jemimalovesbigted

Nup, never have. If I get an idea I just do it. I hated the visual arts process diary at school. I shoved some stuff in there after I finished the art just so I’d get a mark.

I reckon that if you have collected writings, thoughts and images – you could probably stick them in a blog type set up and present the tutor/ lecturer with the url. hahah!

not me, I’m a doer….

I am a bit like yourself,,, write down ideas on post it notes, then loose them!! But a journal sounds like a wonderful idea…

Hey Jem,
I know what you are going through and yep I did do it for a couple of years…......bit of a nuisance doing it but boy its so wonderful to look back and see how far you have come….......worth the effort…............although the few I have started in the past year or two haven’t got far at all…............good luck with it…..........xkc

I know, I really hated the “artist’s diary” crap when I was at uni.

I use the internet as my journal, I just have to look at work I uploaded back in 2004 to show me how awful I was….lol

We have to keep them at school.though I suck with it.Can’t be bothered with all that practical crap.But hey do help to expand on basic ideas,and apparently gallery owners like to see them,so they can see that you go through a process as an artist…or something like that….

It’s mostly all in my head. I bookmark things I see online but usually don’t revist them for ages. I have about 5 sketchbooks/notebooks of varying sizes and I make the some notes in them but it’s a bit all over the place and hardly what I would call a visual diary!

I love Nicole’s comment about ripping pages out for the shopping list. I do exactly the same with lists!!

I have zillions and zillions of fantastic unborn ideas in my head. Some I do right away, some I may do years from now. But actually the teachers are trying to get you in the habit of writing down your ideas just so you’ll have the habit and know how to go about organizing them in your head. It’ll eventually become just a very natural thing.

I don’t think so much that,as they like to see your ideas and how they transform into art I guess,and also that you have plenty of ideas,evidence of your commitment as an artist.

I bought a journal a couple of months ago and I’ve been using it a little bit.. although sometimes when I have an idea I don’t have it with me which is annoying. I like being able to stick pretty pictures and things that inspire me in though.. and sometimes I draw in it. It’s just nice to have something there to put things in when I want to, but I don’t force it.

I have a little black book. No, not to store the numbers of those hordes of attractive young females that throw themselves at me (...) but as a little diary type thing.

If I ever get a good idea, I WRITE it down, thanks to my inability to draw without the assistance of undo. I do often include a hard to decipher diagram, though.

I wouldn’t dare hand it to anybody though – It’s full of horribly incriminating stuff!

But I recommend it – there’s something very pleasing about going back over old times and adding little side notes… Then side notes to the side notes, arguing with yourself…

Yeah…

i keep a journal, though it’s not all that visual most of the time these days – mainly because, although i was one of the rare people who did regularly use and value having a visual diary at uni and in high school, the ones i used then were A4 acid free hardcover deals and they’re not all that convenient for carrying around and writing in on trams and such. so these days i usually just have an A5 (or near to) blank book on me at all times.

i also can’t draw so there might be the occasional undecipherable diagram, but mostly i use mine for writing down a mixture of ideas, to-do lists, updates on current events (in a sort of diary record way), random stream of consciousness writings and dreams that i’ve had.

i’ve found the ones i kept at uni useful for going back over the work i’d done and being able to then remember when i did particular shoots (and for storing my contact prints), and things like the notes i made for rating IR film, particular influences at the time, and projects that i’d been inspired to want to do but that i wanted to work out in my mind before doing (which may or may not have then been done or may remain still undone and may inspire me in the future).

although most of my thought process and planning takes place in my mind, and especially with my 365 work it was usually carried out within a short time of the idea being conceived, for me it works to write the ideas down so that i don’t forget them / can build upon them. often i don’t even read over my ideas again before carrying them out, but the actual act of writing them down tends to help them become more embedded in my mind and to make me expand upon the idea.

