Learning To Think Like An Artist and Working With An Art Journal

I have been working on my practice of keeping an art journal. This is a photo of the start of my cover page. Since I took this photo I have added the word DREAM. This is my inspirational word for 2009. With out dreams where would we be and what better place to record our dreams than an art journal. I have to thank Karina for publishing so many of her inspiring pages from her art journal on her blog Herland Story . These beautiful pages have given me the desire to start my art journal.

As I began this practice of keeping art journal, I struggled a bit with letting go of thinking of the final product and letting it be truly about the process of writing the whispers and visions of my past, present, and dreams to come. I found some relief when I came across a write up that I did for my students in a class last year about learning to think like an artist. Here it is

Learning to think like an artist means:

· Look at things more closely than most people do.
· Finding beauty in everyday things and situations.
· Making new connections between different things and ideas.
· Going beyond ordinary ways of thinking and doing things.
· Looking at things in different ways in order to generate new perspectives.
· Taking risks and exposing yourself to possible failure.
· Arranging things in new and interesting ways.
· Working hard and at the edge of your potential.
· Persisting where others may give up.
· Concentrating your effort and attention for long periods of time.
· Dreaming and fantasizing about things.
· Using old ideas to create new ideas and ways of seeing things.Doing something simply because it’s interesting and personally challenging to do.

So taking in all my past words of wisdom, I came out with understanding that the greatest gift you can give yourself when you begin thinking like an artist is the freedom of an open mind and the endless possibilities to make the way you see the world a better place. Here is to a year of seeing the possibilities for a better world.