Decorating an art journal cover

There are many ways to decorate your art journal cover – be it a bought journal or a handmade one – the latter usually gives you more options, though – so it might be a good idea to learn how to make one (hint, hint;). But today, let’s just look at some of the ways we can decorate the cover of an art journal:

Different covers of my concertina art journals from my upcoming Skillshare class.

• just letter the title (either what it is for – subject matter (i.e. “birds” or “slow drawing”, etc) or owner’s name (i.e. “by very.arty.fairy”) or time period – (“August 2022 – January 2023”) or any combination
• paint it – the most obvious one;)
• glue on natural material like pressed leaves etc…
• glue on a magazine cut-out, postcards
• decorate with die cuts
• stick on stickers
• rub on non-permanent (kids’) tattoos
• collage on top of the cover – covers are usually pretty sturdy even when they are paperback so they are a wonderful collage substrate. Plus, you collage will reinforce the cover

Collage from gelli prints can make a really interesting texture. Rice paper on the other hand gives the journal elegance.

PS: I have an entire chapter in my upcoming Skillshare class devoted to this if you want to dive deeper – more on that on Friday, when it’s released – wish me luck:).
And let me know which method you like the best and if I’ve left out you really like. I love to collect ideas:).