I Can’t Draw. Can I Still Keep an Art Journal?

Yes, you can. An art journal never asks whether your drawing looks like the thing you drew. It asks whether the page reflects what you feel right now, and a color you love, an image torn from a magazine, a simple line and a few words can do that. Drawing is one way onto the page, and you may never need it.

I am Rakefet Hadar, an art therapist, an author, and the founder of the school that trains SoulPages facilitators to guide creative work in a visual journal. Almost every woman I have met along the way began by telling me, “I can’t draw.” Most of the answers you will find online are kind. They tell you that anyone can do this, and then they hand you stencils and stickers. I would like to give you the reason behind the reassurance, and a whole first page that has no drawing in it.

Can you keep an art journal if you can’t draw?

Yes. An art journal, or visual journal, is a book you fill with color, images, line and words, to make room for what is happening inside you. You open it when you need it and close it when you are done. Nobody grades it, and it does not have to look like anything.

SoulPages is a method of working in a visual journal, built on seven elements: intention, the magic of chance, background, images, color, line and text. None of the seven requires you to know how to draw. Images, for example, can be drawn or cut out and glued, and in my method a glued image counts exactly as much as a drawn one.

Why doesn’t drawing skill matter in a visual journal?

There are three reasons.

1. The journal asks a different question. A drawing class checks whether the apple on the paper looks like the apple on the table. In your journal, you check one thing: whether the page feels true to you today. A big red smear of paint can do that better than an accurate apple.
2. Most of what you do is choose. Which color, which image, where it goes on the page. In the step I call the magic of chance, you pick what you are drawn to without knowing why yet, and there is no wrong way to make that kind of choice.
3. Your line is a signature. In SoulPages, your line is as personal as your handwriting. Nobody wonders whether she has a talent for signing her name.

What is the difference between a drawing class and a visual journal?

Both are worth your time. Here is what each one gives you.

If you want to learn to draw, take a drawing class, and enjoy it. If you want a place of your own on the page, you can begin today, with the hands you have.

What does a first page with no drawing look like?

You walk through the seven elements, one after the other. Gather a journal or a sheet of thick paper, watercolor, a wide brush, an old magazine, glue and a black pen. Here is the whole page, step by step:

1. Intention. Choose one word for what you would like to find on the page today: quiet, joy, strength.
2. The magic of chance. Leaf through the magazine and pull out whatever you are drawn to, before you understand why.
3. Background. Wet the wide brush and cover the whole page with one color. This is the first layer on the page, and you cannot get it wrong.
4. Images. Cut or tear out what you chose, and glue it onto the background.
5. Color. Add color around the images, wherever the page still looks empty.
6. Line. Take the pen and outline one image, or fill a corner with dots and short dashes. Your hand already knows how.
7. Text. Write a few words, or a single one, and add the date.

When you finish, look at the page for a minute before you close the journal. It holds an intention, color, images, line and words, and you didn’t draw a thing. If you want a next page, the Bridges to Myself protocol takes you through one step by step.

Do you need stencils, stamps or special supplies?

No. Stencils and stamps are fine if you enjoy them, but they are sold to beginners as a way around drawing. You don’t need a way around it. A magazine gives you more images than you will ever use, a pen gives you line, and a single color gives you a background.

Start with what you already have at home. You can add supplies later, once you know what you keep reaching for.

What do you do when a voice inside says “this is ugly”?

It will come, almost every time. There is no point in arguing with it. Keep going, and the voice gets quieter. Here are four ways to do that:

• Leave the page in the journal. A page you dislike today can become the background of tomorrow’s page.
• Add a layer. Paint over paint, paper over paper. A visual journal is made in layers, and anything you dislike can be covered.
• Go back to choosing. Open the magazine again and pick one more image. You cannot choose an image badly, so the inner critic has nothing to say.
• Close the journal and come back tomorrow. A page that looks ugly at night sometimes looks very different in the morning.

Once a page is finished, there is a gentle way to look at it without judging it. I describe it in what to do with a page after you make it.

What if you actually want to draw?

Then draw. Simple shapes are enough: a house, a sun, a tree, the outline of a figure. My own pages are full of small houses, dots and short dashes, and you have known how to draw all of them since you were a child.

If you keep making pages, your hand grows more confident. You don’t have to wait for that before you begin.

Frequently asked questions

Can I art journal if I can’t draw?

Yes. An art journal does not check whether a drawing looks realistic. It is a place to give color and shape to what you feel, and color, cut-out images, a simple line and a few words are enough for that.

What do I put in an art journal instead of drawings?

Choose an intention, cover the page with color, glue down images from magazines, add simple pen lines and write a few words. In the SoulPages method these are the seven elements: intention, the magic of chance, background, images, color, line and text.

I am not creative at all. Is this still for me?

