Module 17 — Beauties & Delights
Whew, we’ve been doing a lot of thinking! Time to get back in touch with the emotional side of our painting practice.
The idea of keeping a gratitude journal is everywhere. And there’s plenty of research suggesting it can help people become calmer and happier. Have you ever considered keeping a visual gratitude journal? Or a “beauty journal” or “journal of delights”?
Aside from the emotional benefit of focusing your attention on something good, pleasant and positive, this also helps you start thinking about how to represent abstract, intangible things in visual language.
You could use a separate sketchbook for this, or simply let it be one of the things you do in your studio notebook. I find it’s a wonderful way to approach travel sketching.
Module 17 Thinking Prompt—Beauty and Delight in Your Life
Oh, go ahead, use some words to get yourself started! What are some of the sources of beauty and delight in your life? Make a list or write a little paragraph.
Do you ever use these things as the subject of a sketch or motivation for a painting? Is this appealing as a way to motivate yourself to practice sketching? Or as a mindfulness practice?
Module 17 Activity Prompt—Journal of Beauties and Delights
Instead of just writing about things you are grateful for, try making sketches representing or symbolizing things you are grateful for, or sketches of little moments of unexpected beauty or delight in your day.
Choose one thing to represent each day, or several. Use images of actual things, invent symbols, or simply make abstract colored marks that capture the feeling. It doesn’t have to be something that anyone else would recognize. Add words, or not, as you choose.
If you really enjoy this practice, you can create a separate journal for it, or you can simply create some pages in your studio notebook with little boxes to fill.
Module 17 Journaling Together Video
Course Content
Preliminaries/Preparations
- What’s a Studio Journal?
- What Will I Need?
- How to Use This Course
- How to Use The Course Videos
- Preparing and Personalizing Your Supplies
Course Modules
- Module 1 — Just Begin
- Module 2 — Only the Interesting Bits
- Module 3 — Color Explorations
- Module 4 — The Attention Seismograph
- Module 5 — Splash and Dash
- Module 6 — Dealing with People
- Module 7 — Mood Light
- Module 8 — Themes and Motifs
- Module 9 — Your Signature
- Module 10 — Paint Like Water
- Module 11 — Everyday Art
- Module 12 — Deep Play
- Module 13 — Continue!
- Module 14 — Find Your (Little) Why
- Module 15 — Reverse Engineering
- Module 16 — Control and Chaos
- Module 17 — Beauties and Delights
- Module 18 — Rebel With a Cause
- Module 19 — Just Hanging Out
- Module 20 — Paint Poetry
- Module 21 — Disaster Management
- Module 22 — Coping with TMI
- Module 23 — Mood Adjustments
- Module 24 — Focus on Design
- Module 25 — Size Matters
- Module 26 — Point of View
- Module 27 — Inside the Lines, Outside the Box
- Module 28 — Meditative Mark-Making
- Module 29 — Are You a Serious Artist?
- Module 30 — Reflection