International Fake Journal Month 2016 Will Be Starting Soon…

I've received many emails and Facebook messages in the past two weeks—people are wondering about the celebration for IFJM 2016.

Yes, it's happening and yes, it's right on schedule.

As I told participants of the Facebook group for this on-going project, you can at any time access the past posts on this blog that give explicit instructions for how to prepare, how to select a journal to work in, how to think about your media choices, and how to begin to get to know your character—the individual who will be creating the journal.

The best way to find these blog posts is to look in the category list called "Find Related Posts." Keywords like "tips," "fake journal choices," and "character building" can help you.

It's also important to know what is NOT a Fake Journal. You can discover that by going to the top of the blog and clicking on links for "What is IFJM?" and "Tips on Keep a Fake Journal."

Look also at "Faux Historical Journals" and "Historical Fake Journals" in the category list. Historical journals trip up a lot of people and I go through some of the key reasons why in the posts in this category. Make your month the best opportunity for growth you can, eliminate frustration. Skip the Historical and focus on the "real" in Fake!

In fact I think it's a great idea if you look through the entire category list for topics that might resonate with any questions you have. I've written some pretty comprehensive posts.

Additionally I recommend that you go down the left column to the various participant lists. There you'll find names liked to the postings of participants' past fake journals. These are great fun to look through. Leave them a note to tell them how their work has inspired you to participate.

You can also find flip throughs and other notes about my various fake journals at the top of the blog, and in the category list. I have flip throughs on my YouTube Channel.

You will notice that the new button for 2016 is now in place at the top of the left column: "Shift in Place" is the theme for this year. I will have more to say about it next week. Remember that you aren't required to follow a theme. I think this year's theme is very important based on past trends among participants, so you might want to check back and find out more.

If you would like to join the Facebook group for International Fake Journal Month please message me on Facebook. Then I will have your exact Facebook name and can invite you—it is a closed group, open to people who are actually creating a fake journal in April, and to people who think they might and want to discuss it. The group is for sharing only work related to IFJM and not other artwork.

As always, I look forward to seeing what you create during IFJM 2016.

Strengthening Your Creative Muscles

If you are participating in the 2015 International Fake Journal Month (IFJM) celebration then chances are you have just completed your seventh entry in your journal (most participants do an entry a day).

Things might be barreling along at breakneck speed and the freedom you experience being another character is already spilling over into your other work.

For others the end of the week might seem bittersweet—plans for the month seem now further away than April first, your medium of choice is not working in unison with the paper and journal you selected, your character may be in a snit at your failure to grasp his or her true motives for sketching nothing but cigarette butts found on main street, and that sniffle you thought was allergies two days ago is now a full-blown head cold.

What to do?

Don't give up. Don't pack it in.

Realize this:

Starting a creative project of any time is never easy, especially when you are setting it up to dig deep within yourself and mine some essential truths about how you approach art and life.

The first time you participate in IFJM might seem particularly mined with explosive obstacles. You look around and see others (who have participated before or maybe never participated) churning out pages as if there was no tomorrow (or as if they had no other obligations in the world). Your small sketch on the page suddenly begins to seem smaller and more insignificant.

NONSENSE.

Your fake journal is going to be different from everyone else's because you and your goals are different.

Your journal, with its simple parameters that fit in your day also fits your goals, that's why you decided on it. Keep going, keep applying yourself to the goals you set and see what you discover.

If your project now seems overwhelming because you are having to do extra research into what's involved in medicinal botany when you've never grown a plant in your life (I hope I've picked a career no one is using this year—it's sometimes hard to  keep track as characters don't announce it) and that extra research time leaves you with little sketching and writing time—don't beat yourself up.

If the medium you selected is making mud on all your pages—don't give in.

It's time to reassess, and tweak your project so that you can continue on through the month.

After you have completed the seventh day of your project it's the perfect time to reassess. Follow these simple steps, even if you think all is going well.

