creative journal help

Since we are currently working our way as a group through The Creative Call by Janice Elsheimer, I thought I would use this blog as a tool to help out. As a visual artist going through this book for the third time, I was struck at how writer-oriented her exercises are, which is a good way to get some creative juices flowing, but I know so many visual artists who are put off or freaked out by writing that this gets in the way of the study.




So now that we're in Chapter 3, I'll start adding my own suggestions as to how to work out these exercises. Specifically, for Exercise 1: Visions and Longings, Janice asks us to remember the things we loved to do as a child and list as many of these things as we can in five minutes - finding our way back to our inner child, as it were. I'd challenge you to go a step further and then create a collage from magazine images, or to sketch out images, find old photos, whatever, that takes you back to these same activities.

One of my all time favorite things is time at the beach, sitting and playing in the sand as a child, making roads and castles, finding seashell treasures, running in the waves. And then later photographing at the beach, including my own children engaging in these very same activities.

Make this your creative journaling time today - and just try to keep it to only twenty minutes... ;)