TEALarbor stories’
Monday Musings are quotes, poems, & practices offering simple ways to
explore the ecotone of the inner/outer landscape.
Keeping a
journal is not limited to written expression. Sometimes using images to capture
feelings and experiences can be very rewarding. Summer is an ideal time to
start a creative journal; there is so much rich beauty in the outside landscape
from which we can draw. There’s no magic formula or “right way” to engage the
creative journal. It can be as simple as using a pencil to draw stick figures
or a few colored pens to doodle shapes. It can be as elaborate as your
imagination. If you think you don’t have much of an imagination for creative
things, look at something that inspires you – someone else’s art, an intricate
quilt, or of course – anything in the natural world. We all have it within us;
we need just look. The more we nourish this part of ourselves, the more we will
be able to grow it onto the page.
Here's how you can get started:
Buy a small
sketchbook with unlined pages.
Adorn the
cover with something meaningful and beautiful to you – a photograph, inspiring
quote,
splash of watercolor paint, ribbon, a swatch of sheet music.
Each day or a
few times a week, sit down inside or outside to add a little something to the
pages of your journal.
Sketch an outline with a few colored pencils or pens. Make a
broad stroke of color with a brush and paint. Layer on textures with collage materials.
Paste in photographs. Affix items you have found outside. Add a small piece of
fabric, a scrap of string, or bits of recycled paper. Write a poem, limiting
yourself to fifty words. Close your eyes as you move a pencil around the page;
open your eyes and fill in the shapes on the page with colored pens, pencils, crayons, and/or paint.
You can add
a short caption and the date to each entry.
Allow your
creative expression to be imperfect. Ask your judgmental self (inner critic) to
quiet down for a while.
Enjoy
yourself. Allow yourself to not finish a page, or to experiment with things you never
tried before.
Most of all,
have fun as you explore what happens on the page!
All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2015 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
