Art journaling
CostLow
Includes: Notebook or sketchbook, pens, glue, scissors, basic art supplies, optional collage materials. Example: A full starter set (sketchbook, markers, glue, paints) can cost under €40; premium journals or mixed-media tools may raise costs a bit.
What it is
Acrylic paint dries water-resistant, which is exactly why it suits a journal page. You can layer over it the next day without the colours bleeding into mud, and that single property shapes how art journaling actually works. This is the practice of mixing writing with drawing, painting, collage, and whatever else lands on the page, in a notebook that is half diary, half sketchbook. Words and images share the same spread, and neither has to be good.
The mess is the point. A typical page might have a wash of watercolour, a few magazine cuttings glued down, a scrawled sentence, and a coffee ring nobody planned. People use cheap mixed-media notebooks because the paper, usually around 200gsm, takes wet media without buckling too badly. Standard journal paper, around 80gsm, pills and warps the moment a brush touches it, so the paper weight genuinely matters here.
You do not need to draw well. That sentence trips up more beginners than anything else. Art journaling is closer to visual thinking than to fine art. The image is a way of saying something the words cannot quite reach, and a lopsided shape says it just as well as a perfect one. Some people work intuitively, slapping colour down and seeing what emerges. Others plan a layout. Both are valid, and most drift between the two.
The honest trade-off is time and space. A page can take an hour and needs somewhere to dry flat. This is not the practice for a five-minute check-in. But for anyone who finds blank text-only journaling cold, the combination of hand, colour, and word tends to unlock something quieter and more honest than either alone.
How it works
The mistake nearly everyone makes first is using a normal notebook and watching the page buckle the moment a wet brush touches it. Standard journal paper runs around 80gsm and warps, pills, and bleeds through under any wet media. Switch to a mixed-media book at roughly 200gsm or heavier. The thicker paper takes watercolour, acrylic, and glue without turning into a wavy mess, and that single change removes most beginner frustration.
Prime the page first if you plan to paint over existing print or want a uniform surface. A thin layer of white gesso, brushed on and left to dry for 15 minutes, seals the paper and gives paint something to grip. Skip this and acrylic can sit greasy on the surface or lift when you layer over it the next day. Gesso is the unglamorous step that separates pages that hold up from pages that flake.
Then work in layers, letting each dry before the next. A typical spread might start with a loose watercolour or acrylic wash for background colour, then collage elements glued down with a matte medium, then writing and drawing on top once everything is dry. Acrylic dries water-resistant within about 20 minutes, which is exactly why it suits layering. You can scrawl over yesterday's paint without it smearing into mud.
The words and images share the page on equal terms, and this is the part people overthink. You are not making gallery art. A lopsided shape carries a feeling as well as a perfect one, and the journal is private. Most people loosen up dramatically around the third or fourth spread, once they stop trying to make each page beautiful and start using it to think.
Benefits
What you need
Here's what to gather before you start. The essentials are marked.
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FAQs
Art journaling uses images, colour, collage, and mark-making alongside or instead of words. A page might be a wash of paint with three words on top, or a collage with no text at all. Regular journaling is words on a page. Art journaling is for when the feeling does not fit into sentences, which happens more than you would think.
Yes, and this is the single biggest thing that stops people starting. Art journaling is not about representational drawing. It is colour, texture, collage, scribbling, stamping, glueing things in. Plenty of dedicated art journalers cannot draw a recognisable face and never try to. The mark matters more than the skill.
Less than the internet suggests. A mixed-media notebook (around €10-15, with paper heavy enough to take water without buckling), a basic set of acrylics or watercolours, a glue stick, and scissors. That is enough for months. Cheap student-grade paint is completely fine to learn on. Avoid thin sketchbook paper, because it warps the moment anything wet touches it.
No, and the pages you hate now are often the ones you come back to. Art journaling is process, not product. The instinct to make every page frame-worthy kills the honesty that makes it useful. Work on cheap paper precisely so you feel free to ruin pages.
No. Some people work to monthly themes or prompts, others open to a blank page and respond to whatever is in their head. Both work. If a blank page feels paralysing, a single prompt (one colour, one word, one cut-out image) gives you a doorway in without dictating where you go.
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