My JIYA Journal

I bought Megan Quinlan's class Journal into Your Art in October last year and it re-inspired my monthly journal practice in November and December. 

See her video on Youtube about this class here. I had decided not to continue with a monthly journal practice in 2023, but I've been missing documenting and writing to support good self-care. My experiences in those last 2 monthly journals last year were trying out ideas on file folder bases. This time I've made a proper JIYA journal sticking more closely to the lesson plan. 

I am so excited to have started working in this journal. 

Megan provides some formulas so that you can create pages with enjoyment and freedom instead of wondering how to start. 

It's also a really freeing experience because she gives us permission to jump around in the journal instead of going from first page to last and I can just do the next thing I want to do and not have to finish a page until I feel moved to. I love this punched circle giving a glimpse into the page beyond.

I'm including focal images cut from old calendars and magazines 

and want to include more faces and female forms in my work so I've been thinking about how I've done that previously and I'm linking here to the relevant blog posts for my future reference : using magazine collage, silhouettes of figures and faces, 

magazine makeovers inspired by Alisa Burke, using image transfers, making paper dolls, 

and using stencils. With gifted Christmas money I treated myself to these stencils by Leaca Young. 

I figured since I had to pay international postage I might as well make it worth my while. Not sure how long they will take to arrive from Alaska but I'm very excited for when they do! She has a cool technique where she uses her face stencils on the gelli plate and that also got me thinking about using the gelli plate to transfer magazine images. I'm sure this will be one of those journals where more ideas come as I work into it so I'll share more progress in my monthly reviews.