Let’s talk about art journaling prompts

When I was first introduced to art journaling more than ten years ago, there were prompts to get started with. I have never once given that a moment’s thought until this week. A friend messaged me and asked how often I do art journaling prompts. That’s when it hit me, “Why are there prompts in art journaling at all?” I don’t know for sure but I have a guess.

Quasi-historical/totally made-up roots

I asked a few friends who have been art journaling longer than my ten years and they all said that there had always been prompts. Now all of these friends are from the same art journaling group so that’s not really surprising. Thinking about this made me remember a magazine called Personal Journaling: Writing About Your Life. It’s nearly impossible to find any trace of it online. There’s this one blog post that always comes up for me when I’m trying to scrape it out of my long term memory storage.

I loved Personal Journaling magazine from the moment I found it in Barnes and Noble. I think I had two or three issues that I looked at over and over. I didn’t do anything with the information but the idea that I could journal was so appealing to me at that time in my life. I had kept a diary as a teen but quit once I started working full time. These days I bullet journal daily and also journal with an online journaling community. I art journal and I write for this blog, which is another form of keeping track of the things I make and think about. But the thing about that magazine was that it was full of prompts so you could get started journaling if you didn’t know where to start.

And I can’t help wondering if that’s the connection to art journaling. Art journaling is a hybrid of having a sketchbook practice or art book practice and thinking about and processing your inner landscape. So it seems quite reasonable to have prompts. Because any time we start something new, trying to discern where to start can be a total deal breaker. And figuring out how to start thinking about your thinking can be utterly overwhelming.

Modern-day me and prompts

It probably surprises exactly no one that these days I rarely stick to any prompts that are given. But when I first started art journaling I was a real stickler for working through every prompt provided. Even if I used it as a spring board for something else entirely, I used the prompt. It was definitely part of my early learning process for how to express myself.

I think that I use prompts for writing journaling much more than art journaling these days. Because my art/book making practice, while it touches on art journaling pretty regularly, it’s more of an art practice. And in my art practice I’m much more interested in exploring things visually. I have less need for a writing prompt when that’s my approach.

And yet even as I write that, when I look at the images I decided to use for this post, I can remember what prompted me to do what I did. The header picture was one I took while visiting family and a dear friend was ill in the hospital and it was too far to visit in time. One was about the passing of my dad. One was about remembering an insight I’d gathered from a workshop. All of those were prompts, they were self generated but prompts nonetheless.

Do your thing

Of course you know what I’m going to say. Use prompts. Or don’t. Make up your own. Use a given prompt and do the opposite. Take a prompt and deconstruct it. Let your mind wander and start your process five steps down the road from the prompt. But also? Keep a list of things you want to explore. Maybe later. Maybe never. Use it to generate your own ideas for what you want to create. Sometimes the act of creating the list is the creative act in and of itself. I used to keep a list of prompts in the back of whatever journal I was working on at the time. Keep a list on your bulletin board so you can see it and think on it. Trust yourself to get you where you need or want to go.

Are you prompt with your prompts? Do you take a pass? How do you use these handy little critters? Catch up with me on socials, email me, or go old school and leave a comment on this post to be immortalized for all of time.

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