How an Art Diary changes the way you travel
Travel journaling is a well known genre of diaries. It is often seen as something creative and enjoyable. Yes, it is, but that’s not the whole point.
I suggest you to narrow down the perspective of travel diary and introduce ART journaling into your traveling life on a regular basis.
Keeping an art travel journal will help you learn to look at art more deeply, analyse places of art and culture more thoughtfully, stimulate your imagination and, ultimately, leave you with a physical memento of your trip. You art journal will be your best assistant to your travels. Your art journal will define the way you travel. Here is why.
Travelling can be overwhelming. When we travel, the whole process often becomes automatic, reduced to a mechanical and mindless ticking-off of places on a list. New cities, museums, exhibitions, details — too much to take in, too quickly.
What is Art Diary?
It is your own archival record of all you visits to all types of cultural and art places, like museums, galleries, fairs, streets, — literally anywhere you meet art ot cultural heritage.
It is meant to become your space where you re-think everything you have seen.
Buy a simple notebook. Now you’ll be recording all the cultural and artistic sites here by hand and learning to analyse them. A whole notebook – just for you and your experience of immersing yourself in the culture.
Why bring art journaling into your travels
You are probably not remembering your travels the way you think you are. My entire blog is dedicated to showing how to view the world through art and culture in a way that allows us to learn, remember and turn every trip into an unforgettable, enriching experience.
We snap hundreds of photos on our smartphones, which, at worst, we’ll never look at again, and at best, we’ll post a couple on Facebook or Instagram.
An art journal changes the pace and the place. Instead of just another museum or gallery, you make this place your own.
If you have kids and travel with them — great. Try doing it together. It is a great family bonding moment, and your kids will love it doing it with you.
Narrow your focus
So, it’s up to you to decide what you want to take away with you.
This could be just single work of art. Or a single room. A single detail. The overall atmosphere. Did you enjoy the coffee in the museum café? Great, make a note of it. Was there a sculpture that struck you? Describe it. Did the museum’s architecture surprise you? Tell us about it.
Your diary doesn’t have to be linear. Mix notes, textures and little observations.
Let it remain unfinished. When you leaf through your art diary (and you will), you’ll want to return to certain pages.
Make a list of the works or artists that intrigued you most, and when you get home, read about them online.
Use my simple template (just as an example) as a starting point for your Art Diary and feel free to alter it as it goes.
You’re not making a beautiful notebook
It’s very important to understand this. Your art diary isn’t for flexing on Pinterest. It is not bout perfect sketches or aesthetically pleasing pages. Which is a good news, becaus it spares you of the stress and pressure.
You art journal is about leaving a record of your thought process. If you try to create perfect pages straight out of Pinterest, you’ll miss the point, as that isn’t our aim. If you try to make it look beautiful, you’ll miss the point.
Our aim is to think, reflect, write by hand and enjoy the whole process. All the visuals play only a supporting role.
There are no rules
You can write badly, even draw nothing, skip pages, come back later. This is your space with your own rules.
No, you don’t need to record everything, just the essentials. You decide what’s essential. Not your art guide, not the audio guide, not the travel guide – just you.
Keep something physical
Now, don’t forget to keep a ticket, a receipt, a small piece of paper. Glue it down.
Sometimes even museum tickets are of interest in their own right. Many museums feature key works from their collections on them. Many also feature the museum building itself, showing off its architecture.
How to start (today, not later)
buy any notebook (any, not a perfect one)
Write down your impressions of your last visit to a museum or any other place of art and culture, based on your memories. This is your start.
take it with you to the next museum
stay with one thing for 10 minutes
write, draw if you feel like, be creative, be reflective
