September Journal

 

I decided at the start of the new academic year that I wanted to try journaling this year. I'm a huge fan of digital art and I do a lot of illustrating that way, mostly for convenience now that I'm so busy with uni. Naturally, it made sense that I would at least give it a shot when it came to journaling. I hit a few stumbling blocks along the way, unfortunately, and I'm not entirely happy with the results. 

I knew that I wanted a physical journal to collate my images because I wanted the opportunity to transition in and out of digital and back to traditional art whenever the fancy took me. Unfortunately, I had some issues with the top of my artwork being cut off during the printing process. I can't imagine why that happened, but it did, so I will need to investigate further. In addition to this, I feel the printing process knocked out the vibrancy of the colours used, and it lost its crispness somehow. In fairness, I'm not using the greatest inks or papers, so I may need to research better options if I intend on journaling digiditionally (yes, I made that up). 

I did enjoy the ability to pull in any reference or - ugh - stuff? There's a word for it, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is. It's like paraphernalia but not. The word for the random stuff you stick in journals... nope, it's gone. Anyway, the ability to copy and paste at will was really useful; having to cut and stick is a pain in the bum even if the results are pretty. That said, I was limited to those things and using physical textures wasn't possible for obvious reasons.

Conclusions? The jury's out. I will probably lean on this when my schedule is rammed and I need to produce pages quickly, but I think I need to keep my journal predominantly traditional. There's something special and personal about putting pen to paper to document one's life. Also, I had planned on a 12-month journal, only completing one entry per month, given that I am so busy with uni, but I'm not sure that;s going to scratch the itch I had when I started this thing. Perhaps I need to extend it to a weekly affair after all.

Now to focus on October!