they don’t know how to keep going. But keeping an art journal is a habit or skill just like any other. You need to have a plan, even if it’s a loose one. Give yourself some go-to parameters to keep decision paralysis at bay, and before you know it, picking up your journal and digging into the next page will be as easy as brushing your teeth before bed.
Ask yourself these questions in any order. Start with the one that’s easiest to answer and go from there.
What’s the point?
Listen - it’s tough to stick to anything if you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish. Why would anyone do, literally, anything unless they saw the benefit of it on the other side? So, ask yourself what the point of your journal will be. What do you want to accomplish through making art every day?
Here are some examples:
I want to enjoy the feeling of making art regularly.
I want to learn how to draw people.
I want to figure out how to use watercolor pencils.
I want to practice composition (or line, or color, or mark-making, or on and on, you can go).
I want to have a book full of my art by the end of July.
I want to learn how to be more expressive in my art.
I want to try out collage.
I want to use art journaling to wind down at the end of every day.
I want to create a book of memories through art.
Have fun brainstorming. What makes you feel excited when you think about it? Allow your mind to wander. Think about what feels playful and enticing. This is meaningful work, but it doesn’t have to be serious work.
What can you handle?
Be realistic. Seriously - what can you handle?
One of the biggest mistakes a lot of us make is biting off more than we can chew. (*Ahem* I may be speaking from experience.)
When you’re thinking about crafting a lasting habit, you need to consider what’s feasible and be ok with the parameters your current life requires.
Figure out what works now. You can always adjust as life changes, but this moment, right now, is the one you want to evaluate so you can craft a directive that actually works.
How much time do you have available? What kind of space? What kind of materials?
Set yourself up with something easy. I’m talking small and simple. Even if it seems silly at first. Small is better than nothing.
When you read through them again, one of the factors above will likely stand out first: time, material, or space. Start with the obvious one.
For instance, time.
Here are some examples:
Thinking you only have five minutes to spare between walking in the door in the evening and starting dinner? Work with that.
Your only “me” time is while you wait, parked in the carpool line for 20 minutes? There’s your art session.
Have a 30-minute lunch break? Make it happen.
Is your best time 10 minutes with a cup of coffee in the morning? Glorious.
What do you need?
This is a big one. I’m not talking about what you might need materially to make it happen, though you will need to consider that, obvi.
What I’m asking you to think about here is what your creative heart needs. What does your soul need? What do your body, mind, and spirit need? What kind of self-care do you need?
Let your journaling habit be nurturing.
Let it be play.
Let it be curious, open, and free of judgment.
Close your eyes for a minute and breathe deeply. Feel into your body. Allow yourself to imagine all the possibilities. What sounds delightful? What feels like bright, energetic light when you imagine doing it? What feels like it has a sparkly, happy energy? That’s what you need to go with for right now.
What Do You Expect?
You may have a grand, beautiful vision in your mind right now. This can be a curse for us creative types. We want to achieve big things. And, big things are awesome, but sometimes dreaming only of large-scale outcomes can lead us straight into a creative freeze.
I invite you to blur the focus a bit. Allow your vision to be sparkly but also fuzzy and slightly unclear. Allow yourself room to shift and grow as you do more. Allow it to be small and allow it to be “-ish.”
Sketch for ten minutes-ish.
Over the next month, do ten pages-ish.
On an index card, try something college-ish.
Give yourself permission to learn as you go, to embrace each entry as an experiment or expression rather than a product. No aspirations of perfection allowed.
Allow many small entries to lead to the “big” accomplishment - a new skill learned, a journal filled, a newly established feeling of calm resulting from your evening mark-making routine.
Allow yourself to shift your goal from producing something “worthy” to enjoying the act of engaging regularly with art that nourishes your whole self. Not everything has to be finished, perfect, share-worthy, or pretty, etc. It can just be. It can exist just because it felt good to make it.
Creating something small regularly can feel more significant, life-giving, and monumental than the big thing every so often or not at all. If “big” is not in the cards right now, then embrace that parameter. Let your art be small and consistent. You’ll feel so much better.
What’s Your Formula?
Put it together, and what have you got? (Bibitybobityboo!)
What’s your point?
What can you handle?
What do you need?
What do you expect?
Ex: “I want to try collage. I have about 15 minutes each afternoon. I need to feel the calm of being in flow. I expect to have a small collection of collaged index cards at the end of the month. Maybe five total.”
(By the way, I know index cards aren’t technically a journal, as in: they aren’t bound together like a book. But for me, I consider any art you make regularly, for the sake of growth and reflection, and observable in chronological order - whether by flipping pages or by laying everything out to see at once - a journal.)
Your Invitation Today:
Reflect on what would be most meaningful in your life right now. What would feel most nourishing to you?
Start imagining your new journaling routine from there, then share your ideas and questions in the comments. I can’t wait to hear what you’re dreaming up!
XO -