Guest Post by Artist Nichole Rae

Begin. Begin Bravely + Boldly.

I carry the word “notes” and a notebook of blank lined pages. I am learning how to embrace beginnings – new beginnings, new journals, new creative mini projects. Over the last 4 months I have been filling my morning time with small art journaling projects. These projects are allowing me to use my creativity, explore different ways of art journaling, build my confidence and nurture my creative spirit.

After traveling from Nova Scotia back to my hometown in Minnesota, I found myself needing to explore the thoughts and feelings I was carrying a bit deeper. Art journaling is a beautiful way to be creative and spend time connecting with your inner artist. Journaling can often seem difficult to do when we are carrying emotions. White blank pages are what many of us fear. What do we put down? Where do we start? In this project I explored using a a blank lined notebook, an old book (theme personal growth) and my own handwritten text. Having an old book allowed me to cut words out that called to me and then create “notes” around those. This took away the anxious feelings of needing to come up with my own words to put on the blank page. Starting with found words from an old book created a foundation for me to start exploring my thoughts while creating “notes” from my creative spirit.

Here is what you will need to Create Your Own “Notes” Journal

old book {that you want to use for words, inspirational/self-growth books work well, also fiction or non-fiction.}
a mini notebook. {This one (below) is by Eccolo, one of my favorite journal company’s}
black ink pen, colored pens if you would like
glue stick
scissors {a small scissors works well when cutting words out}

First start with the notebook you have chosen to be your journal that you will use to create your notes in.

Once you have your notebook open to a blank page. You can start anywhere you would like in the notebook. Having the page blank in front of you is part of the process of working through our anxious “blank page” feelings and creating a foundation for our creative spirits to explore our thoughts and feelings. We are creating a beginning with this step and giving our inner artist a place to write our “notes” that we carry.

To inspire my creative spirits in the morning I found that looking through “personal growth” or inspirational books is a way to break through any of my our own fears and begin embracing this creative time. Using books and found words inspires my inner artist to begin exploring my own thoughts and feelings.

Here is a collection of books I use to find words in.

As you go through pages, take note what words connect with you and how you are feeling. These are the words you will then cut out.

Here I have cut out the words “Be True” to adhere to my notebook page and use to begin my own notes.

I will take these pages I have cut out of and start a pile on my table to come back to for future pages.

Once you have collected some words you can then use your glue stick and pens to begin creating your note.

To start the note I will first glue down one of the words that I have cut out. This step takes away the “blank page” feeling allowing your inner artist to begin creating.

Once I glue the word down I take a moment to listen to see what words come to me. There is no right or wrong words to create your notes with. Your notes can be lists, sentences or even just words that you connect with. They do not have to follow any grammatical rules, etc. This is what I most love about art journaling and letting your creative spirit take over.

Below you can see the note being created. I added an additional found word that I had cut out. As you begin to add your found words your inner artist will be inspired.

In this step I went back and used my black pen to create a bold outline around the word “spirit” to make it stand out on the page.

Continue to add handwritten words and found words to complete your note.

To highlight a word I will use my black pen and draw a box around the word “beautiful.”

Once I have completed my note I will then sign my name. This has been an empowering step for me to own my thoughts and the notes my inner artist has created. This step honors my creative spirit. I had not always signed my pages though I have discovered that I carry more bravery and courage in my creativity since I started doing this. Have fun exploring how you would like to sign your name–add “artist” in front of your name, use your first initial and last name, or just your initials–this step is filled with wild creative possibility.

Below are some notes I have created to inspire you!

You will see that sometimes I will just use cut out word or just a few on a page.

Keep creating as you go! Beginnings are a beautiful time to allow your inner artist to try new things, explore the thoughts you carry and be creative.

“Create what you most need to find along the way.”

I would love to connect with you, find me at artistnicholerae.com and connect with me via facebook or instagram.

Nichole Rae is a mixed-media artist who has a passion for documenting her life through books arts, photography, writing and typography design. She resides both in Minnesota and Nova Scotia and is the author of the upcoming book Art Journal Art Journey: Collage and Storytelling for Honoring Your Creative Process available July 2014. Visit her website artistnicholerae.com.

Find out more or order a copy of Nichole Rae’s book, Art Journal Art Journey here.