1. Ask yourself how you are connecting with your character.

2. How much time are you spending on your project each day—if it's more than 30 minutes a day are you on vacation and so have time to spare? If not take a serious look at the time you're spending on the project.

3. Are you happy with the sketches and writing that you are producing? If so, great, don't think more about it for now. (You can look at them again in as week 3 starts.) If you are not happy with your output take a look at what the causes of the dissatisfaction are. Is it because you are judging your writing and art? Do you have issues with your internal critic? If you never have before and now you're harshly judging your output here's a clue, you have issues with your internal critic that you've been in denial over. Take a moment not to address this fact and find a way to silence the critic for the duration of the project. I recommend that you come up with a statement as simple as "Shut UP" or as polite as "I'll speak with you about it in May, I'm sure you'll have lots to say." Use that statement EVERY TIME you find yourself getting into a judgmental frame of mind about your artwork. You might find yourself saying this every 30 seconds if the critic is really holding on tightly. He doesn't want you to go on because you are outside his comfort level. As an artist YOU get to set your own comfort level. Push your boundaries and tell your internal critic to take a hike.

If your "judgment" about your art and writing comes not from your internal critic but from your healthy art-process editor who makes helpful and specific comments for change like "this image's focus is lost here because there are no dark-darks next to the focal point" then use those comments to focus on those specifics in your next piece. BUT BE VERY CLEAR IN YOUR ASSESSMENT.

The one type of judgment tells you to shut down, the healthy type of assessment shows you clear paths for moving forward.

4. After you have assessed items 1 to 3 it's time to look at how you can switch things up to make the best of the remaining time in the project.

You might realize that it's important to simplify locations your character is in—so your character either returns home or stays in one spot for the duration.

You might find that it's important to decrease your time involvement. If so sit down with your character and ask her what she can work on in only 30 minutes. You can do a bit of creative negotiation.

The goal is ALWAYS to do something that is manageable so that you can get to the end of the project.

But it is also about maintaining your creative flexibility.

As an artist it is important to learn when it is time to switch things up within a project and be able to clearly distinguish that from a complex urge to quit.

One of the most valuable things you might learn on this project is your unique artistic temperament triggers. Don't continue day after day to struggle. Instead sit down with yourself and your character, and work out ways to keep going.

Some Possible Shifts To Make To Ensure Completion

1. Immediately reduce your time involvement to 30 minutes a day. If this means you can't do your research, then find a way to work around that. (Your character has to return home where things are familiar to the both of you is the easiest workaround here—but you'll find other creative ways to proceed.) If you're selected media requires 50 minutes to make a successful painting and you can't spend that this year then scale back or switch media, have your character ponder on it in your journal, and get on with something that you can work with in that time frame. This is creative reaction in action.

1b. would of course be change the medium you're working in. Let's face it, if you intended to work in watercolor and by day 2 realized that watercolors don't work in the book you selected think creatively about how your character can still work if he changes media or changes scope, or even simply starts working on loose sheets of watercolor paper, all the same size (or not) which will be placed in a box at then end of the project. DON'T SUFFER.

2. Let go of your expectations. Perhaps you thought each page would be a work of art? Well in any journal worth anything coming out of a creative mind there is experimentation and MESS. YEAH for MESS. Embrace the fact that your character is comfortable making a mess and still creating.

3. Adjust your expectations to what is possible given your life constraints around you. If you are sick realize that will have an impact. Keep working, but perhaps you only work for 15 minutes a day. If it's the middle of tax season and your real job is "accountant" what the heck are you trying to do? Really? You can keep your fake journal in March or May next year, and right now you can do something that takes only 4 minutes a day because that is all you have and I still want to encourage you to finish the project.

4. Ask your family to cut you some slack. If there are lots of demands on your time and you feel everyone else's needs are coming first, sit everyone down in the family and say, "Hey, I need this 30 minutes each day and unless you have a bleeding wound or limb loss don't knock on the door" (Or tell them to stay out of whatever room you use to create in.) One of the great gifts you can give yourself when working through IFJM is an improvement in family dialog over creative time (yours) and their expectations to have dibs on your time.