i do miss using an A4 diary though in terms of not being able to past in images from magazines, etc., that inspire me and writing notes around them, etc. but then i can’t usually afford to buy that many magazines these days, so the ones i do buy are ones that i value too much to cut up.

yup, i have a little red book with me at all times…my mind is too much all over the place to organize within itself

Yup!
Any piece of A4 that comes through my letterbox that is blank on one side is quartered and used as note paper. So when I’m fooling around with an idea or wanting to file away a “note to self” this is the stock I use, because it’s not precious so I can be loose and reckless in what comes out. Trillions of them all over the place, but I do keep track of them somehow!
Same dilemma in my course with the visual diary.
I have a beautiful moleskin that I’m usually too scared to mark. So to show some of my idea processes I do mind-maps and thumbnails in an A4 layout pad and if I think any of my A6 scraps are decipherable I just stick them in too.

Oh and-
Some clever-clogs out there do keep journals that everyone else dreams of either having the time or talent for – check out http://www.skineart.com/
I’m jealous!

I went thru uni 20 years ago and was frustrated like many others here about the formal visual diary business. I even threw some away a long time ago because they were so contrived and hideous. It did however teach me the value of using some form of visual ideas collection tool. I am a compulsive list person and if I don’t write it down its gone forever. If I do write it down I may never act upon it but it helps process the thought and allows me to work through its merits and deciding to proceed to a finished piece.. Nowdays I have little time to make finished art pieces, but with a visual journal I can keep creating and it keeps me engaged in my practice. I have an A5 blank spiral journal that is excellent for carrying around in my bag. I also have an A4 size journal but that pretty much just collects random notes on scraps of paper and other collected items.

they definitely work for me…wouldn’t have started them if I hadn’t been told to, but their value becomes known only in hindsight. Like when you’re having one of those moments of “what was that idea..that I didn’t have time for then, but thought was really cool?” or one of those more painful “I have NO ideas!”...you simply refer back to your journals and hey presto!

I really hated the writing part of art courses, because to me it seemed so forced.
Usually ideas mature in my mind, however when they get too complex I start to write little guides for myself here and there or do small sketches to visualise them. That part I understand, showing how a piece started off and was developed into the final thing. However when you are forced to write every single detail down, for example why you chose to paint a car red, then it comes out totally wrong and seems like a waste of time.

I have a journal then anything that gets started gets put on the ‘puter than burnt to disc. I have learnt it is bad not to store.
I am also very anal but at least I can find stuff.

Believe it or not I am also very, very impatient and can jump from job to job at a whim, so it becomes important to save. I also have a tendency to write stories from the middle out and then just put the paragraphs together like building blocks, so that means lots of word documents labeled: Story one end bit, Story two 3/4 just before end bit.
Strange but it works for me.
My filing system at work rocks. Foolproof. I don’t let fools near it.

I have an old book, an Elvis biography, that I started sticking things in about 10 years ago! It’s pretty full now, with a pile of loose cuttings under the jacket flap. I save(d) all sorts of images that I find in papers/magazines/wrappers, etc. Anything that takes my eye for whatever reason, it may be a pattern or a particular style of font, or a cool/interesting image/cartoon/photo. I flick through ti now & then & still get inspiration. I also jot notes down on scraps of paper, temporarily, when an idea starts to form, just as a reminder, in case I have to drag myself away from the computer in order to sleep or eat, y’know the inconvenient things. Ideas often come to me when I am in bed just going to sleep, or just waking up.

Yes, it may well be that we are more closely connected to our subconscious at that point. Or, if not our subconscious, perhaps what Jung termed the Collective Subconscious? I think this is possibly true at the point of going to sleep, but when it occurs at the point of awakening I believe the inspiration may come from an higher realm than the subconscious level, when our incarcerated earthly consciousness has soared to touch with that aspect of our Higher selves. Surrealism was born out of such a connection with the ‘dream state’, but I feel that any act of true creativity is inspired by the eternal Creative Force.