Maximalist or Minimalist? Style Experiments in Art Journal Pages
This week, we experiment between maximalist and minimalist styles.
Every time I open one of my art journals, I feel a sense of relaxation. It’s time for experimentation and risk-taking. In art journals, failure can also be success. Page by page, I learn to know myself better and thus, express things that can also be relevant to others. Now I wanted to experiment with style and picked my Dylusions Creative Journal for that.
Maximalist – Multiply!
I know that I’m more of a maximalist than a minimalist, so I started with that and made a spread with the principle of “more is more”.
I’ve started to be fascinated by buildings, both exterior and interior, and here too motifs began to create a sense of space as they turned into ornaments.
It was so fun to add a new detail on top of another that I forgot to take more pictures of the different stages, but I started with watercolors and soon moved on to colored pencils.
I’m fascinated by abundance and luxury. I connect that with the courage to be brave and let it all out. When I feel like that, the maximalist style is born effortlessly.
Adding details and dividing one shape to many can be done over and over again. I could have refined my drawing even more!
Maximalist or Minimalist – Adult or Child?
For me, maximalism is associated with adulthood and minimalism with childhood, although many probably think the opposite: that as a child you sprawl and as an adult you can prune. But when I look at my childhood drawings, I can say that my poor drawing skills made me a natural minimalist as a child.
It was a little unpleasant that the organizer has written the prize in the drawing,
but now it just adds a nostalgic flair to it.
But let’s remember that even as an adult, we can grab a light marker and start coloring with clumsy strokes and without outlines.
Minimalist – Simplify!
I colored the shapes of horses directly on a blank piece of paper without outlines. When I colored the background, I then refined the shapes.
As a child, I loved playing with plastic horses and red tights were my favorite accessory.
While making this art journal spread, I felt a deep connection not only to my childhood in the 1970s, but also to my teenage years in the 80s.
Back then, everything was still possible and ahead. The horses galloped wildly in my small room, but my mind was already far away in the outside world.
The controversy between the style and the content is the key here. The picture is clear, and the colors are raw, but the atmosphere is intense and a little mysterious.
It is as if I were each of those four horses. At the same time, a playing child, a baby seeking support, a galloping youth, and an adult whose life is still a mystery.
When I compare these two spreads, I think that I could give the minimalist a little more space, and it would not reduce the expression, maybe vice versa?
What do you think? See the pics below and leave a comment!
Exercise: Maximalist or Minimalist?
Try the same experiment in your art journal!
Creating Menagerie
This week, I share a recent acrylic painting called Menagerie and talk about the process. This is an example of making the most of the rich visual vocabulary – the topic that I talked about in last week’s video, but now we focus more on the idea of the piece rather than the style.
Recently, I have been thinking about the news feeds and their many truths. Although things are presented in beautiful phrases and pictures, the truth is much more complicated, and there are layers behind them. The same applies to people. Even though we try to be human, we are still animals, too.
When I paint, I struggle with the same thing: should I paint a flower or a soul?
I want to create beautiful paintings, but on the other hand, a painting is like a person. If you treat the painting superficially, you don’t get to see its true beauty.
I seem to paint better if I can partly focus on something else!
My goal is to give my paintings the freedom to be themselves and this painting really revealed its heart to me.
However, my task is not only to reveal the wild nature of the painting, but also to gently train it.
Menagerie is sold already. I hope it will bring joy to its new owner.
Details of Menagerie
Here are detail pics of the finished piece. I like how the style of this painting is partly illustrative. It looks like it’s partly drawn with a brush.
I wanted to create an impression that the animals are captive but still wild and strong enough to break free.
This painting has many layers and details.
I tried to bring up the similarity between flowers and animals.
Here you can see the big flower up close. The brush strokes are loose, but still, I painted them with a lot of thought and care.
I hope this inspires you to create too!
Art Journal as a Storybook
This week, we are looking at an art journal as a storybook, full of fairy tales that are not borrowed but our own.
With this video, I want to inspire you to create whimsical art journal pages that illustrate personal stories. In these pages, mundane things become more fantastical, and there’s no pressure to draw realistic sceneries, real persons, and such.
I say in the video: “As a child, I drew lions without thinking if they were realistic enough. I loved lions, so I drew them, it was that simple. When I cherish the inner child, I don’t expect realistic perfection, neither do I try to control the story.”
Creating a page in your storybook journal can be a creative adventure that gets you hooked on creating.
Art Journal as a Storybook – Watch the video!
In the video, I use watercolors, colored pencils, and fel-tip pens and create a spread in my Dylusions Creative Journal. I start with creating the central heart on a separate paper ( Fabriano Accademia drawing paper, thickness 200 gsm/94 lbs), and then pick one of my boxes of joy to find more hand-drawn collage pieces.
I don’t start with the background, but glue the pieces first, and then combine them by coloring. This vice-versa collage process is fun because we can make odd images work together by drawing and also make them to tell a story.