5. Join the Facebook IFJM Group and start posting your journal pages there. You don't have to post all of them, just one or two. Then ask people questions. "My character shift is difficult because of X, how are you dealing with that?" The group is pretty engaged in sharing their work and their thoughts. And they are up to speed on what a fake journal is and why you are trying to keep one (OK they don't know your exact reason for trying to keep one unless you tell them, and you don't have to tell them that and they can STILL give you encouragement). There are several folks in the group who have participated in past years and know the pitfalls and issues that can arise. They can assure you that what's happening is first week jitters.

End of Week One Final Thoughts

Working on a month long creative project like IFJM is a way to build and strengthen creative muscles. You'll learn something about the media and approach you decide to take. If you have set your parameters well you'll learn something about the creative process and your process that will help you go forward in your journaling.

But strengthening creative muscles is a process similar to strengthening any muscle in your body. You would not decide to run a marathon in May and go out today and run 26 miles. If you have never run before you would run around the block once a day for a couple days, gradually work up to a mile, and from there alternate between 3 and 5 miles and so on, until you were able to improve both your speed work and your endurance and combine them in the final 26.6 (or whatever it is) run.

IFJM is exactly the same. If you've never done a creative project like this before you have to pace yourself. And if you are pacing yourself you'll see things you don't like about the first week's effort—BUT YOU MADE IT! And you're going to keep making it and keep improving if you keep having these self-assessment type discussions with yourself.

Remember this, don't kill the will to be creative by overburdening it. You can over burden that will by setting too expansive a project, too labor intensive a project, too research heavy a project, and even a project that is too dismal (sad, morbid, frightening, happy, joyous—whatever the opposite of your general disposition is).

Take a moment today to assess where you are in the project, how it is going, what is working, what isn't working and how you can change that aspect.

You are one quarter of the way there. At the end of this week you'll be halfway there. Keep going. Allow yourself to see this creative project through so that you can learn from it and use it as a springboard for other projects. 

Time to Start Thinking about Your 2015 Fake Journal

It’s time to start thinking about International Fake Journal Month. Yes, April is still more than a month away, but it’s time to keep your eyes open and antennae twitching for possibilities.

For the past few days, when I have a moment or two, I have been gathering the commercially bound journals I have on hand. While I usually bind my own books, the past two years a shoulder injury has prevented that and I’ve been using more and more commercially bound journals, while completing physical therapy so I can return to binding. Typically I complete my fake journal in a commercial bound journal because that’s the first and most obvious difference I can draw from reality to fake—but now that might not be the case. So along with a few commercially bound journals like the types found in this post from 2012.

I am pulling a few small journals that I hand bound several years ago, off the shelves as well.

Once the small selection has been laid out on the table I’ll start thinking about what medium I might want to devote 30 days to.  I’ll ask myself what my subject matter might be, what I might enjoy creating with that medium, how I might seek out that subject matter, which of the books seems most friendly to these emerging plans, and then I’ll walk away from the table to think it all over.

If I get it in my mind that I want to work in gouache, I probably wouldn’t pick a book with paper I know is unsuitable for gouache. I love a challenge, but I also want to have some fun.

I also usually like to select a topic that I know will hold my interest for the entire month of April, and be doable—so detailed 9 x 12 inch portraits of people, that’s too much a time commitment. Value studies of fruits and vegetables I can set up on the table and execute in 15 minutes, doable.

For the first example I have to round up 30 people to sketch, or enough people that I can keep asking them to sit for me long enough that I can do a detailed portrait of them. That’s easily a 2 to 3 hour a day undertaking I wouldn’t impose on friends or myself.

