Writing and Journals

Today’s drawing of Mary Magdalene in my big book that’s like a drawing journal.

Today I received some samples for blank books I had ordered with an image requested by one of my Etsy customers. I have been thinking about journals, both because I have used blank books throughout my life and because a couple of customers requested or bought them. It is a good way to create products that celebrate Mary Magdalene and that become keepsakes. I have journals from the time I was around 13 years old, but started receiving and using them much earlier.

The role or writing in our lives can be powerful. Not everything that we write is for sharing, but everything that we write serves a purpose for the soul.

One recent example from my own life… I have many blank books given to me by various friends. It is a gift I receive a lot and love always. But while I always have the best intention of using the journals to write inspired thoughts, for many years I was unable to write anything but “To Do” lists. After most of my life writing, I could not put together a paragraph that was not required for work. It felt wrong to use a beautiful journal to write lists!

I read the book The Artist’s Way many years ago, and the main concept I remember from the book is the role of free writing at least 3 pages as soon as you get up in the morning. I have always been a more spontaneous writer, but I needed a formula to fix my inability to write freely.

I started writing every morning in between getting up and getting ready for work. It took a few months but I started noticing a greater flexibility in my mental “writing muscles”. The practice had primed my mind enough to start writing again.

That’s when I started writing here every day as well as in the journal. A little blue journal that my friend had given me right before going on a 2 month trip to Europe and Morocco in 2017, was finally put to good use and filled with words.

The kind of writing that liberates artistic blocks and makes space for creativity is very simple. All you need to do is… write. Sometimes I would only write a sentence or a paragraph. Other days I would write 3 pages. The length had to do with the day’s inspiration and level of exhaustion. But in the end, even one sentence is great. It’s a step in clearing the mind and giving it a venue to deposit and organize the information that is clogging it. This cleanse results in flow in writing, art and life.

I usually create only products that I would like to use myself and obviously journals are that kind of product.

Wire bound with glossy cover and cream color pages, 10” x 7”

One of the samples is a 7” wide x 10” high book with cream colored paper inside. It’s wire bound, which means that it can open flat and won’t break at the spine if handled roughly. The cover is glossy and it looks really beautiful. I think this is the one I choose. I would change the image to fill the entire cover as the wire binding used some of the frame around the image.

Perfect bound, 8” x 5.5”. Matte cover.

The other sample is a perfect bound style book with 200 white pages inside. I chose to make the cover matte, and it looks nice but I can tell that it will damage easily. A journal is for daily use and handling, so this might not work. For this one, the price is lower and it’s also smaller. The cover could be matte or glossy, and I think I would choose glossy.

The third journal I designed is handmade with Coptic binding.

I love making books, and thought I would make one for this process, but the truth is, making a book by hand is a hard labor of love. It is great to make as a gift for a good friend, or for yourself. The amount of time it takes to create a piece like this is a full day if we put all the hours together. It took me about 3 days to complete to this point.

I painted white rice paper with watercolors for the covers. The image is one of my prints. I haven’t attached it to the book yet. Inside the covers, I used some of my gold painted newspaper that I’ve had since 2016 when I painted it for a project. I put a pocket in the back cover with a nice piece of drawing paper. The book has seven signatures with six papers folded in half and some have a red paper. I wanted it to be 7 pages but it was too thick. Each signature is attached to the next by sewing in a special way. I really like this kind of binding because it opens flat and doesn’t break. The book is not completely finished yet.

There is one more option I’m considering that might be the most fun. I have been designing stickers, and I think it would be nice to have a regular hard bound commercial blank or lined notebook with a sheet of stickers that the person can use to personalize their own cover and the pages inside.

I thought I would share these images in case you would like to leave your opinion in the comments. Which one would you choose? What would you use it for?