Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Journals

I'm currently laid up with a cold, so the knitting I was hoping to show off today is not quite done. Instead, I'm sharing some inspiration with you in the form of journals.


I've recently fallen in love with the idea of collecting random doodles, design ideas, and snippets of poetry in journals. Part of this inspiration comes from reading the beautifully drawn travel journal 'French Milk' and part from my desire to draw decently. As my organized nature wants to have a journal for each separate purpose, I've amassed a small collection of them over the past few months.


One of the first journals in my collection was the butterfly journal which became my 'happiness journal'. This little book is filled with lists of things I love, descriptions of moments that made me happy, and inspiring quotes and poems. For example, I have a page dedicated to reasons why I love Autumn and these two pages (below) record a favorite poem, Litany by Billy Collins. Happiness indeed.


One of the appeals of journals (and the reason I have so many) is that they come in different forms. I'm particularly happy to have found a set of Jill Bliss mini-journals at Target recently which are filled with graph paper. These are probably all destined to become design journals as I've already started filling one with design ides for an upcoming enameling class.


Finally, I can't talk about journals without mentioning the classic Moleskine. I really like unlined Moleskines as their heavy-weight paper is perfect for doodling in pen. My big Moleskine journal is filled with my attempts to create Celtic knots and I think some of the smaller ones will be filled with random sketches.


One or two of these journals will probably end up my purse for sketching and notes on-the-go. Hopefully with a little practice and encouragement, all of this journaling will result in greater creativity!

4 comments:

doviejay said...

I love this idea! And such beautiful photos! How do you always have the most beautiful photos?

Kristin said...

Thanks! I've worked pretty hard to get better at photography. You should check out some of my early posts--there's been vast improvement.

Mostly, it's been practice and testing to see what looks good, though having a new DSLR camera is also nice. Just make a commitment to improve your photos, take LOTS of pictures (including the same thing in different ways), and you'll get better!

Christine said...

Great Celtic knots! They can be so hard to draw but yours look fantastic!

Kristin said...

I learned how to make celtic knots from the book 'Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction' by George Bain. This is a great resource for methods to draw and design many types of Celtic knots.