January Assignments

Start your Practice Journal

This is your sample journal, your junk journal, your "give it a try and let it fly" journal. Use a notebook, an old address book, an old day calendar.

Keep an envelope with you or in your car to gather ephemera, the throw away items that mark our life. Receipts, tickets, brochures, post it notes, fortune cookies, shopping bags, junk mail, greeting cards, anything can find its way into your journal.

Jot at least one thing in your journal every day. Complete a page each week. Pages in your practice journal can be transferred or used in a more permanent journal.

Exercises. Pick one or more a week to try:

• Build a page with collage around a prompt.
• Use only one color on your page. What mood or subject does it suggest.
• Cover a page with any negative or critical thoughts that have popped up when journaling. Cover with positive images or words using collage, paint or markers.
• Pick one object on your table to draw. Draw it again, use color to enhance. Draw it again. 
• Trace an object...your hand, a spoon, a key. Make a pattern of the object. Add words.
•  Use every type of pen you have on a page. Write big, print, write small, write with your left hand. Test out each pen. Find your favorite.
• Doodle. Simply doodle. Start with a shape, repeat it. Go in another direction. Leave no space unused on your page.
• Become a teenager again and write your name over and over. Try different signatures, draw your letters.
• Artists choice.

Make no judgements. You are practicing and exploring. No one learns a craft in one day.