my art journal Archives - Ingrid Murray

Get Messy Pattern Play Workshop

Join me this August for an pattern-based art journaling workshop with Get Messy!

My lesson, Pattern Play: Security Envelopes dives into one of the most ubiquitous art supplies around. Together, we’ll get inspiration, create our own collage materials, and create two different art journal spreads. I’ll also walk through all the art supplies I use.

Check out the pages I made as part of the workshop:

An open art journal with art supplies. The art journal page is primarily tan, white, turquoise, and orange, with a collaged background, small orange circles, and scribbles and drips in black, yellow, and orange.

An open art journal with art supplies. The art journal page is primarily light gray, pink, black, and turquoise. The background is collaged with a security envelope and handmade pink patterned collage paper, and is topped with scribbles and drips in black, turquoise, and neon pink.

The workshop is part of Get Messy membership. The Messian community gets to take part in brand new artist workshops each month and access a huge library of older courses. In total, there are over 100 classes and 1000 lessons to fuel your creativity.

Membership starts at $39/month. Learn more about the membership here* — and if you sign up before Saturday, August 3, you can join me live for this month’s opening celebration!

I’m really excited to be a featured artist with Get Messy this year and join the ranks of some seriously fantastic art journalers. Thanks to Caylee Grey and the Get Messy team for inviting me to take part. Hope to see you there!

* This is an affiliate link. If you go on to purchase membership, I’ll get a small commission. Win win!

How to Paint Like a Child

Children’s art is one of my greatest inspirations: it’s intuitive and impulsive, without the confines of “should” and “can’t”. Kids don’t have any sense of limitation, or any reason to doubt their own abilities.

Detail of a mixed media art piece, with brush strokes, scribbles, and splatter.

Picasso famously said “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” And, in one of my favorite talks ever, Do Schools Kill Creativity?, Sir Ken Robinson spoke about the confidence of a child drawing.

Today, I encourage you to pull out some paper, or canvas, and explore like a kid. Cheap materials work well for this kind of exercise: you’ll worry less about “wasting” your supplies and focus more on experimenting.

Try picking a color — paint, pen, pencil — and making random marks on a page. Close your eyes. Use your non-dominant hand.

Step back. What color is next? What color feels like it should come next? Add that.

Step back again, and look at what you’ve made. How does it make you feel? What is missing? What materials can you experiment with? What’s next?

I find that when I create like this, I wind up with tons of messy pieces, some that I’ll toss or paint over. But often, I also end up with some very surprising and joyful works of art that I would never have discovered had I not let go and experimented.

Let go and channel your inner child: curious and unafraid of failing. And most importantly — have fun.

Hawaii & Iceland Art Journals

While I post my art journal pages regularly on my Instagram, I realized I haven’t shared a dedicated art post here in months. (Can I blame it on all this change?!)

At the end of April, I finished up my Hawaii art journal, named — like those from the past few years — for the atlas page on its cover. In July, I finally filmed a flip through:

Each art journal usually takes about three months to complete. Since joining the studio, though, the process has actually slowed as I figure out the logistics of how to create regularly in a dedicated space that is not in my home.

I’m just a few pages shy of completing my newest journal, Iceland, which will mark about three years of working in this size and style of handmade journal. Take a look at some of my recent art journal pages: