Art Journals

[Listed MIA]

Does anyone here do art journalling? got any tips on how to stop the pages sticking together?

if you've got a moleskine journal do you like it? i've heard people rave about them, but they're really expensive. what are the pages like? can you do stuff to them? the journal i use right now is allergic to watercolour or anything slightly wet. its more of a sketch book i suppose.

[Ambrosia]

No, I have never done that before, but I think it sounds like something fun to start doing.

I have, though, done a form of such in which I painted different things on pages of a sketch book-like thing but not in journal form. Leave the pages open to the air for a few hours and let it dry before you close it.

[ImCoolBeans]

Well you can't really just do watercolor in a regular sketchbook, nor a Moleskin. You should use watercolor paper to do watercolor, it will work best :P

Yeah, I've done a visual journal before. I guess it's just sketchbooking, but it's fun. If you're using any kind of glues/rubber cement make sure you let it dry thoroughly before you close it, or else it will stick, and then you'll have a mess.

[Listed MIA]

thanks :D ok, so moleskine is just for sketching. maybe i will get one some time. i really like the way the pages have curved edges. my pages are mostly sticking together because of the acrylic paint i used for the backgrounds. it is completely dry but its just kind of tacky all the time. maybe it'll help if i don't have a full page spread. or maybe that'll be worse :confused:

yeah it is a fun thing to start doing. my girlfriend got me into it. she can spend maybe 2 hours working on the one page. i have the attention span of a flea so for me its more like a 57 part process. Preparing pages (and probably not properly waiting till they're dry), adding stuff to them, adding more stuff to them, then finally going back, sometimes weeks later and journalling something on them. my life is pretty dull though so my journalling is mostly about what i ate and how many calories it had in it. thats not going to be very exciting to look back on in 20 years time.

[deadpie]

I have one. It's some pretty fucked up shit too. Nothing but charcoal drawings of one of my hallucinations and random bullshit I did when I was taking xanax all the time. Scary to look back at.

[Stryker125]

Moleskine's are cool, but I don't really like the paper. I prefer Canson sketchbooks and journals. The paper is much smoother, and you can even get them with all-medium paper. They're pretty nifty.

[darkwoon]

I concur with Stryker on this - Canson has a wider range of paper styles, and they overall feel a better value for money.

I also suggest a ring binding - it is easier to flip the cover and previous pages to draw, and it is much more resilient to the constant manipulations involved.

[Listed MIA]

I have one. It's some pretty fucked up shit too. Nothing but charcoal drawings of one of my hallucinations and random bullshit I did when I was taking xanax all the time. Scary to look back at.

yeah, thats why i like having a spiral bound one, so when i wake up in the morning and find my alter-ego has written some crazy shit about me in the middle of the night then i can just rip the page out.

i've had a quick look at the canson books. they look like they'd be better for watercolour. not that i like watercolour but sometimes i need something a bit less in your face for a background. i need to get rich first though :D i'm going to this art school over the summer and they just sent me a massive list of supplies you have to have.

[starbrite5]

I have required sketchbook entries for school, but I also just love sketching. I'm a big fan of handbooks. They handle pretty much every medium well, and paint dries fairly quickly on the pages. They have a pocket at the back, a bookmark ribbon thingy, and a strap to keep it closed. The only thing I don't like using them for is marker work, but that's just because of the way I use markers. My best friend has no problem with it.

Other than that, I use a regular old 8.5" x 11" bound journal with smooth paper. The brand I usually use is specific to a local chain of art stores, but you can find similar ones at almost all art stores.

I'm not fond of spiral bindings because I find that the pages tear out to easily. I do a lot of involved work and paper-cutting that spiral sketchbooks just can't handle as well.