The Creative Journal

100 Excellent Art Therapy Exercises for Your Mind, Body, and Soul January 9th, 2011 Pablo Picasso once said, "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." It's no surprise, then, that many people around the world use art as a means to deal with stress, trauma and unhappiness – or to just find greater peace and meaning in their lives. If you're curious about what art therapy has to offer, you can try out some of these great solo exercises at home to help nurse your mind, body and soul back to health.

PaperHaus Magazine: 30 Ways to add texture to your art journal pages by Lynn. Hi everyone, Lynn here with some mixed media tips. If there is one thing I love, it's adding texture to my art journal pages (and mixed media canvases, and scrapbook pages...) For this technique, I wanted to show you as many ways to add texture as I could think of! For items that needed to be glued down, I put the type of glue I used in parentheses. I start by laying down mostly non-bulky texture. Here's how it looks so far:

Understanding What Art Journaling Is: 10 Links to Get You Started from an art journal by Dina Wakley Do you art journal? Are you wondering if you might like art journaling? Salvaging a Book + GIVEAWAY- Guest Post from Mou Saha Hi everyone, Mou Saha here from Creating Keepsakes magazine. In spirit of green crafting, I had been salvaging an old book into my current art journal. Here’s a spread from that book. Wax paper and art journals by aisling d'art ©2006 I use wax paper to separate damp art journal pages so that they don't stick together. Wax paper is inexpensive, very slightly porous (so the pages dry underneath), and easy to use. You'll find wax paper at the grocery store, in the aisle with foil and plastic (cling) wrap. When I'm separating journal pages with wax paper, I cut or tear the wax paper so that it's slightly larger--at least one-half inch--than the pages that I'm working with. The key to successfully using wax paper to separate them, is not to allow much weight on the wet pages.

How to Write Better: 7 Instant Fixes Does your writing stand out? Do you worry whether your writing is good enough? I can see you nodding your head. You are not alone. Every writer has doubts about his or her writing. Sewing on your journal pages by aisling d'art ©2007 You can use any page in a book like fabric (to sew on, for example) by using iron-on interfacing on the back side of the page. Yes, just iron it on, the same as you would iron interfacing onto fabric.

25 Insights on Becoming a Better Writer When George Plimpton asked Ernest Hemingway what the best training for an aspiring writer would be in a 1954 interview, Hem replied, “Let’s say that he should go out and hang himself because he finds that writing well is impossibly difficult. Then he should be cut down without mercy and forced by his own self to write as well as he can for the rest of his life. At least he will have the story of the hanging to commence with.” How to create and keep an art journal by aisling d'art ©2006 Artist's journals are illustrated diaries and journals on any theme. An art journal can be a record of your daily thoughts, a travel journal, an exercise or diet diary, a dream journal, a place where you jot down your goals or to-do lists, or... well, almost any record that you'd like to keep in a book or notebook. They become "art journals" when you add any kind of illustration or embellishment to the pages.

The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do. Writing is a muscle. Smaller than a hamstring and slightly bigger than a bicep, and it needs to be exercised to get stronger. Think of your words as reps, your paragraphs as sets, your pages as daily workouts. Think of your laptop as a machine like the one at the gym where you open and close your inner thighs in front of everyone, exposing both your insecurities and your genitals. Spectacular Moleskine Doodles Explode with Energy - My Modern Met Philippines-based illustrator Kerby Rosanes proves that doodling can be so much more than scratching unintelligible scribbles on paper. Through his Sketchy Stories blog, Rosanes shares his wonderful world of doodling in a simple Moleskine sketchbook. Equipped with an ordinary Moleskine, a few Uni Pin drawing pens, and his innate gift for drawing, the artist is able to transport viewers to a world where tiny, cartoonish creatures explode with gusto to make up larger entities. Each of the illustrator's complex and crowded sketches are filled with minute details that allow the eye to wander and discover new characters and designs at every turn. The portraits are immediately mesmerizing, but even more spectacular when looked upon closely. Rosanes says that he's on a bit of an illustration high from merging animals with his "crazy doodle monsters" but admits, "I’m liking the results of every fusion."