How to Make a Travel Journal

[Music] so today's video is going to be all about how to make a travel journal I have been doing this travel journal for about five months now and have learned so much over the course of the last few spreads especially on how to make something look cohesive and really reflect my experience and also be really fun during the process and because I've been getting a lot of DMS and emails people actually sending me their travel journal even my mom has started a travel journal which if you're watching this mom great job I'm really proud of you I thought it would be fun to just talk about how to make a travel journal how to make a good cohesive spread and before we get into it I thought you could just pause the video like normal grab yourself a cup of tea or and the other private you want and get cozy and then we can do a travel journal with me with this Athens experience this is one I did from our time spent in Athens in Greece but I thought it was a really nice spread to use kind of to show my process and how I think about things so let's just get into it this one is me starting to look through my journal and I kind of bring this notebook with me everywhere I go I write notes in it I do urban sketching in it blue and I plan out videos and I like to have a journal with me to handwrite notes and things like that so when we were going through Athens for the day I also brought the journal with me and did some urban sketching and for me I like to process things either by doing urban sketching or even just taking photos on my phone it's then really nice to have those little mementos either to use in the journal spread or just to spark my memory and kind of bring me back into the moment so this is a shot of me in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens and I really loved it there it was just filled with all these beautiful sculptures from these tiny little guys which I think were kids toys or something like that and then also really beautiful large sculptures that were super inspiring so I took time during that museum visit to just stand and look at things I think that that's one of the nicest things about urban sketching is that it really forces you to slow down museums and just sightseeing in general can be overwhelming because there's always so much to look at and then when you leave at least for me I feel like I saw so many things but like I'm not sure what really stuck in my brain and what will be turned into like long-term memory but when I even sketch it like forces me to be like why don't I just take one or two things to really look at taking all those details and then now when I look back at our time in Athens this museum really stands out and I don't know if it would the same way if I didn't do urban sketching and so I also like the urban sketches because then I can like cut them out and then put them in that travel journal spread I love drawing but I feel like I'm not always the most confident when it comes to my drawing skills so drying in a notebook like this is no pressure at all it's really stress free if I mess something up I can always start again and who cares if it's messy anyway it doesn't matter but then sometimes when I go to my trial journal I'm like I get a little nervous like drawing directly on those like big white pages and that's I feel like it's a really fun way to start a spread is to have a bunch of little urban sketches or doodles that you can cut out and move about the page so you don't have to feel the pressure of once you put a mark down it's there for good so that's this is just me cutting out all the little drawings that I got from our day in Athens the big piece of paper there with the sculpture I tore out from some magazines and that's another thing I would really recommend if you're starting at a travel journal is just to go to a thrift store or some sort of secondhand shop where they have magazines and get a bunch of different things that kind of feel like they're your vibe so for me I got a bunch of a National Geographic stuff I think the I got some of the national Geographics when we were in Barcelona at a market and then some of them when we were in Venice because my husband and I if you're new here we live in a van so I don't have so much room to hoard all these different magazines and stuff which is probably a good thing because I think I would collect way more than I need oh my gosh his hair is so short that's funny I'm like recording this the day before the video goes up but this footage is actually from a while ago so his hair is gotten much longer but that is besides the point back to the journal the journal I was saying is that it's really nice to have things that you can make collages from so I would get your hands on some cheap secondhand magazines theirs don't have to be mad National Geographic you can really be anything and then the other thing I'd recommend is getting different kinds of paper because I've found that one of the nicest things that makes the my travel journal entries come together is when I layer a lot of different things on top of each other so if I put down and see on the base of this page I'm using this magazine cut out with the sculpture that really made me think of the Parthenon which we go to later in the video but that I used as my base and I kind of was like okay from here I can layer on top the Athens I personally like to label the entries so I know what they're about but I really have enjoyed layering different texture so that base was like a little bit more glossy than the Athens letter or cardstock kind of feel and I feel like in the future I might even try to do some dried plants maybe that like if you pick a wild flowery from a hike then you could dry it and put it the trowel spread or even like a Polaroid picture cutting out some printed photographs that you had I think could create nice textural balance and the other thing that I've realized who over time is picking a color palette for your spread makes things much easier because otherwise you can get kind of overwhelmed I really figured that one out actually in the last travel journal I did from Scotland because that I chose green because Scot Scotland is really really green and so