Grid Art Journal

Page Setup and Flip Through

This time I’m sharing with you some of the types of things that I’ve been putting in my grod art journal pages, as a hobby artist. I believe this will inspire you to get started. I’ll show you how to set up a grid art journal page in an A5 sketchbook.

How it Began

Earlier this year, I came across a couple of videos about grid art journaling. And the main idea for grid art journaling is that you have multiple small blocks on your page. So, you can do several different mini sketches of the same topic.

Words

For instance, when I first started with my grid art journal page, I just put some simple words in the first few blocks.

Coast: English Bay

My next attempt I drew the coast near my city of Vancouver at English Bay. This is a subject I’ve frequently painted and on a side note, I’m beginning to think I might just be a seascape sketch booker but we’ll see. But within the six images I drew, each one showed a different mood for the actual subject, but really the topic was the same. In my early grid journaling art pages, I did watercolor washes first on the page and then went back over with the pencil sketch and then the black pen.

Grid Art Journal: Shells

I’m really quite keen on nature journaling as well. I like working with shells. I drew six different shells on my shells grid journal page. I do have a small collection of shells, so this is always an inspiration for me. Then I colour them in with coloured pencil as well.

Sayings to Live By

On the next page I only have three blocks. And I wrote some sayings that I like to you have about me as uplifting words to look at during the course of the day.

The first one is, “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune”. This is a quote from Shakespeare.

The second one is, “Don’t live someone else’s dream.”

And the third one is, “Fortune favors the brave” which my father used to say.

Seed Pods

My next grid sketch was of seed pods, and I had a few selections here. I don’t know all the names of these seedpods and I did draw them from memory because I do have a bit of a collection of seeds and pods, and I’ll show that to you one day.

Fruity

Next came “Fruity”, which is watercolor. First, I penciled it in, then I did an ink over with a black pen, erased the pencil marks, and then went in with watercolor. And finally touched it up with a little bit of markers.

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Sunflowers

On my sunflowers page, I drew many drawings of sunflowers looking at them from different angles. Some are single heads some are side on views and others are close ups zooming in on the actual sunflower seeds.

Tarot Cards

When I divided my grid into four rectangles, it occurred to me to draw some tarot cards. I just selected for the Magician, the Empress, the Star and the Sun. Once more with pencil, then going in with a black pen and these were then coloured in with markers.

The Creation

For my creation spread, this is the double page spread where I have eight grid segments. The first being the title which is Genesis 1: 1- 28. This is the first writing in the Bible starting at, “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.” I then go on to show the seven days of the creation with mini sketches of what happened on each day of the creation.

More Shells

At this point I was gifted a book from my son-in-law called, “The New Beachcombers Guide to the Pacific Northwest” by J. Duane Sept. This is a book that has lots of images of shells and other interesting creatures that actually live here on the coast in Vancouver. 

This was brilliant because it gave me different shell shapes to draw. And on this particular page, I have named the shells because I happen to know what they are. They’re not just my imaginary shells that I’m working on. A lot of these shells have what I would call fancy names, but my favorite is the Money Wentletrap which I believe is a great name for a shell!

Rock Pool Adventures

The next page I attempted I called my Rockpool adventures. Here I drew six different views of an intertidal rock pool that I would imagine would be in the coast here at the beach. A rock pool is created when the tide comes in, it fills up a pool and the tide goes out and some animals get trapped within the water and they can’t get out again until the next tide comes in. These are called intertidal rock pools and. I ended up drawing this sea star to which I added a face.

Now these sketches became the beginning sketches of a children’s book which I recently published. Before I did this grid sketch, I had no idea that I was going to create a children’s book. The idea only came to me once I’d done the drawings of the rock pools on the sea star, but I’ll tell you more about that project in in another video.

Leaves and Vines

For my next grid sketchbook page, I penciled in the actual box, but I didn’t draw it in ink. Then when I drew the leaves and vines with the black pen, they are in the shape of a box, but there is no line holding them in. This was a different way of working with the space.

Prayer

The next page in my sketchbook I gave over to a prayer. I was feeling a bit low as I was having some surgery that week and I wrote these words down to let me be able to concentrate on this prayer.

