What is an art journal and what is a sketchbook? Are they the same? And what is a junk journal? What about sketch journal? Travel journal? Visual journal? Sketch diary? It can be somewhat confusing at times to see the examples and flip throughs of all these as they can look similar – what’s the difference – and does it matter in the end?
To be honest, I don’t think it matters how you call the thing you make art in – as long as you use it:). But if someone is interested (as I was), here is what I’ve found on the subject i.e. my interpretation of what I’ve read/watched:
BOTH, art journal and sketchbook are little books filled with art. They can be bough (usually sold as sketchbooks) or hand made from blank papers or from trash paper (that one is called junk journal and is usually not used for sketching as the background is often busy so we need to cover it up somehow). It can be even made from flyers (and I’ll teach you that in the future:). They can both be small or large – although art journals are usually bigger. There are some differences, however – let’s look at those now:
ART JOURNAL is more of a loose term and it’s more focused on self expression and more often used by crafter’s community so drawing skills are not at the forefront of creating an art journal page. In majority of cases there are different media used so it usually looks more like finished mixed media pieces – single or double page. It often includes stamping and stencilling. The usual technique is to layer the background first with some colour, pattern, stencils, stamps, etc… and than bring in a focal point (a painted subject, collaged image or stamped, coloured and cut-out image or even sticker glued on). Then some techniques are used to tie the background and foreground together – like treatment of the edges, adding ground for the object to stand on, shading, more stencilling, splattering etc…
Colour is usually a very important element and pattern or texture is more often included than not. Often a quote (stamped or written) is added and art journals don’t shy from use of stickers, shiny paint, glitter etc… It feels like a playful approach and since many times other people’s art is used in form of stamps and stickers… it can feel less intimidating to produce something nice. Julie Blazer and Kerry have some amazing resources and you can find a ton of good videos on YouTube: Vicky, Dylan, Susanne, Dina, Lindsey and many more…
Sometimes more writing is included and when it focuses on your day, thoughts and emotions, it is often called a visual journal, a visual diary or a sketch journal. I love this kind of art journal/sketchbook since there is something special about recording your moments in a visual way – we remember them better and they get a different feel. My examples on this page are all in this range.
SKETCHBOOK on the other hand is more for exploring ideas and honing skills – not so much the finished pieces of art. It is the term used by art students and artists and it’s a bit more geared towards developing skills (you can find gesture drawings and studies of one part of the body there, it’s full of studies, there can be many drawings on one page and the background is not always finished). Line is very important but colour is optional. Many times people have different sketchbook they all use at once and keep one for each subject matter: one for gesture drawings, one for birds, one for face studies, etc…
Sketchbooks are also used for roughing out ideas – so media used are usually more sparse – often just pencil and/or ink, many times coloured with colour pencils or watercolour (that method is especially popular with urban sketchers and in travel journals because watercolours and fine liners are very small and light to carry around).
TRAVEL JOURNAL is a sketchbook with art, inspired by your travels as the name suggests. It is not always done on location, however. Many artists just sketch while traveling and then they complete the pages in the hotel or even at home. It is most often done in ink (fine liners) and watercolour although that is purely for practical reasons and it can be done in any medium you like (Ian Fennelly uses markers and watercolour combined with amazing results and Following the rabbit hole has some amazing videos on the topic).
I’d like to finish with the line from Kerry Woodhouse: “You can call it an art journal, or a sketchbook or a visual diary. Heck, you can call it Gertrude. It really doesn’t matter. Just make sure you take it out and make some marks in it. Often.”
Very Arty Fairy 