I also like to start with a simple shape and work from a small detail to a bigger picture. I think this way of creating is exciting and adventurous, and it’s always a joy to see what comes up.
Hearts and Stories – Sign Up Now!
Let’s turn your art journal into a storybook and make the most out of simple shapes!
Hearts and Stories will begin on March 17, 2025. >> Sign Up Now!
Picture Prompts – Creating Art Journal Pages with Hand-Drawn Animals
This week, we use small collage pieces as picture prompts for art journal pages.
First you pick a small image, a hand-drawn squirrel or wolf in my case, and use that as inspiration for the rest of the page. You will need paper, colored pencils, and a pen for journaling. I also used felt-tip pens for the details that I wanted to highlight and graphite pencils for quick sketching. I attached the animals to the page with double-sided tape. My journal is Dylusions Creative Journal Square. (Affiliate link to Amazon.com).
Open Your Box of Joy and Select the Animal!
We will use hand-drawn animals as picture prompts. You can, of course, use any image, but I suggest starting with animals.
I save my hand-drawn collage pieces in boxes that I call boxes of joy. These little drawings are born from the joy of drawing. I have cut them so that they can be used as collage pieces.
I started drawing these small separate little things in 2018, and have been creating them ever since. It’s so easy to pick a paper scrap and draw something simple, and then get enthusiastic about adding decorations and colors to it. I have several online courses where we draw these: Animal Inkdom, Magical Inkdom, Decodashery, and Doll World.
My animals are mostly drawn for the courses Animal Inkdom and Magical Inkdom, and I love them so much, that I have also printed copies of some of them. I have many boxes to choose from and I love to both use them and re-fill them.
For the first page, I selected a squirrel because it has pink and orange, and those have been my favorite colors recently.
After selecting the animal, use its colors to color a small part of the page! Just color some layers freely (like in the course Intuitive Coloring). Don’t glue the animal yet, wait until you draw more and the story unfolds.
Picture Prompts – Go Beyond the Obvious!
We have a big nut bush in our garden and squirrels love it. So, my first thought was to draw some nuts for the squirrel. But that would be too ordinary and not fun at all. What if this squirrel would chase after Faberge eggs while others collect peanuts?
I love drawing decorated eggs. In Doll World, we draw a big egg, but this time I wanted the eggs to be small so I could fit many on one page.
I made the eggs a bit different in size to make the page more interesting.
Static vs. “What If …”
When using the animal as a creative picture prompt, you want to find the story – not only the connection between the starting idea and the additions but also something surprising that keeps the inspiration going. If you only draw the ordinary, the picture easily becomes static – nothing is happening. Go for the extraordinary! Change the rules of reality, change the roles of the objects, make the animal speak – by drawing, you can create a world of your own. Ask: “What if?”
When I drew the first egg, it felt like just any object, but when I drew more of them, my imagination started working. Maybe the squirrel could sit on the biggest egg? And maybe the eggs could have a bigger role than to be just a decoration.
What if the scenery that I colored inside the biggest egg would leak into the surroundings?
I wrote: “A palace was born, hot summer days came here, the queen (the squirrel) had a party, and all things good and beautiful came up.”
Then I drew more and completed the page inspired by the journaling.
This is a story about an impractical squirrel who collected Faberge eggs instead of nuts and wasn’t much like other squirrels. But her eggs didn’t stay small. They grew and opened and created a place for her to live in.
“Isn’t that a story about every artist,” I realized after the page was finished.
Flying Wolf Art Journal Page
Let’s pick another animal and make the second page!
This wolf is the first little collage piece that I drew in 2018, so it’s time to give her a home. Decorating the animals was one of my core ideas for Animal Inkdom, so I can now color freely so that the decorations will continue to the background too.
Again, I am using the colors that the animal has: blue, black, and pink. This way the collage piece doesn’t look separate from the rest of the page.
I wanted the wolf to fly, but not with furry wings. Could the wolf be partly a butterfly?
With the wolf, I felt a connection to my North Karelian origin. With the butterfly wings, I celebrated being a woman and loving delicate beautiful things.
This wolf didn’t feel like a lonely one. So, I added a small butterfly and another bigger that is showing only partly on the right edge.
Back in 2018, my wolf didn’t fly yet, but it’s flying now! The more you draw, the more you can imagine!
Picture Prompts – Step by Step
- Pick the animal.
- Use the animal’s colors and patterns to get started.
- Ask: “What if …”
- Answer by drawing and journaling.
New in Development!
I have been making a new course that has a working title “Hearts and Stories.” I have already drawn quite many pieces for it. I collect them under a plastic plate that fits the side table of my studio. There I can see the whole collection at the same time, and think about what’s missing and how I will proceeed.
These drawings make me smile. My goal is that you too will smile when the course is running!
I want to be the advocate for drawing, because:
- If you only think, your imagination has limited capacity.
- If you only paint, you will stop playing and eventually run out of creative ideas.
- Drawing is important for any artist and for any human being.
What do you think?