My Red Journal is an Old Sales Book Art Journal, a Journal Page and a Prompt

Your world is a living expression of how you are using and have used your mind.

~ Earl Nightingale

One of my current art journals is an old sales book, Little Red Book of Selling.  I had picked up a copy once upon a time in an airport on my way to take part in a huge seminar. A couple of years later, I was given another copy of the same book as a gift.

In an earlier post about how to use old books for art journals, I mentioned that you might consider carefully what kind of book you use for an art journal project.  For me, sales books, and other self-improvement books, are the largest part of my physical library.  I don’t spend a lot of time reading fiction anymore; mostly I’m reading books with positive messages and tools to improve my skills and work towards various goals of self-improvement.  Because they all have a recurring theme of positive thinking, they are the perfect sorts of books to use for making art.

So this book is about selling, and it is positive.  And I had two copies of it.  I did go through and tear out every other page or so, and those torn out pages are now in an envelope in my stash of art fodder.

The great thing about this little book is the pages are thick and glossy.  They hold up extremely well to the abuse that I dish out to my art journals.  I gesso over the pages before I do any arting, and they don’t need to be glued together for added support because they are such high quality paper.

I did originally fret a bit over the small size of the little book.  As it turns out, it’s a really satisfying size, it fits well in my hands, and I love being able to carry it with me.  The cover is awesome, covered in a heavy canvas red material.  The book just feels good.  Ultimately, I will do some work on the cover and make it Little Red Book of Selling Arting (I wonder what Jeffrey Gitomer will think of that?).

I’d like to share with you today a page from the journal, the ideas and inspiration of the page is straight from the book, the way it was written.  It’s all about why the Little Red Book of Selling is red.  As I was working on prepping the book, I saved this page so that I could come back and use it as a part of the journal.  It’s probably the only time I’ve thought ahead in an art journal!

The page pretty much speaks for itself, so I’ll get out of the way…I will leave you with this: I am not typically a red person, I don’t use red often, I tend to shy away from warmer colors.  So this page feels really exciting for me, it really pumps me up!

Prompt: Think of a color that inspires you.  Or turn it around and think of a color that you don’t typically use.  Use that color for building a journal page.  Try including text about the meaning of the color, or what the color means to you.  You can also use images in that color from a magazine.  You can use the name of the color you choose on the page, large and off-center in the page and then build the page around that.  Or you can use images and text meanings and never mention the color, just use the color for the background.  Play with it and have fun!