Last year, because I wanted to make goofy people sketches, I requested animated photos from readers. I worked from photos, creating loose images that were all done very quickly (and the model didn’t have to sit for the portrait). But I prefer working from life so there were drawbacks to that solution. It did however give me ample time to work with acrylic inks and brush pens in a large scale (22 x 30 inches) during the month.

Since I’m just starting to paint again after a long hiatus (due to the same shoulder injury that limited my binding) there is something appealing about working in gouache for the entire month. Then even if I work with pen and ink all day, at least once a day the paints will come out.

Another consideration for me is whether or not my character will be mobile. If she (and 90 percent of the time I keep with a female character) is then I have to work out what sort of medium would be easily transportable and enjoyable and where she might take that medium, e.g., to the zoo, but not an art museum perhaps.

But I’ll wait to think on that until I’ve found the book. I have a sense that this year the answer lies in finding the book. Some years my character comes to me as soon as I pick a medium.

I would suggest that you start thinking about options and approaches yourself. Start taking stock of what books and supplies you have on hand. I think the project works best if you spend zero money on it—so use what you have on hand and push your creative response to those materials and see who pops up as a character and what theme or thread comes to the surface.

If you’re looking at books and supplies you have on hand and a character isn’t coming to you within two weeks of casual thought about this close you’re eyes and pick a book.

Then walk around for a week thinking about the media you can use in that book, on the paper it contains. Is that something you want to work with for 30 days?

Next think of a subject matter. By now it’s only about a week away and something is beginning to percolate. Once it does, take a moment to write a couple things down about your character—name, sex, habitat, likes, dislikes, that sort of thing. You can even make a list of friends’ names and a little bit about them if you want. REMEMBER once you start working you’ll be jumping right in and you won’t be explaining backstory because in the REAL course of events if I’m going to write about my friend Tom I don’t need to write all about him and how I met him and what he does and what he looks like when I mention him in April. I already know all that. Now I can certainly get at some of that information if it’s important to my character, for instance if she wants to indicate that he doesn’t look well she will describe how he looks different from NORMAL, but no more.

Think about those natural limitations to the journaling process as you move along. You can either just go merrily along or you can take a moment, before you start, to write a couple things down about your character so you don’t forget that her best friend is named Tom and start calling him Bill at the end of the month…

You decide.

But whatever you decide it’s time to start deciding.

I hope you’ll all take a moment to consider joining in this year.

See the links at the top of the blog for an explanation of what a Fake journal is and what International Fake Journal Month is. Check out the Tips category for tips on keeping such a journal (though I’ve given you some good tips for starting in this post there are many more tips on the blog from past years).

As we approach April check back here to learn how to get on the participants list.

If you’re still on the fence check out “Thinking aboutParticipating in International Fake Journal Month?”

Remember this: Your fake journal doesn’t have to be elaborate—in fact it works better if it isn’t. Engineer a project that you can execute in a few minutes each day, a character you can get into with a minimum of fuss. Then you’ll be on your way.

Who’s My Character? Why Does My Character Journal?

I received a note from Dana the other day. I’d been working on this post for next week so I’m posting it now. If you’re asking these questions you can take steps to find the answers during your free time this weekend.

Some people wonder how to even get started in a fake journal. Some people wonder if they need to start journaling and a character will emerge. That’s certainly possible. But here are a couple steps to take to discover more about your character.

Sit in a quiet room and think about why YOU journal. Is there something you would like to change about the process? Is there something that you think you would like more of in your journal. Make a list of everything that comes up.

Approach 1.

Ask yourself how you would have to be different to allow those changes or approaches to be possible. For instance if you are someone who always dates your entries and explains everything (and remember this is the year to focus on no explanations) how would it be to let go of that? What type of person can  you envision who wouldn’t care about such things? What would that person do during the day? Why doesn’t that person care about explanations? What does that say about his character traits? (I’m going to use “him” from now on to avoid grammatical gaffs.)

As you ask these questions write down whatever comes up and then when things aren’t popping into your head stop and look over what you have written down.