Yes. A journal page is built from small choices: a color you love, an image that stops your hand, a single word. You do not need to feel creative to make those choices. Put the color and the images on the page and see what comes up.

Should I learn to draw before I start an art journal?

No. A drawing class teaches technique. A visual journal gives you somewhere to put what you feel. You can start the journal today and learn to draw whenever you like, if you ever want to.

What do I do with a page I think is ugly?

Leave it in the journal and add a layer: paint over paint, paper over paper. A visual journal is made in layers, and anything you dislike can be covered. You can also close the journal and come back tomorrow.

What supplies do I need to art journal without drawing?

A journal or thick paper, watercolor, a wide brush, an old magazine, glue and a black pen. You do not need stencils, stamps or expensive materials, and what you already have at home is enough to begin.

When did you last spread paint across a page with nobody checking how it came out? In kindergarten perhaps, or second grade, or so long ago that you cannot remember… The journal did not ask then whether you could draw, and it will not ask now. Give yourself ten minutes a day, take a page, some watercolor, a few images, and make something that reflects exactly what you feel right now. If you are still wondering what kind of journal this is, I wrote about the difference between an art journal and a visual journal, and the courses at soul-pages.com are there whenever you want a structured way to continue.

With love,
Rakefet

How to Do Shadow Work Through Images, Not Prompt Lists

Shadow work through art means giving the parts of yourself you have pushed away a form on paper, a figure, a color, a torn image, so you can meet them outside yourself instead of arguing with them in your head. In a visual journal you begin from your resources, let images arrive before explanations, and witness the figure before you interpret it.

I am Rakefet Hadar, an art therapist, an author, and the founder of the school that trains SoulPages facilitators to guide creative work in a visual journal. Search for shadow work and you get lists: thirty prompts, fifty prompts, questions asking you to write about your jealousy, your anger, the traits you judge in other people. A written question goes straight to the part of you that already has its defense ready. An image slips in through a side door, and it usually arrives before the defense has time to wake up.

What is the shadow, in plain words?

In Carl Jung’s psychology, the shadow is everything in you that you pushed out of sight because it did not fit who you were supposed to be: anger that was not allowed, a need that felt shameful, ambition you learned to hide. It does not disappear. It shows up sideways, in a sharp irritation at someone else, in a dream, in an image that grabs you for no reason you can name.

The shadow is not only dark. Jungian writers also speak of a “golden shadow”, the gifts and the brightness you disowned just as firmly as the anger. The qualities you admire a little too much in another woman often live there.

When I teach the inner artist archetype to SoulPages facilitators, we name that archetype’s shadow plainly: the starving artist, the madness, the harsh self-criticism and judgment. Every archetype carries a shadow side. Knowing its name is what lets you enjoy the gifts of the archetype without suffering from its dark side.

Why work with images instead of prompts?

Three reasons, and they build on each other:

1. An image gets chosen before the mind votes. The shadow was hidden by the thinking mind in the first place, so asking that same mind to write about it is asking the guard to open the gate. When your hand stops on a picture in a magazine pile before you know why, something other than the guard made that choice.
2. A figure on paper gives you distance. Once the disowned part has a body on the page, a black silhouette, a collaged face, a smear of red, it is outside you. You can look at it instead of being it, and that distance is what makes the meeting bearable.
3. Jung did it this way himself. He did not stop at words. He painted the figures he met in his inner work, in the pages that became The Red Book.

Is shadow work safe to do on your own?

It can be, if you go slowly and start from strength. Shadow material can stir anger, grief and shame that have been held down for years, and diving into it alone, all at once, can flood you instead of freeing you.

In SoulPages we never go to the hardest material directly unless you brought it yourself and you are ready to work with it. Every session begins with resources, the strong and good parts of you: people you love, places that held you, moments you were braver than you knew. The shadow is approached only from that ground.

Pause and close the journal if your body switches to alarm, if you go foggy or far away, or if the same scene keeps replaying without relief. If that overwhelm returns every time you open the journal, this material needs a therapist alongside you, and your pages can travel with you into that room. My article on whether it is safe to journal about trauma covers pacing and closing rituals in detail.

How do you meet your shadow on a page, step by step?

You need a journal with thick pages, a pile of old magazines, scissors, glue and a few colors you already own. Thirty minutes is enough. If this is your first time, make a resource page first, a separate page of what steadies you, and keep it open beside you.

