My big fat black journal, revisited

Back in March, I posted about my way of keeping an illustrated journal... big, messy, and personal. Now, I'm here with a tale of even messier and more precious (to me) pages! From January to April, I used a large, cheap, black hardbound blank book and loved the fact that it was so NOT special. I could, and did, let go completely in that book. Still, the painter in me longed for sturdier pages and so I took up a Stillman and Birn Alpha Series book and there was no going back. They are expensive, but for someone like me who paints with acrylics in my journal and make lots of layers, they're worth it. My illustrated journal has become my portable art lab and, I guess, my life lab, too. Here are a few of the uses I've put my journal to recently.

I'm on my third journal of the year. I figured I'd go through one a quarter, though I'm almost at the end of my current one, and September's looming! I look back over what I've written, painted, and drawn this year.I see changes in my narrative, my line work, my imagery, my focus, my energy... and it's exhilarating! Not only is this trajectory documented in my journal, it exists largely BECAUSE of my journal! We know who we are by reading what we've written, by looking at the images we've created. In these pages, I see my own signposts and I follow them.