10 Craziest Visual Journaling Ideas for Your Art Journals: Break the Rules!

Have you been obsessed with scribbling and doodling ideas and thoughts on papers to vent out how you feel? If you can add some images, sketches, or snaps to your serious scribbles, it would become a lot like a visual journal, you know that!

Yep, you can use these techniques with a coffee mug by your side to keep you company while jotting down the bits & pieces of your weird thoughts on paper (or the journal pages) while sipping your morning coffee. Utterly relaxing!

Want to know what is journaling in an artistic way – this blog has all the answers to your Q’s! Moreover, it will add some really weirdly, creative ideas to make your journaling techniques peppier and fun-filled!

So, let’s start at the very beginning –

What’s so Unique about an Art Journal or Sketch Journal Book

What is art journaling? Well, it’s a kind of sketch book, where you can write down your weird ideas, or take notes of something you have in mind, sketching out some projects, like traditional scrapbook keeping we used to do as kids.

Sometimes you just need to do NOTHING until something magical happens and you dance back to the tune of joy – journaling is just like that!

Art journals remind us something about how scrapbooking is done, with different layers of images and texts put together with precise descriptions. 

 If you love the process over product then this is just the right thing for you.

What Makes Art Journaling a Creative Tool for Healing & De-Stressing?

Have you ever flipped through the colorful pages of a watercolor journal book or a mixed media journal – and found the pages staring at you silently? As if you have a deep connection with those pages, because this is the perfect place where you pour your emotions on a regular basis (almost like writing a diary), without being too conscious of the outcome of your work!

• The colorful journal books show the evolution of your paintings – it’s more than how you practice art! It’s strongly an art therapy!

  
  

• On top of that, there isn’t a lot of pressure to make a masterpiece, it’s a place to explore your inner landscape, without anyone’s scoff & stare!

  
  

• Journaling that way is a very personal thing!

  
  

• Use visual journaling to de-stress and purge your inner feelings through scribbles, drawings, and writing, the best way to find what is so cool about you and how you can handle your emotions!  

  
  

• The most fascinating fact is that maintaining an art diary won’t eat up much of your time!! You can afford up to 15 minutes every day, to let your brain wander in the neverland of sketches and collages!

  
  

• A lot of times they don’t make a lot of sense (!), but there’s a lot of stuff going on in a world of your own!

Let’s add a little dose of chaos and quirk on the empty pages – try these bizarre, fun art journal ideas to document your mood!!

Fill Pages with these Cool, Offbeat Creative Journal Ideas for Fun: -

1.  A Unique Food Journal

Think of a meal that has given you immense joy and show your gratitude through some hearty notes and images. Show how you’ve liked your breakfast platter in a playful way. Make a note of the items you have had and give them a personality, like Mrs. Marmaladia (Marmalade), wife of Sir Toasting (toasts), and draw some weird sketches of them!

2.  A Flying Fashion Journal

Use it as a fashion mood board page with some mixed media journal techniques – make a collage of your fabric swatches, receipts, even that flyer you found lying under the carpet the last day!

3.  A Blackout Poetry Journal

What about some blackout poetry? YES! Take a page off an old poetry book, stick the page on the journal, keep the lines that are favorite to you – black out the rest of the lines with a black marker! Make scribbles around!  It’s a fun and easy way to create a ‘black out’ poetry – no stress, just pure fun!

4.  A Bad Art Journal

Try to create intentional ‘bad art’ while giving your other hand a chance to doodle on the pages – let it create a mess, go ‘off perfection,’ and end up looking like a potato with eyebrows. It’s okay to look silly, as the intention is fun, not perfection!

5.  A Mono Color Journal

Make your own color aesthetics for the day – like use only one color for a single page. Each page will have a different shade of the same color. No other colors allowed!

6.  A Weird Weather Journal

Make weather headlines of your own like the next ‘Monday will have 50% chance of raining cats.’

7.    A ‘If I were ….’ Journal

Fill the pages of the journal book, imagining yourself in different avatars like a tree, a cloud, a platter of pizza, a Hollywood villain of the 70s… etc.!

8.  A Dream Job Journal

Think of the jobs you wish to pursue in your dreams, like an underwater violinist, a fashion stylist in the clouds, etc.!

9.  A Hard Feelings Journal

It’s a lot about emotional journaling: show how you feel deep inside, with all the pains and protests, rants and screams jotted on paper! It will help you get past your “(-ve)” feelings!!

10.   A Micro Joy Journal

This can be fascinating, when you’ll capture the happy moments or feelings in a teeny-tiny way! Draw a closeup of a coffee foam or a 1/10th of a smile! It’s weird!

 Some Playful Journaling Techniques & Art Ideas!

• Patch watercolor washes with ink outlines to get a dreamy AF sketch journal book vibe!

• Try the collage style layering with washi tape, ticket stubs, and fabric scraps

• Keep some secret pockets to hold something as custom art journals should have secrets!

• Stamp with fruit or vegetable imprints; make them your art assistant!

Best Art Journals: There is No ‘Right’ or ‘Wrong’ in Journaling!

Well, we all have the right to be creative, to be able to tell our stories without any inhibition and art journaling is just the place to be!

If you are someone who has been into this process for a long time and have been using the same technique for years, here’s the time to add more noise and chaos to your art book! If you never named it, try naming them out-of-the-world! Because you know that this is a place where you can worry less about the outcomes!

Come to think of the best art journal, nothing matches the Strathmore mixed media journal book – they are kind of diaries that come with acid-free, lignin-free pages to hold different mediums like watercolor, acrylic, graphite, gouache, pen & ink, colored pencil, marker, pastel, photographs, etc.

• The cotton fibers with proper pH balance resist yellowing and decaying of the pages. Then let your brain roam free on these sheets!

Give Your Art Journals a Mission

You are the best person to decide the purpose of your art journals. If it’s a junk custom art journal feel that you’re looking for, take the handmade junk journals that have a textured feel with pages made of recycled materials.

Pour Your Mood on Paper: See the Magic!

Your arts journal doesn’t have to be a master work! It is a ground for your thoughts & doodles to play wild. Whether you've got the best art journal with luxe paper or a brittle mixed media journal preserved for years with love, the only rule is to ‘Make it yours.’

So, grab your art diary and let your thoughts go crazy on the pages. Pour your brain on paper, with a little more glue & glitter!!

If you’ve been visiting the online art gallery TERAVARNA for contemporary art related tips & ideas, or ongoing art competitions, you’ll get more of such revolutionary prompts for your visual journaling! So, keep browsing!