Journaling for Art Educators

By Brooke Hunter-Lombardi, Columbus College of Art & Design

This lesson is for you! I really started getting into my journal and sketchbook as a way to practice what I was preaching to my students. Consider embarking on an art journal as a way to structure your thoughts and feelings about your classroom experience. Included below are journaling prompts, which are also available as a downloadable, printable pdf that is horizontally formatted so that you can fold the page in half and tuck it into a small journal as to always have the ideas close by.

Art journaling could be defined as an activity that is a combination diary, sketchbook, and scrapbook. Art journaling can help you process internal and external stimulus while furthering your creative outlook on the world.

Remember, it is not necessary to journal everyday, every week, or every month. It is not important to finish a book or project for the sake of completion. When there are no rights and no wrongs, discovery is the result.

In any creative work, the process is at least equally as important as the product. In the case of journaling this is especially true. It is also extremely important to remind yourself that this is a cumulative process. The self-reflective qualities should allow you to go back into pages at a later date to more completely respond to your feelings about life events and revisit your entries. You do not need to finish one piece to start another and there is no need for the pages to be in chronological order. Consider the layering of your journal as a symbol relating to the layering of your life.

Some days you may record words. Other sittings you might make art in response to your words or other ideas. And other times you may simply jot down lists or words that prompt a certain response from you. You can work on making paper beautiful with unusual painting techniques as a treatment to entries that are completed or as a starting point. Also consider that your response to the journal prompts could be in images rather than words.

I hope you will be kind to yourself when gauging success. Anything that makes you think, helps you understand yourself, or gives you a creative release is a good thing. If it doesn't’t look like much from the outside, then don’t share it with anyone. Go forth and discover.

Journal Prompts

Click here to download a printable pdf of the journal prompts.

Here & Now

• When starting new experiences I usually feel…
• This week as I prepared to teach…
• Today in class…
• Later when I reflected on my classroom experience…

Examine your personal art making history & experiences

• I remember some of my earliest art making experiences…
• The best thing about making art as a young person was…
• The worst thing about making art as a young person was…
• I remember knowing that I wanted to continue with art making because…
• When I received recognition for my achievements in art at an early age I felt…
• The best thing about being an artist is…
• To improve my personal art making I only wish I…In my time as a teacher, I have seen the following progression in my own art making…

Examine your personal history & experiences as a teacher of art

• I do (or don’t) remember first considering the idea of being an art educator..
• Some of the most influential art teachers I have ever had were…because…
• As a teacher, I have learned…about art and art making
• As a teacher, I have learned…about students
• As a teacher, I have learned…about myself
• As a teacher, I wish I would have realized…sooner
• As a teacher, I still struggle with…
• As a teacher, I excel at…
• What I enjoy most about teaching is…
• What I enjoy least about teaching is…
• While I teach art to my students, I also hope to teach them about…
• What art teachers really need is…
• The age groups I enjoy most are…because…
• Another age group I would like to have the chance to teach is…because…
• If I could have given myself advice as a new teacher based on what I know now about teaching, it would be…
• The colleague(s)/teacher(s) I most admire now is…because…
• Some of the ways I stay excited about teaching are…
• My biggest memory as a first-year teacher is…
• Some of my biggest memories about teaching over the years are…

Brooke Hunter-Lombardi is the education outreach coordinator and an adjunct faculty at Columbus College of Art & Design. She was an admissions officer for 12 years in which time she reviewed thousands of portfolios from students seeking admission to CCAD. She has been conducting portfolio preparation workshops since 1995.