You have a treasure box to pick from when you art journal.

Hi! Rakefet Hadar here to share my art journaling process with you.

I always look for different ways to communicate my inner self on the journal pages. I love to be surprised by the outcome… I love the unexpected and I always feel that I get messages from my subconscious. I often “read” my pages as dreams. I try to understand my inner voices as they pop up on the page.

Art journal painted with my Inner Dream Houses Tree Stencil.

I believe in the power of our subconscious, it is like a big treasure box with lots of memories and resources from our childhood.

As children, we come to this world with a purpose, our soul has goals and dreams, as we grow up we forget our inner dreams and become practical.

I believe we must dive into our most inner childhood memories, heal them and regenerate our dreams.

Children live in the present, they are resilient and strong. They see the world with bright eyes, see the beauty of it.

Small children use art to express themselves without the fear or need to create something beautiful, with less judgment.

The most important resource of childhood is the wonder and happiness to be connected to nature and be part of it; This is why I love using pictures of children in my spreads.

The tree stencil is designed to be used in any direction.
Maybe you see it as a trunk or a branch. 

In the piece below, I wanted to create a feeling of a big tree trunk that emerges from the earth and creates the division between past, present, future… The houses on the left are pinkish and represent childhood. The woman inside the tree trunk is a symbol of my inner youth spirit that longs to find the right way. The houses on the left are multicolored to show the complexity of life.

I love colors!

Color is one of the 7 elements that I write on in my book “Layers of Intention- Elements of Art Journaling” for me it’s the most important element. Color creates a story. It symbolizes feelings and memories. It creates energy.

Recently I developed another method of working with color “color archetypes” and when I paint in my journal, I often use my special colors. For me, the blue and purple tree symbolizes my higher self.

The video below shows my artistic process.

 

Do you have an inner critic? I do. When I feel the inner critic, I just ask him to sit quietly and let me finish. I must admit that since I started journaling I don’t feel his voice so much because the visual journal is a private thing, I don’t have to share if I don’t want to. For me, it’s a healing process that I allow myself and it doesn’t have to be beautiful.

Inner Dream Houses Eye 9" x 12" Stencil

Intention, magical coincidence, background, images, lines, colors, text…these are the seven elements that make up the visual journal as I create it, and as I teach in the visual Journey journaling(VJJ) method.

Two of the elements, intention and magical coincidence, are meta-elements in journaling. They are also expressed visually, but mostly as part of an inner process. I view magical coincidence and intent as the ‘mother and father” of all the other elements.

Intention is like a cloud that always hovers over us when we work on our visual journal. The higher intention is to express ourselves in a new language, a visual language that touches us, a language that lets us create something from nothing. That is the higher intention of every spread in the journal.

If the element of intention is the father of all elements, magical coincidence is the mother. To feel a sense of freedom and inner passion as you create in your journal, you have to love and accept the surprise that magical coincidence offers. Looking at the world through the eyes of a child lets us discover wondrous ways of creating, ways that we wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.

If you want to learn more about the elements you can read about them in my book, “Layers of Meaning.”

I would love to welcome anyone who is interested to learn more to check out my website and get a monthly newsletter with lots of information about courses, articles. My biggest dream Is to spread my method of Visual journaling so everyone can heal themselves with it. Next year I will open my first International facilitator course. There are a few more spots left.

You are also welcome to my Facebook group -Visual Journaling with Rakefet Hadar.

Rakefet