Art Journal Ideas: Defining Purpose

A big part of my art journaling experience is focusing on my word for the year. (see blog post: 2015: A Year of Purpose) For 2015, I have chosen a year of “purpose” In order to get clear on what this means to me and keep the word and my intentions for the year in front of me, I spend a lot of time in my journal defining my word.

Art Journal Technique and Process

I spend a lot of time make a crazy yet cohesive background and then add my lettering in large block letters using a black gel pen. I love filling the negative space in around the letters with paint pens like Sharpies and also Faber-Castel pens.

Art Journal Page For this art journal page, I also added an elephant as this will be my animal totem for the year. Elephants are symbols of determination and perfectly encompass my aim to have a purposeful year. For the collage in the background I used circus like elements I found in magazines.

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When one feels pulled to do a particular thing, when one has passion for a certain life path, karma is always involved. In such an instance, when the goal is worthy and makes one happy, one should continue on that same life path. Just because the elephant cannot carry you anymore doesn’t mean you should give up your goal. Continue down the path that makes you feel fulfilled. Those who continue on an unrewarding path for the sake of only monetary gain are displaying a lack of trust in life. ~Kwan Yin

 

Art Journal Technique

For this page I used a green gel pen to add texture and visual interest.

Companion Words       Another good idea is to look for words that have similar meaning and derive inspiration from those companion words. For these two pages, I used a thesaurus to get synonyms for my word.

Other blog posts you might like: 

• Describe 2014 in one word
• One Little Word
• 21 reasons to Discover 21 Secrets

Next week I am going to talk about the “blooming journal” in celebration of Spring. Are you following the blog posts? by Email / RSS/ BlogLovin / 

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Do you art journal? Do you have a word for 2015? I would love for you to share your words in the comments!