Are there character traits that are interesting for you to explore? Do you think you would enjoy working with them and what they would produce for a month? Is there something to be learned there?

If yes then start writing a background on your character, noting down anything that comes to mind: You can start with physical characteristics but it’s most important that you capture details about his character and his actions and his experiences in life. How many siblings does he have? Their names? Ages? Are his parents alive? Their names and what they did for a living.

Keep going and ask questions. At some point you will see a path to who that character is and why he keeps the journal he does and you’ll know you’re all set to jump in.

If, on the other hand you found you answered NO it won’t be enjoyable to work with that character for a month and there’s nothing to be learned again, then start the process again. Note different characteristics and some of the same ones and see what comes to mind.

Don’t fret that you’re spending some time brainstorming on this because now is the time to spend a little time exploring who you’ll be, before you get part way through the month and find it unbearable. Time spent now will ensure that you only spend 15 to 20 minutes a day on a doable project. (You can spend longer, but if you’re having difficulty getting a character don’t stress yourself with additional burdens of hoping to create 2-hour art pieces each day.)

Approach 2 

You still start in a quiet room and make that list. But now ask yourself a couple other questions: what media would I like to use? What subject would I like to draw the most? (For me in 2009 it was birds and when I asked who would draw all those birds my character jumped immediately into my brain.)

Maybe you want to work on not laboring over your drawings. (You define laboring.) Then pick a medium that isn’t time intensive.

Maybe there is a particular tool you want to try using.

After you have your list look at it and ask yourself honestly, how much time to I have to spend each day in April on this? Now with that knowledge which of these media and themes or subject matter will work? Aim towards something that simply requires you to be where you would be anyway and pick up your journal, sketch (in character making a comment or two in character), and then put the book down and move on with your life.

Once you have those details clear ask yourself: What type of person would keep a journal like that?

Following Up on Either Approach

Then get up and walk away and do 10,000 other things all day tomorrow. Keep a pad of paper and a pencil handy and if anything at all pops in your mind WRITE IT DOWN. Don’t analyze what it is or if it’s even related to this project, just write it down. It could be a song lyric, or a news item, or an idea for a painting that came to you after hearing a news item. Anything, write it down.

On the following day, when you first get up or have your first free moment, sit down with any lists you made the day before as you did 10,000 other things, and any lists you made the first day. What are the connections between those lists? What pops out at you? What appeals to you.

At any point if a name or an occupation or a location or anything jumps into your mind write it down and sit and think about how it might work for you and where it leads you.

You aren’t planning your month. You’re simply trying to find your character and your medium.

Once the month starts and your character jumps into his journal you’ll have no idea what’s going to come up and that’s great. Just go with it.

For now you are simply trying to get an idea of who your character is and what his past and present might be. And why he journals. Definitely jot that down.

Why? Because throughout April if you know why your character journals you’ll know immediately if you go off track with something he would never include or address—of if you feel pulled to still include such a thing you will know that that thing is telling you something about the character.

At any time in this process if a journal comes across your desk and appeals to you ask if it’s something he would use and if so carry it around for a day and let it fit into your plans. It will probably tell you more about the journal keeper.

Here are Tips To Help You with the Start Up Process

Tips for getting under your character's skin. 

Here’s a First Day Tip.

Here is a post to walk you through selecting a journal: International Fake Journal Month Is Only 56 Days Away.

The best tip I can give you, if this is your first IFJM is to keep it as simple as possible. Keep your goals modest. Keep your plans for working every day in the 15-20 minute range. Keep your media simple. Keep your character close to you in that you too will have access to all that he needs access to—coffee shops, sketching locations, subjects to sketch whatever.

Now, if you haven’t read this already, read To Prep or Not to Prep… If you’re struggling with media and which journal, this post shows you how I worked through the process one year, all the parameters I set—including weaning my real self off of sudoku.

Give yourself and your character some options so that on April 1 you can simply take a leap.