Art Journaling for Self-Discovery
A Soulful Journey With Your Story
Maybe you’ve felt the tug to begin an art journal but aren’t sure where to start…
You’re not alone. So many women I meet feel that quiet pull — to gather scraps of paper, to dip into paint, to lay their hearts down on the page — but they hesitate. They wonder if it has to be beautiful, if it’s only for “real artists,” or if they even have anything worth expressing. Let me offer this: an art journal isn’t about creating a polished masterpiece. It’s about discovery. It’s about giving shape to what you feel, to what you can’t yet say, to the parts of your story that need a safe, colorful container.
Tender beginnings.
Why Art Journaling for Self-Discovery Matters
An art journal becomes a mirror. It doesn’t just hold pretty spreads — it holds your becoming. Through layers of paint, collage, ink, and image, you begin to notice:
Which colors you’re drawn to again and again.
What symbols or images keep resurfacing.
What emotions spill out when you give them space.
Self-discovery often happens before words. It lives in the marks, the smudges, the textures. An art journal lets you witness what’s stirring in you, even when language hasn’t yet arrived.
Nesting journals.
Three Gentle Ways to Begin
If you’re new to art journaling, here are three invitations to ease you in:
Play with color and mood. Choose one or two colors that reflect how you’re feeling today. Spread them loosely across the page with no plan — just let the paint move.
Collage what you’re carrying. Tear bits of paper from magazines, mail, or old notebooks. Layer them until something in you says, “yes, that’s it.” Ask yourself: what do these fragments say about what’s alive in me right now?
Add one word or phrase. In the middle of all the color and texture, write a single word that rises up. It doesn’t have to make sense — sometimes a whisper is enough.
The Soulful Journey in Your Art Journal
Your art journal is more than a sketchbook — it’s a companion on the Soulful Journey. Each spread becomes a step:
Sometimes you sit in shadow, painting the darker tones, letting yourself name what’s heavy.
Sometimes you catch glimmers, adding a sudden splash of brightness, a scrap of something beautiful.
Other times you’re in transition, layering and relayering, not sure where it’s going yet.
And then, slowly, you step into emergence and light — seeing a spread take form, witnessing truth appear on the page.
You don’t have to rush through any of it. The journal holds it all.
An Invitation
If you’ve been waiting for the perfect time to begin, this is it. You don’t need expensive supplies or a grand plan. You only need paper, scraps, a little paint, and your willingness to begin.
Your story is already unfolding — tender, messy, radiant. Let your art journal be the place it finds expression.
Layered pages, layered stories.
If you’re looking for tender guidance as the light shifts and the days begin to change…
If you’re feeling the tug of this in-between season — the golden days of late summer leaning toward autumn’s quiet — I’ve created something to walk with you. My new digital guide, Creative Invitations: Seasonal Art Journaling Prompts, offers 8–10 prompts inspired by the rhythms of this seasonal transition. Each prompt is a gentle threshold, a doorway into your journal, where you can honor what is fading, gather what is ripening, and listen for what is just beginning to emerge. You don’t need special supplies. You don’t need to know where it’s going. You only need your journal, your curiosity, and a little time to be present with your own unfolding.
Wherever this season finds you…
…may your journal hold the fullness and the fading, and remind you that your story is always unfolding in its own rhythm.
