“If your goal is to carve out your own creative path, then over time, I hope that you go from asking, “Is this right?” to asking, “Is this right for me?” Amy Maricle, Mindful Art Studio‍ ‍

I found myself recently going through my sketchbooks and I came across my Jan-March art journal pages from last year, 2025. I had been experimenting with the morning pages concept—aka Julia Cameran The Artist’s Way —using image rather than text. Or more accurately, doing a brain dump first thing in the morning with image (and some text) rather than straight writing as she recommends.

Anyway, I’m pleased with those pages now an I am sorry I stopped making them. Why did I stop? It was a good practice, really, and I like many pieces of them.

I don’t think it was so much a journaling practice—which for me is writing to think about what I’m thinking about—but as an art practice. I spent almost every morning drawing what came, and over time images accumulated across one page to the next. Those drawings came from a different part of my brain, I think, as I allowed myself more freedom to let whatever came to mind come to the surface. I didn’t insist that it made much sense. I think if I’d kept going, I would have refined and deepened the practice and refined a visual language for myself.

I know why I cut that exploration short. We moved. And when the moving dust had settled I’d talked myself into choosing other ways to fill that precious morning time. But I wonder. Should I pick this pracitce back up?

See what else I’ve added to my home on the interwebs lately:

Weblog