Shared Journaling Experience

Ruth at Twelve Squared Creations is starting a new prompted writing and art journaling project on her site. I originally was part of a test group for her first one. It was fun and allowed you to be as creative as you wanted. It was great seeing how differently others interpreted the prompts. I highly recommend it.

The prompt for week one is an iconic summer memory, like the scene in Grease. When I saw the prompt I immediately knew what I would do. The image of a ferris wheel from Playland which was an amusement park I used to go to with my family growing up and fireworks came to mind. We always had a lot of fun there and went several times in the summer. Even though it technically should be done with a group and currently I am only a group of one I still wanted to do it.

I originally planned on it being night with the ferris wheel in the forefront and fireworks in the background. However I got distracted and used a light blue gelato instead so I had to leave out the fireworks. The background looked a bit empty so I added some birds. The birds and ferris wheel were created with Faber-Castell Pitt Brush Pens. The page border and word borders were created using distress inks. I attached the admit one tickets and the words with scor tape. I included four tickets because my family was a family of four. So one ticket for each of us; my mom, dad, brother and me.

I decided this year to participate in some challenges. I’ve decided to do The Documented Life Project which in their words is

One part planner plus one part art journal and one part weekly challenge equals an amazing year of organization, inspiration and community.

It seems interesting. I am not much for planners so I’m not sure how this will go. Though I do have some ideas. I’m not going to spend money on buying a planner as I have one my husband purchased a few years ago on clearance at Borders. Its a daily sundial planner.

I will be using it as a weekly planner. I will use the section that says Tasks at the bottom of each page to list the things I want to do for the week. I like the sundial and would like to incorporate it into my art whenever possible but I think most of the time it will be covered. I plan to use the space above the tasks to doodle, sketch, draw, paint etc about things that happened during the week. Depending on how many tasks I have I may use both pages for the week and then add in a page for the weekly prompt. If I only use one page then I will probably use the other for the weekly prompts.

I have already done some pages. I like having my goals set before starting a new year so I created the goals section and I created a calender for January with a pocket to store things pertaining to that month. At the end of each week I will post about the prompt and the finished week’s pages.

Below are the pages I created so far. You can click the images to see a larger version.

I plan to add more to the inside cover but haven’t decided yet if I want to create an envelope to hold stuff or if I want to draw something.

The folded pages opened up with quotes about goals.

Quotes about goals and new year. Opening the spread.

January calendar with quotes about the new year.

10a — The January calender. I left space around it so I can add things from the month to it.

11a — A pocket I created by gluing two pages together. I can put little things that pertain to the month in here.

I also plan on participating in the Sketchbook Challenge. For this challenge there will be a monthly theme to use when creating art. From my understanding there doesn’t seem to be a set number of pieces we need to do in the month.

My friend Ruth has gotten a group of us to take part in a Shared Journaling Experience. It will start later this month and will last for 12 weeks. I’m really looking forward to this and to learning more about all these great women.

I think that will probably be it for now. If I happen to come across another awesome challenge I may join but I really don’t want to spread myself too thin as I do have many other things I need to do this year.

Shared Journaling Experience: Sum Sum Summertime Week 1

Art Challenges for 2014