I picked up my first art journal during a particularly grey January. Nothing fancy, a slightly battered A5 sketchbook from The Works, a handful of felt-tips, and roughly zero plan. What followed was thirty pages of wobbly lemons, splodgy watercolour blobs, and strips of washi tape I’d been hoarding for no reason whatsoever. And honestly? It remains one of the best things I’ve ever done for my brain. Art journaling for beginners UK readers is genuinely one of the most accessible creative habits you can build, because the whole point is that it does not have to be good. It just has to be yours.
What is art journaling, exactly?
An art journal sits somewhere between a diary, a sketchbook, and a scrapbook. You write in it sometimes, you draw in it sometimes, and occasionally you just rip out a piece of bright tissue paper and stick it down because it looked cheerful. There are no rules about format, no requirements for artistic skill, and absolutely no pressure to produce anything Instagram-worthy. The journal is private unless you choose otherwise.
The practice has grown steadily in the UK over the past few years, partly because people are actively looking for offline ways to slow down. According to the mental health charity Mind, creative activities can help reduce anxiety and improve wellbeing, and art journaling sits squarely in that space. It is low-cost, requires almost no dedicated space, and fits neatly into the ten minutes you have before bed or the hour you have on a Sunday afternoon.
What do you actually need to get started?
Less than you think. Here is what I’d suggest for a first kit:
A journal or sketchbook. Anything with paper thick enough to handle a bit of paint or marker without bleeding straight through. A 160gsm mixed-media sketchbook is ideal, brands like Seawhite (made in East Sussex) or Daler-Rowney are solid choices from most UK art shops. Even a pound-shop notebook works if you waterproof pages first with a layer of gesso or white acrylic.
Colour tools. Felt-tips, watercolours, acrylics, coloured pencils. Use whatever you already own. I started with a basic Staedtler felt-tip set and a child’s watercolour tin. The goal is getting colour on the page, not building a professional studio.
Collage materials. Washi tape is the art journaler’s best friend. It is colourful, low-tack, repositionable, and widely available, Paperchase stocked brilliant ranges before it closed, but Tiger, Flying Tiger, and plenty of independent stationery shops across the UK still carry great options. Old magazines, wrapping paper offcuts, food packaging, stamps, and stickers all work brilliantly.
Pens for doodling. A set of fine-liners in various nib sizes gives you the most flexibility. Sakura Pigma Micron pens are waterproof and widely available from Hobbycraft branches.
How fruity doodles became my go-to warm-up
This is specific to me, I know, but it might resonate. When I sit down to journal and my brain is completely blank, I draw fruit. A lemon slice takes about forty-five seconds. A strawberry takes a minute. They are simple, round, cheerful shapes with obvious colour associations, and the act of filling in that little lime wedge with a bright green marker somehow unlocks everything else. My hand relaxes, my breathing slows, and suddenly I have something on the page that did not exist before.
Simple fruit doodles work well for beginners because they give you permission to be imperfect. A wonky orange is still recognisably an orange, and a wonky orange drawn by you in your journal at 10pm on a Tuesday is a small, genuine act of creativity. If you want to develop your doodling further, our guide to felt-tip and fine-liner illustration for colourful fruit botanicals goes into much more detail on line techniques and building botanical compositions from scratch.
Building pages with colour and texture
The most satisfying art journal pages usually have layers. Not complicated layers, just the feeling that something happened in stages, that the page has a bit of depth and life to it. Here is a simple process I use regularly:
Start with a background wash. Watercolour applied loosely across the whole page, or a layer of diluted acrylic, or even a smear of ink. Let it dry. Then add strips of washi tape to create structure, horizontal bands, diagonal slashes, a bordered frame. Stick down a torn piece of magazine paper or a scrap of gift wrap. Now draw over the top: your doodles, a word or phrase, a date. Finally, outline with a fine-liner to make things pop.
Colour choice matters more than technique. A bright, warm palette, mango orange, raspberry pink, citrus yellow, creates an energising page that lifts your mood just by looking at it. If you want to think about this more deliberately, our post on how to design a fruity colour palette covers colour theory in a really practical way, and plenty of it applies directly to journaling.
Using your journal to process daily life
The journaling part of art journaling is worth taking seriously. A page does not need to be purely visual. Writing fragments alongside your drawings, a single sentence about how the day felt, a word that stuck with you, a small thing you noticed, adds a layer that turns the journal into a genuine record of your life rather than just a collection of pretty pages.
Some people use prompts to get started. Things like: draw the colour of your mood today; illustrate the best thing you ate this week; fill a page with patterns that feel calm. Prompts remove the blank-page paralysis and give you something concrete to respond to. I’d recommend keeping a running list of prompts on the inside cover of your journal so you always have somewhere to turn.
If you enjoy making things with a group, art journaling pages also work brilliantly as a social activity. Our guide to hosting a colourful craft night at home has loads of ideas for turning a creative evening into a shared experience, and a journal swap at the end of the night is a lovely way to share your work without the pressure of a formal critique.
Making it a habit rather than a project
The biggest mistake people make with art journaling is treating it like a project with a finish line. It is not. It is a practice. That means showing up regularly, even when you have five minutes and no inspiration, even when what you produce is three stickers and a scribble. Those scrappy pages matter just as much as the ones you are proud of.
I keep my journal on my desk rather than in a drawer. Visible means accessible. A small cup next to it holds a rotating selection of pens and one or two colours I am currently into. The barrier to entry is as low as I can make it, because if I have to hunt for supplies I simply will not bother.
Set a small, achievable target, one page a week is a completely valid goal. Two pages a week is ambitious. Daily is wonderful if it suits you, but do not set yourself up to fail. The point is the habit, the slow accumulation of colour and mark-making and gentle processing, page after page after page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to be able to draw to start art journaling?
Not at all. Art journaling is about expression and process, not technical skill. Simple shapes, patterns, text, and collage elements work just as well as detailed drawings, and most beginners find that their confidence grows naturally the more pages they fill.
What kind of journal or sketchbook should I buy as a beginner in the UK?
Look for a mixed-media sketchbook with paper weight of at least 160gsm, this handles watercolour, markers, and glue without buckling badly. UK brands like Seawhite and Daler-Rowney are widely available in Hobbycraft, Cass Art, or independent art shops, and both are good value for the quality.
How much does it cost to start art journaling?
You can start for under £10 using a sketchbook from The Works or Flying Tiger and whatever pens you already own. A slightly more complete beginner kit, journal, basic watercolours, a pack of washi tape, and fine-liners, typically comes in around £20 to £30 from UK shops.
Can art journaling actually help with stress and anxiety?
Many people find the repetitive, focused nature of mark-making genuinely calming. Mental health charity Mind recognises creative activities as beneficial for reducing anxiety and improving mood. Art journaling combines creative expression with the reflective quality of keeping a diary, which many practitioners find particularly effective.