Intro to Art Journaling - Class 2 Prompts

Local Artist Shawnacy Kiker Perez

Shawnacy is a poet, fiction writer and mother; teaching English, Spanish and Creative Writing at Cornell College, Kirkwood Community College, and the University of Iowa’s International Writers House.

Class 2 of 6, Prompts 1 - 3

Continue your Art Journaling journey with Shawnacy as your guide. You have created a canvas page following the Intro to Art Journaling instructional video and are ready to get started! For each new Prompt you will create a new canvas page, so be sure to do that before you begin each new prompt lesson. You do not need to follow any order, do what inspires you and return for new inspiration.

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Prompt 1 - Meaningful Word

Materials:

• Blank canvas page
• Sharpie(s)
• Paint of any kind
• Paint brushes
• Water container
• Pen(s)

For this prompt (video above) you will choose a word. Pick a word that you like, that is jumping out at you, that is the thing you need right now. Pick a word to focus on. From this word you will build the image on your page, and the writing on that page. Once you have laid down your word then you are ready to write. Explore your feelings about this word on this page!

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Click on the title of the prompt to go the lesson on YouTube

Prompt 2 - Circles

Materials:

• Watercolor paints
• Paint brushes
• Water container
• Pens
• Sharpies
• Paint pens

Follow Shawnacy’s prompt as literally or as generally as you want to. She creates a Kandinsky style concentric circle page, but you can follow your own inspiration. As she said in her Intro class, if you are inspired to make a dance about circles, follow that impulse! How about making a meal out of circles? Notice circles in the world around you, what do circles mean to you, to the culture? What circles or cycles do you notice in your own life?Write about those on your page. 

Prompt 3 - Transform and Alter

Materials:

• Images clipped from magazines, brochures, etc.
• Paint brushes
• Water container
• Pen(s)
• Sharpie(s)
• Paint pen(s)

The point of this prompt is to take something, rethink it and give it a new life. Don’t be trapped by what someone else tells you something means or represents. Cut the image out of its context and see what else it could tell you. Be irreverent with this image, don’t feel bad about altering it! You can add other collage elements, or add your own drawings, or combine images to create something new. You can also add words that you have cut out. You can do this with words instead of an image, or in addition to the image. Select any page in your book and randomly point to a line, then use that line of text as the beginning of your story. 

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Additional art journaling classes and prompts can be found here:

• Class 1 - Getting Started
• Class 3: Prompts 4-7
• Class 4: Prompts 8-12
• Class 5: Prompts 13-15

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