March 2022 - Week 1 Monthly Muse

Welcome to the Monthly Muse! The place to get your Artspiration!​

To our returning artists – welcome back! And to those new to the Monthly Muse – welcome! While the monthly muse is a place to celebrate Art Journaling, ALL STYLES ARE WELCOME HERE! Each month, we have a theme. From that theme a hostess develops a journal prompt and challenge on a weekly basis. Oftentimes, the challenge is open-ended with the intent of providing inspiration rather than a “recipe” for you to follow. However, a hostess may have a specific requirement for you to meet the challenge intent. By participating in the Monthly Muse, you may win a coupon for $5 to The Lily Pad store. Each entry, up to four, earns you one chance to win! Thus:

1 Muse = 1 chance to win
2 Muses = 2 chances to win
3 Muses = 3 chances to win
4 Muses = 4 chances to win

As long as you have one muse entry posted to the respective thread in the forum and your layout posted in the Art Journal gallery for that month’s Muse, you will be entered to win the $5 coupon. The Monthly Muse starts on the first Tuesday of the month, then runs for four consecutive weeks, ending on a Monday. For March, the Muse starts today, March 1st and runs through Monday, March 28th. April’s muse starts on Tuesday, April 5th and runs through Monday, May 2nd.

You may be wondering, “if all styles are welcome here” why have a Monthly Muse with an emphasis on Art Journaling? Well, I hope we tackle that question in our very first Muse of 2022. So, without further ado…

Welcome to the March 2022 Monthly Muse!!!​

For the month of March, we are going to explore “What is art journaling?” Our topics for March include:

Week 1: Exploring Art Journaling Styles
Week 2: Exploring Art Journal Techniques
Week 3: Exploring Art Journaling to Express Feelings, Self-Development, or Healing
Week 4: What is Art Journaling to You?

Although I give you the weekly prompts all at once, DO NOT!!! make layouts for weeks 2 – 4 until those weeks. You have No Idea what unique spin your hostess will add to the challenge (nor do I, haha!). I add all four prompts here for two reasons:

1). Many of our artists to do a bit of a progress scrap filling up ¼ of their layout with each week’s prompt/challenge. This is some serious out of the box thinking because each week’s layout is shaped like a book-marker.


2). We are going to get to that all important question – What is art journaling to you?! But before you answer that questions, I would really, really, really like for you to partition the way you think about Art Journaling.

Yes.

I would like for you to think about Art Journaling as a style. Period.

Art Journaling as techniques that can be used in Scrapbooking and other art forms. Period.

Art Journaling with an emphasis on “journaling” to express feelings, emotions, or self-development. Self-development and feelings can be expressed with words, images, or color. Period.

For the serious Art Journalist, this is hard to do – partition the mind. Because the Art Journalist tends to do all three things at once. If you make an Art Journal style page, naturally you'll use art journal techniques, and there is a high probability your creation will come from the heart. But what I am hoping to accomplish this month is serious thought on art journaling as a "style," and creating a layout in that style; art journaling techniques, that can be used in any style; and tapping into the "journaling" aspect of art journaling as a tool for healing, expression, or self-development (also regardless of style).

Week 1 - Art Journal Style​

Many great artists from Leonard da Vinci to Frida Kahlo kept art journals. For them, the art journal was the place to practice, to learn, to develop and explore before committing to canvas or commissioned works. The Art Journal was a safe place to make mistakes – or discover happy accidents.

If you look up “Art Journal” in your computer’s search engine, you may find that an Art Journal is a diary, a visual journal kept by artists containing words, sketches, or even mixed media elements such as collages (Wikipedia.org).

I believe Art Journaling is a visual artform in and of itself and when we talk about style, Art Journaling has a distinctive style born out of the artist’s desire to explore, to be free, to break rules, to explore patterns, to explore mark making, to explore new mediums, to explore color, to have fun, or to express oneself. Out of the artist’s need to practice and explore came a style that emphasizes imperfections, intuition, and getting messy. The modern day art journal style tends to incorporate mixed media – gesso + water color + acrylic + alcohol markers + needle and thread + ephemera. Imagination is the only limitation. And truthfully, our digital designers tap into all of that giving us mixed media products including paper bits, tags, stitches, brushes, masks, overlays, and all sorts of ephemera. Digitally, we can recreate what we see in organic works of art.

So let’s do that.

Here are some of my favorite Art Journalists that I feel capture the Art Journal STYLE:

Dina Wakley, The Kathrenwheel, Mystele
Teesha Moore, Misty Mawn, Raemissigman

Your challenge this week is to create a layout in the Art Journal Style! If you have a favorite artist that creates art in the Art Journal Style, you are very welcome to share this person with us, and perhaps mimic their style this week. I encourage you to think about Art Journaling as a Style – what does it look like?, and put that into a layout. I am not here to tell you what Art Journal Style looks like; I'd rather you explore art journaling and express in a layout what you think the art journal style is.

As a reminder, you can use any products in The Lily Pad store or retired products from current Lily Pad designers, (just make sure you follow our gallery guidelines).

Please post your layout to the Art Journaling Gallery HERE by Midnight, 28 March 2022; and post your week 1 layout in this thread by copying the "Share BB Code" to the right of your gallery image.

Recap – this week’s challenge is to create a layout in the Art Journal Style.

I can't wait to see what you create and how you define the Art Journal Style through your very own creation!

 

And, my take on the challenge!

 

Thank you! I know you will ROCK this challenge!

 

Not at all! Was thinking about doing quads this year too, In the way you described. You are free to create as your heart pleases.

 

@michelepixels You are off to a fabulous start! And, yes, each week can still be added to the AJ gallery. It’s kinda fun to watch each piece of the puzzle added week on week.

 

@Lillyia all I can say is, me and dried up old leaves have a connection these days...

 

@Nemla - thank you for sharing two of your favorite artists. I am familiar with Laly Mille - she does beautiful mixed media. And what a soft color palette she tends to gravitate to...a bit soft and feminine but full of texture. Effy Wild I was not familiar with - but I enjoyed looking through her gallery and IG and really like how she does faces. Its interesting because she tends towards bolder colors, rich, deep, organic.