Dawn DeVries Sokol - Doodle Diary: Art Journaling for Girls

Heres what you need to get started in your Doodle Diary:

Use all kinds of pens. Find ones that work for YOU.

Cut up some of the backgrounds, words, and doodles at the back of this book and use them for collage, paste them around the sides of the pages as borders, or glue them down and add on to them!

Cut out and paste in copies of photos of family and friends. Used magazines also work great for images of people and objects. Turn the magazine upside down while flipping through to see patterns and shapes you might not otherwise notice.

Try various ways of pasting and attaching items to pages, such as different tapes, staples, brads, stickers, labels, photo corners...

Writing along with doodling makes it even more of a diary. Mixing words with visuals is fun!

If you dont like your own handwriting, there are some ready-doodled words at the back of this book. You can also cut out words and letters from used magazines and junk mail, or print out words from your computer.

Alphabet rubber stamps are a great way to write in your diary, too! Ink pads come in all colors now.

Try outlining images you paste down. If youre working on a colored page, use a pen/marker/crayon that will match that color somewhat. This blends the image into the page. You can also use Wite-Out pens on dark backgrounds.

Have Fun

Colored pencils of any kind will work.

These look like colored pencils except they can turn into watercolor on the page. Simply color on the page then use a wet paintbrush or wet your fingertip and smudge in. You can also dip the pencil tip in water and color that way.

Number 2 pencils are great, too!

There are all kinds: Micron, Prismacolor, and Pitt Pens. Play with whatever you can.

Available in craft, art, and office supply stores, these pens leave great color on your pages. Use them to fill in doodles.

These pens are like gel pens and are becoming more widely available in various stores. Pastel-colored, their ink puffs up a little on the page when dry. A great opaque souffl pen shows up well when used on dark papers.

These pens are good for doodling and come in a wide variety of colors, although they CAN bleed through to the other side of the paper.

The Pip Squeaks work wellthe colors are more like watercolors, not as bright as other pens, but shouldnt bleed through paper. Theyre widely available and inexpensive, too!

Crayons are great, too, as a last touchfor drawing borders around images and adding color.

These work like watercolor pencils...use as a last touch: trying to draw over these with any pen will only stop up the pen. You can smear oil pastels into the paper with a fingertip and can also color in with a bit of water.