journaling tip tuesday: creativity journaling, symbols
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
The sub-heading for today’s tip is “creativity journaling”. I plan to have a few posts geared towards creative types for ways to use journaling as a brainstorming tool for creating art. Creativity journaling can include visual journaling, but it really has more to do with writing.
I have worked on a few series of paintings and always seem to have ideas about future ones swimming around in my head. Before I really get into the thick of working in a series, I journal. I write an entry (or more) about what issues I want to tackle. Looking at these entries I find that most of what is written are questions. Why? How? What happens if? How come? Where did this come from? etc.
I hopefully work out the answers to these questions visually through my paintings. More often than not, though, the paintings lead to more questions. So back to my journal I go!
After writing down the issues, it may also help to just brainstorm about what symbols you might want to use. Write anything and everything down. One idea can always lead to another. Make sketches next to your lists. Or even collage images down.
U.K. artist Vivien Blackburn created a book called “Ravelled Sleaves”. In this book she utilizes the image of her hand as one of the symbols of herself and her identity to depict feeling torn between all the demands on her during that time in her life-art, school, work, family, life. I think we can all relate to that at some point in our lives!
You can see in just three images how the hands transform into a wave that threaten to drown her. Be sure to check out Vivien’s Sketchbooks. Her sketchbooks are such a treasure to look through. Landscape studies combined with written observations and color studies are so insightful into the way her works progress. Then go visit her web site to see how her sketchbooks influence her finished paintings. And she also has a blog!
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