THE STORY

I was captivated by the world of books at an early age. Books were constantly surrounding me on the shelves of my house, scattered in my bedroom, and on the shelves of the library I frequented as a child. I still remember reading my very first book to my Mom on the way home from the library. It was a treat if we were allowed to stay up a little later to read at night. I was that kid who sat at the front of the bus in middle school, my nose buried in a book.

As the years have passed my love for books has only grown. This is evident in my house with my overflowing shelves, books stuck in any nook or cranny I can find, and of course, my bedside table, which practically looks like it is made of books. Every night, I curl up in bed and read as long as I can before the sentences stop making sense, and my eyelids grow heavy. Getting lost in these stories helps to settle my mind, and help me forget the endless to-dos I have waiting for me in the morning.

Books give me the ability to travel the world, become a different person, go on an adventure, do magic, solve a mystery, raise the dead, time travel; without ever walking out my front door.

SUPPLIES

• Visual journal
• Rubber cement
• Scissors
• Magazines
• Old book pages
• Colored pencils
• White paper
• Sharpie

HOW TO

When I began planning out this visual journal page, I decided I needed to recreate my bedside table and have endless piles of books scattered around the pages. I started by hunting through magazine after magazine, ripping out any page with a book on it. After getting a nice stack of magazine pages, I began cutting out the individual books.

Once I had the images of books ready, I began working on my bedside table. I sketched the outline on a white sheet of paper, then began adding color, highlights, shadows, and details using Prisma colored pencils. To read a few tips about using colored pencils check out my blog post here. After my table was complete, I cut out it out, and began laying out the page.

I decided to place the bedside table in the center of the right page, then added stacked books around the bedside table. On the left side page, I ripped up strips of old book pages, and wrote out my words. Before gluing down the strips of paper, I collaged pictures of books on the page, then glued the book pages on top.

Interested in teaching visual journals to your students? Check out my visual journal lesson plan here and bundle pack here.

CHALLENGE

Create a visual journal page about one of your obsessions. Use a combination of magazine images and drawings on your visual journal page.

Check out more visual journal blog posts here. Shop my education resources here. Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and TikTok for weekly visual journal demos. Until next time!