Journaling and Memory

I rarely re-read entries I’ve made in my journal because I’ve found I don’t like what I’ve written—or more accurately, I don’t like to be reminded of the mood I was in at the time. I know some people use their journal to celebrate, but I tend to write in mine when I want to ponder the meaning of life, or to whine.
On the other hand, I don’t mind revisiting the art I’ve done—even if I don’t like it. My collages and drawings have their own kind of memory that has nothing to do with how I’m feeling about the events of my life at the time. In this journal I used dollar store paints for my backgrounds. It’s not the kind of paint I’d use on canvas because it’s too thin and has a chalky texture when it dries. But I’ve found it works just fine on the paper in a Moleskine sketchbook.
I like the two green pages below mainly because of the stamped dress. Anything paper-dollish appeals to me for some reason …maybe because I got so much pleasure from playing with paper dolls as a child.

What I remember about the red pages at the beginning of this post is how annoyed I was by the way they turned out. It was the first time I’d used a Copic marker and I really disliked how thickly I drew the lines around the map shapes. Normally I would have just obliterated what I’d done and started again. However, there’s something about being almost at the end of a journal that makes you anxious to finish it, so I let them be.

I think I was feeling much the same way when I did these last two pages of the journal. When in doubt, Stick in a Parrot is my motto. Well, not really. But what a parrot represents to me is Joseph Cornell (with maybe a splash of Monty Python?) In any case, if you have an image that appeals to you, just pop it in when you feel stuck. It may not do anything to improve what you’re working on, but at least you’ll feel good using it.