Art journaling tips: How working small can support your creative practice

At the beginning of the year I started a new livestream series on YouTube called Painting in your PJs with Minette. 3 to 4 mornings a week I make art live and share what I'm thinking about, reading or working on. I frequently work in handmade art journals and I enjoy all kinds of mixed media art, especially intuitive collage.

For the summer I wanted a project that would be simple and sweet and not take hours to complete. I happened to see that Michael's was having a buy one get one 50% off deal on their journals, including these tiny 4x4 inch hardbound journals.

Perfect, I thought! I am going to give working small a try. It's been an interesting challenge as I am used to creating on much larger substrates.

In one of my recent livestream videos I share why working small is good for your creative practice.

You can catch the replay and create along with me here (it may take a minute for the video to load):

I have so much fun creating live with whoever shows up to play along. Currently I go live at 8am Mountain time most Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Grab a tiny journal and come paint along with me. Be sure to subscribe to my channel so you get notified when I do go live.

In this particular video I share how one of the various benefits of working small is that it helps to quiet your inner critic because there isn't too much space to fill. You can dive right in and get creating by putting a single mark on the page or gluing one image down. Smalls spaces allow you to work quickly, too which means your critic doesn't have time to get involved and start telling you that you are doing it wrong.

Watch the video to catch some of the other reasons why working small is good for your creative practice. I'm finding it a fun challenge. Perhaps you will too.