January Journal - Tips and Tricks

I've noticed some of my favorite journal pages I've seen have a few things in common, and some of my favorite journal makers use a few dedicated tips and techniques, so I thought I'd share a few :

Use a layout
Liz of Liz and Borromini uses a few layout options depending on what she's sketching.  I love this idea.  It gives you a little more control, and to my mind, makes it a bit easier to make an interesting page.

I wish I could find the link to where she posted this sketch, but here is
the link to her flickr account...it's in there somewhere!

Date it!
Ever look back at an old journal or sketchbook and realize you didn't put a date on the page?  I have, and it's much better if you can see the improvement or changes over time.  You can't do that without a date.
I love the way Brenda Swenson dates her sketchbooks.

Color
I love color...it wakes things up.  Sometimes I prefer to leave a sketch just pencil or pen, but usually it's much more fun and interesting with color added.

Stick something on it
I love how Liz Steele sticks tea bags or other memorabilia onto her page.  I need to start doing this.

Balance  - between words and pictures
If you're doing both, words and pictures, this is where the layout can come in very handy.  Too many words with a scrunched up sketch or a large sketch with the words jammed in here and there can be frustrating.  It's just prettier when there's a nice balance.  This is one I definitely need to work on!

Of course, it is your journal...so this is very good advice!

I'm learning these things too, so this helps me to get my pages looking a little livelier.  I tend to either have one thing on the page, or I jam it up with a bunch of unrelated things.  That's okay - like I said, no rules!  But sometimes I just want my pages to look a little prettier and more interesting (and blog worthy!)

Here are a few pages from my sketchbook this past week.  As you can see, I need some work on layout and composition, not to mention more, more practice!