I have been missing art journaling for quite a while now.

I may be painting on canvas, or on wood panels, but working on a smaller substrate that I don’t have to find a place to store or to hang, a place to simply play, practice, and do whatever, I have missed.

The older art journals that I have made myself, the “official” ones that I used for classes that I took, I usually made with lots and lots of pages.

I don’t want to do that with the art journal I have in mind.

I am hoping to start making them this weekend.

I am thinking of making a series of about six, so that I have plenty to work with—without having all the pages in a single journal all bulking up and causing issues with back page usage or anything.

So, I have made smaller art journals, made using the covers of smaller hardcover books. Some have only had enough pages for a month, or thirty days.

Since I am not certain what sort of work I will be doing in the journals, I want to make something with fewer pages than the normal 100+ per journal that I normally make.

Since these journals will have fewer pages—I am thinking about forty pages per journal—I was thinking of making a series of art journals.

For size, I was thinking of making them 7 x 10 inches or 9 x 12 inches. I am not quite sure yet.

I am also waffling about the type of paper to use.

Some of my older art journals have used mixed media paper, watercolor paper, and heavy card stock. I am actually thinking of using a bit of a mixture of these types of papers. Maybe even use manila folders and other things I have been hanging on to from various classes I have taken.

This weekend, I am pulling out my stash of duck cloth. I have made journal covers from this for ages now. I am going to prime the darn stuff—because if I don’t do it before I use it to make my art journals, it will shrink in ways I do not wish it to shrink.

I may gesso it and leave it at that, so that I may paint each journal individually. But, I think I might gesso the cloth, and then paint it. Nothing specific. An abstract of blues and greens. Once all of that dries, I will cut the cloth to size.

Why don’t I pull out one of my many actual art journals, either stitch and/or glue-bound or spiral-bound?

Because using a bought journal lacks that sort of connection that I am wanting with my journals.

I know that it should not in any way matter.

Although I personally dislike using spiral-bound journals for artwork.

I am missing a piece of myself and this is to help me capture and integrate that missing bit. The more I do to create the vessel I shall be using, the better the entire project is going to feel to me, the more worthwhile the project is going to be for me, and the more my heart will heal as I work on making the journals as well as filling them.

I will be posting pictures as I move through this project, both the making of and the filling of these journals.