Module 30 — Reflection

You did it! You devoted 30 journaling sessions to developing your creative potential. You’ve proved you have the most important skill for making great art: showing up and working. Understanding that not everything is going to be brilliant the first—or the tenth—time you work on it, and that’s just a normal part of the process.

It’s time to pause and reflect on your journey, and make a plan to keep the momentum going. 

Has your thinking changed since you began the course? Did you find ideas you want to develop further?

Module 30 Thinking Prompt—What Did You Discover?

Spend some time reviewing your studio journal, and thinking about where you are now in your creative journey and how you want to move forward from here.

Your Goals and Intentions

  • What were your intentions for your journaling practice when you started the course?
  • Which did you make progress toward?
  • Which do you want to reaffirm and continue working on?
  • Which goals and intention might you want to modify?
  • Which have you decided not to pursue (or, not right now)?
  • What benefits did you discover (or confirm) of working in your studio journal?

Reviewing and Refining Your Journaling Practice

Are there modules you want to revisit? Discuss with other artists? Make a part of a regular routine? 

Which modules or activities were

  • energizing and inspiring?
  • worth doing regularly for their benefits, even if they weren’t terribly easy or exciting?
  • worth revisiting after several months or a year to help with longer-term plans and goals?
  • not relevant for your work/not worth continuing?
  • worth expanding or continuing, but with some changes to make them your own?

What other ideas or activities did you discover on your own that you want to make a part of your studio notebook practice? 

Now that you’ve reached the end of the course, what will you do to keep your studio notebook practice going?

The Big Picture

What have you learned on your journey through this course? What did you discover about why you make art, what kind of art you want to make, and what kind of artist you want to become? What are you most on fire to pursue next?

Module 30 Activity Prompt—Highlights

Instead of just looking through your notebook, look for ways to highlight or emphasize things that you want to revisit or keep in mind. 

Some possibilities:

  • use colored pens to underline, make borders or embellish
  • create decorated lists or mind maps
  • embellish or illustrate a significant phrase or quote
  • use stickers to call attention to good ideas for future paintings, actions you want to pursue, little epiphanies about your creative goals, etc.
  • make pages where you “collect” things like poses, patterns, color combos, compositions, helpful hints, etc. 

Module 30 Journal Together Video

Since I don’t know what might spark ideas for you, or catch your interest most, I am going to share all the pages created in this demonstration journal AND two of my previous personal studio journals. Normally, I have a rule that I don’t share my studio journals with ANYONE, but we’ve worked together for 30 modules. I think you’ve earned a peek!

SPOILER ALERT!

If you are one of those people who skips to the end before you do the course, go back and do at least most of it before you watch this video!

It’s not a secret, but seeing what someone else did with the prompts before you do them can make you less creative. You run the risk of either being pulled in the direction of something that appealed to you or repelled away from something that didn’t. Either way, you could wind up missing a great idea of your own that goes in a completely different direction. Especially since creative ideas can be a bit shy at first.

Give yourself the opportunity to listen to the whispers of your own creativity whisper first.

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