Creative Refreshment for the Blocked or Time-Starved

A quick and easy way to add a visual element to your journal

Whether you have always wanted to try your hand at visual journaling, or you have lots of visual journaling experience, we all need some quick and easy ways to approach our journal: when we’re stuck, bored, procrastinating, tired, and uninspired are good times to try this. No matter what the funk, you are just 3 steps and about 5 to 15 minutes away from creative refreshment. Try it and see.

Find a quote or phrase that inspires you. Ideas: Lines from a poem, quote from a favorite author, phrase that keeps showing up in your own writing, or even just one encouraging word, like focus, or breathe.
Paint. Grab any old paint you have around. Water soluble paint works the best. The cheaper the better. My favorite paint for this exercise is the cheapie craft paint that sells for a dollar or less per bottle at the craft store. A point to underline here: this is a journal, not an art project. No fancy art supplies needed. Unless you want to get out that old (probably rarely used) set of watercolors…those work great, too. Got kids? Raid their art supplies. Even just one color will do. Pick the color you love the best.

Add the quote on top of the paint, using either of the following two options.

Option 1: Hand writing. With a pen, simply write the quote on top of the paint. Experiment with making decorative letters, or big block letters. If you are the type of person who is always very precise in your work, by all means, do not measure anything or use a grid ruler or draw it out on tissue paper first. Remember, this is supposed to be quick and easy. We’re going for instant gratification here.

Option 2: Rubber Stamp. If you have a rubber stamp alphabet, you can turn this activity into a kind of creative meditation, since it takes longer to stamp the letters, depending upon the length of the phrase, As you stamp each letter, reflect on the phrase and what it means to you. You can journal about those insights later.

Mix & Match Stamps: If you have more than one kind of rubber stamp alphabet, try mixing them together. I like to collect stamp alphabets, especially old ones. Since my mother first taught me the alphabet by drawing out each letter in vivid color with my crayons, I have loved playing with the alphabet as much as I like to write.

Relish the magic. You’re going to feel a hit of excitement every time you see that quote on your page. You’ll want to do more. That’s good! You’ve introduced an element of play and ease into your visual journaling, which is key to learning from what you are doing, and most important: enjoying the process.

This is something you can do right away. If you think you have “no time” to do even this, take just 2-5 minutes to do each as a separate activity: find quote, locate paint, paint background, write out quote. Quick! Easy! Creative Refreshment is yours.