Journal Craft Inspirations

Our first featured ‘journalist’ is Karen Blados an artist and graphic designer living in Cleveland, Ohio.

(Karen’s biography follows at the end of this interview)

“A sketchbook can be so much more than just a collection of drawings. It can be a celebration of what’s important in your life - the big and small moments you don’t want to forget”

Karen, thank you for being our first interviewee, tell us, how long have you been keeping a journal?
Honestly, I just started keeping a sketchbook about 18 months ago. Even when college instructors made a sketchbook an assignment, I didn’t see the point - I always thought my time would be better spent concentrating on my real assignments. I found myself wanting to draw again, but since my time was limited a sketchbook finally seemed like a good idea. I’m pretty good about doing an entry every day, even if it’s right before I go to bed.

What benefits do you feel you gain from keeping a journal?
I’m more confident as an artist. I am definitely my harshest critic, but even I can see how much I’ve grown as I look back through my journal pages. More importantly, I’m happier. My art became work, an assignment to finish before moving on to the next one. In my journal, I’m drawing what I want to draw, the way I want to draw it and I don’t have to answer to anyone else. It’s allowed me to recapture the joy and enthusiasm I had for drawing as a child. Simply put, it’s just plain fun again.

What do you do when you need inspiration?
My inspiration comes from my everyday life - good, bad, funny or mundane, something usually piques my interest during the day. I either draw it right then or come back to it later. If it’s 10:00 at night and I still haven’t drawn anything, I ask my husband to find me something - he always picks something hard to see if I can do it - or I go back to the Everyday Matters list.

What is your favourite type of Journal, and what art materials do you like to use in it?
My favorite journals are the 5.5″ x 8.5″ portrait size by Hand Book Journal Company. I tried a Moleskine, but I like the whiter, toothier pages in the Hand Book Journals.  I’ve found that they take ink, watercolour and even some markers without bleeding. As for materials, I like Pitt Artist pens by Faber-Castell - I use the superfine and fine points in black and I also have a couple of sets of the colour brush markers. I also have a pocket watercolour kit and a waterbrush, so I can add colour just about anywhere.

What do you mainly use your journal for?
My journal has grown from just a place to draw into a celebration of my family. I started to add little comments to explain some of my drawings and now I’m writing dissertations on what happens each day.

Would you share a couple of your journal pages with us?

A trip to the emergency room with my son inspired this spread. Drawing in my journal calmed us both down - if I was drawing like I normally do, it somehow made the experience less scary. My mind was too busy to come up with what if’s and he was distracted by posing for me. And the fact that Sponge Bob was on the television didn’t hurt either.

As for my technique, I really don’t plan the pages as much as people seem to think I do. If they look that way, it’s only my design background rearing it’s ugly little head. I plop the subject down somewhere on the page. I usually add all of the details, like the stitching in the sock and the shadows first. Then I add the watercolour washes or sometimes markers. The commentary and title are last and I just put them wherever they seem to fit.

The lines in the shadows are my own little peculiarity. I’m a little too obsessive-compulsive for cross-hatching, but I wanted the shadows to be darker. The lines are a way to achieve the contrast and the have the side benefit of being very zen. I just zone out, calm down and relax while doing them.

Do you have any unusual stories/anecdotes related to your Journal keeping?
The most unusual thing I’ve found about my journals is the interest in them expressed by complete strangers. Publishing my journal online, which was originally just a way to keep my relatives and friends in the loop with our family, has opened a door to a world of people I never would have known otherwise. I’m happy and overjoyed and amazed to have all these new friends to correspond with, but it’s still just a little surreal.

To finish, why would you recommend keeping a journal?
A sketchbook can be so much more than just a collection of drawings. It can be a celebration of what’s important in your life - the big and small moments you don’t want to forget. The anecdotes I record add to the drawings, but I don’t need them to remember any particular day in my life. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and it’s all the more precious when you create it.

Karen Blados - brief biography
I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember and growing up, I never really considered being anything other than an artist. In college, I studied graphic design (because I wanted to find a job after graduation) and illustration (because I enjoyed drawing and painting more than moving a mouse).

I’ve worked as a designer for a direct-mail company and at an advertising agency, which actually fulfilled one of my childhood dreams - I always wanted to work in a big building downtown. After having my second child three years ago, I decided to freelance so I could be home to take care of my kids. It hasn’t always gone as I envisioned - don’t let anyone kid you into thinking you can juggle two rambunctious toddlers and 62 pages of revisions on a catalog at the same time. Nope. Doesn’t work - at least not for me. I end up juggling the kids during the day and then staying up all night to finish the revisions.

While I enjoy working as a designer (okay, the late nights not so much), my focus has been shifting back to my drawing and painting. Over the years, my artwork has become more of a hobby - something to do between family and work and other “more important” things. Actually, the sketchbooks have made realise how much I enjoy drawing and if I’m ever going to “do something with it”, this is probably my best opportunity. Now I’m making time to draw and paint and hopefully, sell my work in the near future.

Visit Karen’s website