My first hand-bound journal

This November, I stitched and glued and constructed my first hand-bound journal!

I bought the class of Mary Ann Moss from Dispatch from LA called "Ticket To Venice" a.k.a TTV. It is pure happiness: in this class, we can come along to her Venice trip and look at all her pictures, watch videos of her in Venice, and she also shows two or three stitching techniques, plus a very user friendly how to to learn how to make a journal (or a travel journal, since this class is centered around her trip in Venice), fill it, use it! I think I bought this class in October, but I first tried (and successed) making a journal in November.

It was a wonderful experience and I bought quality equipment so I am ready to make many more journals! Let me show you what I did:

Here is the cover of my new journal, I bought an old italian dictionary to use the cover, and covered it with a special wrapping paper.

I used the beginner's stitch.

This is at the end of my journal. I used a stamped flower to decorate, some paper from a moleskine pamphlet, washi tape, and duck tape

My first page! It reads: Productive day in the studio.

I used a variety of papers: some watercolor paper, some decorative paper, bits and pieces of this and that, and magazine pages cropped to fit the journal for the only purpose of writing.

Here you have decorative paper, covered by a smaller page of heavy watercolor paper, and a postcard taken from TTV class.

One of the magazine pages

Another

I've had this paper for years and didn't know what to do with it, until now!

And finally the cover of my journal!

I made my first journal smaller than the ones I usually use (I have a friend who made me several art journals) because I wanted to get back to the habit of daily journaling. I am still working on it, but I am so happy and so proud of the result!! I love using a journal that I made myself, it adds so much to the experience!

Guru

J'aimerais vous parler de mon Gourou.

À l'origine, j'ai commencé à tenir un "cahier" dans un cours au cégep. On a acheté des petits cahiers à dessin au dollarama (ou au prof, qui les avait achetés au dollarama), et on devait faire 5 pages par semaine. Elle disait qu'on pouvait faire des dessins, des collages, notre liste d'épicerie, etc. Au début, notre premier devoir a été de faire la couverture (en dessinant, collant, peignant...). Ensuite, les dessins. Et au fur et à mesure que ma session avançait, je dessinais plus, je faisais des collages, j'aimais ça!

J'ai découvert le super Danny Gregory à la même période, et j'ai lu The Creative License: Giving yourself permission to be the artist you truly are. J'avais maintenant l'objectif de tenir un journal (que j'appelle plutôt mon cahier) où je dessinerais et j'écrirais mes pensées. Ça fait maintenant plus de 7 ans que je tiens des cahiers, et j'espère ne jamais arrêter afin de pouvoir un jour les léguer à mes enfants. J'y retourne parfois et je relis ce que j'y ai écrit, et je me retrouve dans le passé, et je me souviens de tout.

Lorsque je dessine quelque chose de particulier (mon déjeuner, une plante), je suis concentrée et je passe un bon moment à regarder cet objet afin de le reproduire au meilleur de mon talent. Quand je regarde des vieux dessins de ce genre, dessins du quotidien, je me souviens de ce que je mangeais s'il y avait de la musique, de ce que je pensais. C'est plus vivant qu'une photo, et ça devient de précieux souvenirs.


I would like to tell you about my Guru.

At first, I started a journal (or sketchbook, but I think it's much more than those two words), at school. We had to buy cheap 1$ sketchbooks and fill 5 pages per week. It could be drawings, collages, grocery list, etc. The first homework we had to do regarding this sketchbook was its cover. I remember making a drawing of Cate Blanchett, after a publicity in a fashion magazine. As time went by, I drew more and more and really took to this new way of keeping everything in the same place. I loved it!

I discovered the amazing Danny Gregory a few months or a year after I first started this journal keeping. It began with The Creative License: Giving yourself permission to be the artist you truly are, and continued with his other publications over the years. I have been keeping a journal for more than 7 years now, and I intend to keep this habit forever (even if sometimes I don't touch my journal for a week long) and give them to my children. It is a different way of keeping a journal, and practicing hand/eye coordination, remembering the everyday.

Voici une photos de mes cahiers il y a trois ans/Here is a picture of my journaux 3 years ago:

Voici quelques photos récentes de mes cahiers/ Recent pictures:

Danny Gregory a publié plusieurs autres livres depuis The Creative License: Everyday Matters, 

An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration From The Private Sketchbooks Of Artists, Illustrators And Designers, A Kiss Before You Go: An Illustrated Memoir of Love and Loss et  An Illustrated Journey: Inspiration From the Private Art Journals of Traveling Artists, Illustrators and Designers.

Il publie aussi régulièrement sur son blog, et non seulement c'est un grand artiste mais il écrit bien, et ça vaut la peine d'y aller régulièrement.