Art Journal Prompt About Misunderstandings
Simple Book Art Project About Personal Growth
Oct 7, 2008
It is not easy experiencing misunderstandings, particularly when it involves immediate family or people sharing your household. Sometimes these bits of conflict invade day-to-day life, while other times these situations are fleeting. In either case, these misunderstandings must be dealt with in a healthy manner.
The best way to start is to sort out the misunderstanding. This art journal prompt is meant to help you in this process.
Materials:
- Art journal
- Crayons or colored pencils
- A variety of magazines
- Scissors
- Glue stick
- Black fine-tipped sharpie
- Index cards or post-it notes
Instructions:
- Open your art journal to the first blank page spread. Using the crayons or colored pencils, swirl around a variety of colors into doodles, miscellaneous shapes, and color splotches that don’t really make any sense. Try to cover as much of the pages as possible, but all the white does not have to be obliterated.
- Spread out about five to ten post-it notes or index cards in front of you. Using the black fine-tipped sharpie, write about sentences about the misunderstanding you’re going through. Be as specific or as cryptic as you feel comfortable doing. Write neatly, write in a mess, or write in a foreign language. This writing is for your eyes, so it is up to you how you want to handle the text.
- Flip through the magazines and cut out all pieces of text and images that evoke thoughts of the misunderstanding you are trying to sort out. If possible, try to find pieces of text and images that may help you resolve (or inspire you to resolve) the misunderstanding in some way.
- Collage all the magazine cut-outs and writing on your art journal page spread. If you have more materials than will fit on the page spread, repeat step two on the next blank page spread in your art journal until all the materials have been used up.
- Add additional text on the art journal pages in areas where there are no collage materials or over magazine cut-outs. Layering will not only create an interesting effect in your art journal, but it will also help get your thoughts out.
Variations:
- Rather then swirling color using crayons or colored pencils, use chalk or watercolor washes.
- Create text boxes using drawings, rather than index cards or post-it notes.
- Write out all your thoughts surrounding the misunderstanding directly on the art journal pages randomly, rather than using index cards, post-it notes, or drawn text boxes.
- Add ephemera in addition to the magazine cut-out’s.
If you feel this art journal prompt is not enough to help you sort out your misunderstandings, do some research about the scope of your misunderstanding online or in books. Print out material (or photocopy from books), and add these bits of research to your art journal pages. Further explore your thoughts through additional art and writing.
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