There are some who love to do homework, and there are those who hate hearing the word mentioned at all. Where do you fit into this puzzle? Do you love it, do you hate it, or do you have one of those love/hate relationships with homework? If you’re not currently a student, what was your relationship with homework in the past?
For this art journal prompt, you will be exploring the questions posed above. Answer them using collage, ephemera, text, and painting. Remember, these thoughts can be about your current or your past experiences with homework.
Materials:
- Art journal
- Glue sticks or gel medium
- Watercolor paint (your favorite colors)
- Fine-tipped sharpie or black gel pen
- Scissors
- Small containers of water
- Paint or sponge brushes
- Magazines
- Sales flyers with school supplies or office supplies in them (or an office supply catalog)
- Stickers with school related themes
Instructions:
- Open your art journal to the first blank page spread, and then create a light color wash on both sides of the spread. Choose a neutral color that will be a good juxtaposition for the colors of the embellishments you’ll be adding to the pages.
- As the paint is drying, sift through the ephemera and magazines chosen for this project. Cut out what is interesting to you, as well as what answers some of the questions posed above.
- Create collages using what you’ve gathered, leaving space for text. Don’t forget to add stickers and use layering techniques for all the embellishments chosen.
- For the questions not answered in the collage, answer them using text. Write messy, write neatly, or write in a way that may impress a teacher.
- Finish off the page spread with some doodles across everything similar to what you would doodle in a school notebook or on your book covers.
Once the pages have dried completely, repeat this prompt on as many other page spreads in your art journal as needed to fully illustrate your relationship with homework. Be as descriptive as possible to make your pages as interesting as possible. Being very descriptive will also prevent artist's block from invading your creative moments.
Variations:
- Create a scrapbook-type page spread of your favorite or least favorite memories or homework moments.
- Create niches in your art journal page spread to add faux report cards, faux homework papers, and journal entries.
- Create a faux school newspaper on both sides of the page spread depicting your thoughts and memories of homework.
- Create “book cover” type art on both sides of the page spread. Or, dedicate one page to each subject you had homework for frequently.
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