Autumn Pods

This next one I had six blocks, but it was a combination of squares and rectangles in a sort of windmill shape on the page. I was trying to break away from just straight up grid of two blocks by three blocks and going with a different kind of shape of grid. Within these squares and rectangles, I have some more seeds, seed pods, peapods, acorns and whatnot.

A Well Woman

When I sketched this page, I was doing some recovering healthwise and it was taking a long time. This saying popped into my head, “A well woman has many wishes, an ill woman only one.” And this really did hook into how I was feeling at the time that really all I wanted to do was get better.

We’re seeing it was a well woman so I thought, well, I might as well draw a woman at a well although the image it really is slightly different to what the actual saying is about, but there it is.  Of course there’s always a cat somehow creeping in.

Grace

Next, I have a page with grace because I was struggling still, as I say, with some medical issues, struggling to eat and just about managing to get down some bone broth. At this time, I started to appreciate what I was eating, so I wrote a page for grace.

ABC

This ABC page is still a work in progress. I’m not very happy with the number two and the number three. I don’t think it’s working, and this is still in pencil, so I’m likely to erase it and not take it further. And that’s fine.

Lambis Lambis

Next up I have a single page with one grid box, and I drew the lambis lambis shell, which is a shell that I actually own. It’s very tricky drawing shells with all the curves, but I do enjoy them.

Sea Seahorses

Next, I did a six-grid page with some seahorses. This was the time when I’d published the Sea Star book and was considering the second book in the series, which would then introduce a seahorse. Now I found this was a particularly difficult animal to draw. I did give it several ways of working with it because there are many curves and the nose itself is quite tricky, but anyway. I created six different ways of looking at seahorses. This page I haven’t taken any further, but it’s still something that’s percolating in my mind.

Down the Garden Path

With this image I started with one large frame and then decided it would make a good window. So it becomes a window frame and I lightly shaded walls in cream to give it prominence. I’m calling this one, “Sown the garden path” because from where we’re standing, we’re looking out of the window down the path to endless possibilities.

There are some birds in a birdbath and a bench to sit on, there’s a pond with ducks and then you can go through the gate, continue on up into the mountains, past the sheep and to who knows where.

It’s one of those drawings where it’s taking you somewhere, but you don’t quite know where it’s going to take you, so I quite enjoyed drawing that one as well. And yes, I see there’s another cat snuck in there.

Vines

The one with vines is a grid drawing that’s going across several of the grids. I’ve got five or so vines rooted in the two bottom squares and they are developing and unfurling as they go up. This sketch is still just in pen and I may or may not colour it in.

The Plant Cycle

In my grid sketch for, “The plant cycle” I’ve got a narrow ribbon arrow running behind to show you which way to go. You follow the arrow as the plant develops leaves, grows, buds, flowers and so on and then eventually the leaves drop off. It depicts a plant cycle. This one is still in a sketch. I haven’t quite finished it yet because it’s an imaginary plant and I’m not quite sure if I’m happy about the two middle drawings, but that is something I can still think about and mull over.

Draw Your Grid

Now I’m just going to tell you how I actually draw these grids in my A5 sketchbook. My sketchbook contains pages are 14cm by 21.5cm (5 1/2 inches by 8 1/2 inches.)

From the right-hand edge, I measure 2cm in and put a mark and then count 5 centimeters across a put another mark, and then 1cm and another mark and then over to the last five-centimeter marks. 

If you are doing this is in inches, my squares are about two inches wide with half an inch in between.

So, if you start with the ruler 5 inches on your right hand edge, you would put a mark at 4 1/2 inches, 2 1/2 inches, 2 inches and 0.

You would then get two columns of two inches wide with half an inch in between, and then coming down the page from the top you would measure it down 1 inch and then have a 2-inch square, half an inch for the gap, two inches of rthe middle grid block, half and inch for the gap, and two inches for the bottom squares.

I draw my grid squares lightly, usually with a 2H pencil, although in the video I’m using an HB because I want you to be able to see what I’m doing. Once I’ve lightly sketched out the squares, I will go from there.

Your Turn

This is how you set up an A5 grid art journal page.

Now you can get started on your grid art journaling.

Author Bio: Alison Hazel

Alison Hazel is a hobby artist and she shares her ongoing journey about becoming an artist later in life. She creates simple art that anyone can make. She hopes to inspire you to reach your creative potential in the area that suits you.

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