for Athens I ended up choosing a neutral palette so I was gonna do just black and white but then I realized the texture or the color of my paper from my journals like it's not pure white it's a bit like a light cream and all these pillars and the Golden Hour light that was coming in was like a lot of cream so when I went back to the spread I was like okay we have this black and white base of this sculpture and then I can do the Athens and white and then I kind of was layered from there I think I chose I found kind of like a grey cement block wall and I cut that out to kind of tie the second page together these pillars I actually found a second-hand store it's kind of like a card stock II thick paper as well and I got that in Venice and I think that's another thing too is that sure this spread is about Athens and it's about our time exploring that city but not every single piece has to be like this completely connected to that place like I think that this sculpture on the on the Left page is like from Italy technically when I read the detail from the magazine and you know this piece of paper I got of the pillars is from Venice although from Italy but for me when I look at it it reminds me of our time here in Athens so I think that's important too is like you're trying to create a memory for yourself so don't feel like constrained by your materials if they don't completely come from what you're writing about are you drawing or collaging the other things and that I guess that gets me to another tip one of the things that I love to include in art in my travel journal entries is urban sketching just because it makes it easier to put the spread together but I would encourage you if you're starting especially at the beginning to get really creative and super experimental with what mediums you choose because I had never done any collage before I started this travel journal almost half a year ago and now I really love it and I've learned to play around with layers and I feel like it's a space that I would definitely love to explore more and then here this is just like ballpoint pen doodling but I've also in a ton of my journal entries spreads used watercolor and I love to watercolor and I never get around to it as much as I want to and I always like when I make trough the journal spreads I'm so happy when I include watercolors because it's a medium I love to play around with so that's another thing I would say is don't confine yourself just to one thing if you feel like if you want to use crayons or markers or colored pencils or make your own confetti or you know dried plants really anything is fair game when it comes to a travel journal entry or an art journal entry and I feel like the medium really lends itself for you to be really brave because it's like this isn't gonna hang on a wall it's just a journal entry there's no pressure you don't even have to share it with anyone if you don't want to so that part I've really enjoyed is just using it as a space to be creative and experimental and not so take things so seriously so as you can see here this bread is kind of coming together and I've used those little doodles from our urban sketches from the museum and keep playing with them on the page and that's the other thing that I really recommend even though you might want to think that something is set in stone in your entry at some point we until the all of it has really come together before you start gluing things down because I've had so many moments in the first few of them where I started gluing things down and then I think Oh actually I could like layer one more thing here and then it's like calm and it's already glued down and then you are debating can I pull this off without ripping the paper and so I would just say get it like pretty almost done before you start gluing the other thing is to make sure that you have the right kind of glue stick I had a glue stick like this one like the I don't know what the actual name it's like a hard glue stick kind of reminds you of like arts and crafts when you're a little kid and I had one of those but then I forgot to put the cap on tightly and it dried out and then I had this other kind of more wet glue for a couple of my entries and when you use that like wet glue on all these like magazine cuttings or even the thin journal paper it makes everything wrinkled and doesn't look as nice as it could so make sure that you're using a glue stick that can be used for mixed-media and it doesn't make your papers wrinkled the other component that I've really enjoyed for I think almost all of my entries is I kind of also write a little kind of like reflection on the experience whether it's on the actual day or a week or whatever traveling that I'm reflecting on or sometimes I even reflect just on the creative experience of making that page that day but for me the words are really important it's like how I process my life and so I really enjoy having some handwritten things on the page as well and so I think that's like really my biggest tips I would say don't take it too seriously find a journal size that works for you I really like having the big pages because it lets me have the urban sketches be larger and it leaves more room for me to play on the page but some people could feel like a smaller one fits their personality much better and they could just do it in a cafe and just doodle on the pages and reflect in the moment so I think it's about finding a style that works for you and for me I've really enjoyed having this big page so thank you I hope that was helpful and I will see you soon

Channel: Wild We Roam

Views: 26,951

Rating: 4.9711099 out of 5

Keywords: travel journal, journal with me, bullet journal, art journal, travelers notebook, travel journal diy, art journal ideas, travel journal with me, travel journal supplies, travel journalist, travel journal kit, travelers notebook tutorial, art journal tour, art journal with me, art journaling for beginners, art journal techniques, art journal mixed media, creative travel journal ideas, how to journal for beginners, travelers notebook setup, art journal tutorials

Id: t0u4T-NUsRg

Length: 12min 26sec (746 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 24 2019