I have a real passion for learning new creative skills and trying them out in my journals. I love being able to incorporate painting, lettering, collage and mixed media onto my pages and having lots of fun along the way.
I feel that I've learned so much over the last few years and I get asked lots of questions about the different techniques that I use in my journal. In this blog post, I'm going to share lots of my favourite sources of inspiration with you, in the hope that you find something which is just right for you.
YouTube
One of my favourite free resources for learning is YouTube. I watch a couple of videos nearly every day, usually when I'm eating my lunch. If there is something that I really want to try out, I will save the video to watch again at the weekend when I have a little more time.
Some of my favourite YouTube channels are listed below. You can click on any of the images to check out their channels.
Minnie Small Jordan Clark
An artist from London, who shares Craft, DIY, lovely journal spreads
a wide variety of art videos and and beautiful, peaceful videos.
inspiring vlogs.
James Burke Fran Meneses
A fantastically creative journal keeper An illustrator, who shares lots of
with a great range of skills. behind-the-scenes footage.
Creations Cee Abbey Sy
Shares really lovely creative videos, Has a fantastic journaling style and
including lots of painting and doodles shares lots of tips, along with being
that are great to follow along with. a great author.
I hope you find some YouTube channels listed here that really help inspire you on your own creative journey. These are probably the ones that I turn to most often for a fresh wave of ideas and motivation. You can find my Youtube channel here too.
Books
When I'm enjoying an escape from technology, I love to dip into a great creative book. I really like that you can go through them at your own speed and flick through the pages until you find something that really catches your eye. I have a blog post sharing some of my favourite books, which you can find here. I also have some new books that I'm loving and you can find the details down below. I will be sharing a little peek at the inside of them in my January Vlog on YouTube.
"Fun with Fabric" by Jane Foster. A great book to inspire you to use up any fabric that you might have laying around. You can find this book here.
"New Botanical Painting" by Harriet De Winton. A whole range of beautiful step-by-step botanical projects. You can find this book here.
"The Joy of Watercolor" by Emma Block. A lovely whimsical book full of gorgeous projects to try. You can find this book here.
"Creative Journaling" by Renee Day. Lots of idea, tips and techniques to use in your journal. You can find this book here.
I recently completed this journal page after following along with one of the tutorials in "New Botanical Painting".
I often like to try out new techniques and styles in my sketchbook, which I then recreate in my journal if I'm happy with how it turned out.
I also had my own book published in October 2019. It's designed to help you get creative in your journal pages and there are lots of step by step examples. I cover a wide range of topics and themes, ready for you try out.
You can buy a signed copy from my shop here and it's also available on Amazon, which you can find here.
Workshops
Sometimes, nothing can beat attending an in-person workshop. Earlier this week, I attended a Modern Calligraphy workshop, run by Lyndsey from Wild Sea Calligraphy.
It was amazing how much I learnt during that two hours. Especially how much I had been doing wrong! I always keep an eye on our local papers and notice boards, to see if anything interesting is coming up.
Lyndsey is a great teacher and also has an online workshop available on Skillshare, which you can find here.
Skillshare
This leads me nicely onto Skillshare, which is one of my absolute favourite places to learn. I love that there are such a wide variety of classes available, which are all project based. I try and take a new class every week, in a range of different topics, to really help me take my creative skills to the next level.
These are some of the projects that I have created after taking Skillshare classes:
Taking a Skillshare class always helps to build my confidence and knowledge in a particular area, that I can then keep practising in my journals. I've also learnt a lot about blogging, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest there too.
Some of my favourite teachers on Skillshare are Peggy Dean, Yasmina Creates, Julia Henze, Jessica Sanders and Neesha @ Paperwand.
In addition, I am a teacher on Skillshare and you can see the creative journaling classes I have available on my "online workshops" page here.
If you are new to Skillshare and want to see if it's right for you, you can access two months' free premium access by clicking here. Skillshare currently costs £10 / $15 per month and there are over 20k classes available, in everything from watercolour, sketching, journaling and digital illustration to cooking and learning the guitar. I find it a really affordable way to get access to some great teachers who offer feedback on my completed projects.
I hope you've found this blog post enjoyable and that it's given you some ideas to help take your creative skills to the next level. If you think there's anyone that I should check out on YouTube or Skillshare, please do let me know in the comments section down below.
Until next time, happy journaling. Helen x
*Some of the links in this blog post contain affiliate links, meaning that I earn a small commission if you choose to make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.