Then walk through the seven elements of a SoulPages page:

1. Intention. Dedicate the page to one figure: a quality that irritates you in other people, or one you admire and never allow yourself. One word is enough. It is a direction, not a plan.
2. The magic of chance. Leaf quickly through the magazines and pull out every image that stops your hand, before you understand why. Don’t argue with the choice. The images that catch you with a small discomfort belong here too.
3. Background. Lay down the first layer of color, the ground this figure will stand on. Choose a color that feels safe to you, because the background is where you stay while you meet it.
4. Images. Give the figure a body. A cut-out silhouette, a collaged face, a drawn shape, a combination of the images you pulled. Let it take up as much of the page as it wants.
5. Color. Add the energy around the figure. Where is it hot, where is it faded, where does it bleed into the background?
6. Line. Draw the line between you and it: a border, a path, a thread connecting the figure to the edge of the page. You decide how close it stands.
7. Text. Last, let the figure say one sentence. Write it next to the figure, in its own voice, without editing.

You do not need every element on every page, and the order is flexible. The structure is there to hold you, so you can move freely inside it.

What do you do with the figure once it is on the page?

Meet it before you explain it. In SoulPages a finished page is met in three steps, in this order:

1. Feeling. What does this page do to me when I look at it? Before any explanation.
2. Description. What is actually there: which images, which colors, what is large and what is small, what is hiding in a corner.
3. One question. An open question that does not suggest an answer, such as “When I added this figure, what was on the page that was not there before?”

Resist naming it too fast. The moment you say “this is my anger”, you trade everything the image holds for a label you already had. Then close the page deliberately: write the date, close the journal, rest both hands on the cover for a breath. Come back to your shadow pages every few months, in batches, and look for the figures that keep returning. My guide to what to do with a page after you make it walks through this witnessing in more detail.

Frequently asked questions

What is shadow work through art?

Shadow work through art is giving the disowned parts of yourself a visible form, a figure, a color or a collaged image, so you can meet them on paper instead of only thinking about them. The image creates distance, and it often reaches material that written questions miss.

Can shadow work be dangerous?

It can overwhelm you if you dive into the hardest material alone and all at once. Start from your resources, keep sessions short, close the page deliberately, and bring in a therapist if the same overwhelm returns every time you open the journal.

Do I need to know how to draw to do shadow work in a journal?

No. Collage, torn paper, color and simple silhouettes carry the work. A figure made from magazine images and one sentence of text is a complete shadow page.

What is the golden shadow?

The golden shadow is the positive side of what you disowned: gifts, confidence or brightness you learned to hide. The qualities you admire a little too much in someone else often point to it.

Should I interpret my shadow drawings?

Describe first and interpret slowly. Notice what the page does to you, describe what is actually on it, then ask one open question. Naming a figure too quickly closes the image down to a label you already had.

How is this different from shadow work journal prompts?

Prompts ask the thinking mind to write about what it has been hiding. Working with images lets your hand choose before the mind decides, gives the shadow a form outside you, and starts from your resources rather than from the wound.

There is often one image in a magazine pile that you keep turning past, and then turning back to… that is usually where the page wants to begin. You do not have to know yet what it means, you only have to let it onto the paper and stay beside it for a while. Give yourself thirty minutes this week, take a page, some watercolor, a few images, and make something that reflects exactly what you feel right now. If you want a gentle, structured way in, my guide to keeping an art therapy journal walks you through the first pages, and the courses at soul-pages.com go further whenever you are ready.

With love,
Rakefet

Bridges to Myself: The Visual Journal Protocol for Easing Tension and Connecting to Your Resources

Bridges to Myself is a structured protocol for making one page in a visual journal, following the seven elements of the SoulPages method, designed to ease tension, uncover inner resources and widen perspective. It runs in seven steps in a fixed order, suits ages ten and up, and was written specifically to work with people who are certain they cannot make art.

I wrote this protocol as a chapter in Protocols of Strength and Hope: A Guide to Facilitating Arts-Based Workshops for Building Resilience in Collective Crisis and War, initiated and edited by Dr Ronen Berger, published by Ono Academic College in partnership with the Community Stress Prevention Center, 2024. It appears there as protocol 32. Since then it has become the basis for two workshops in a separate resilience programme for teenagers. Here it is in full, in my own English.

My name is Rakefet Hadar. I am an art therapist, an author, and the founder of the training school for SoulPages guides. The protocol was written in the months after October 7th, out of work with evacuated women in hotels and evacuation centres, and that is why it is built to travel: you can run it anywhere, including a corner of a hotel dining room.

Why work in a fixed order rather than freely?

Because a blank page is the most frightening thing in the room, and a woman who says she cannot draw is usually not talking about talent. She is talking about starting. A fixed order takes the question of where to begin off the table and leaves all of her attention for the content.

Each element is one more layer of meaning, and each connects to a different resource. The layers accumulate one on top of another, and what emerges is a page with its own logic and continuity, even though nobody planned it in advance.

What are the seven elements, and what does each one connect to?

What do you need to begin?

• Watercolor or acrylic paint
• Magazines or picture books you can cut images from
• Glue
• A black fineliner and a black marker
• Acrylic markers, or any markers you have

That is the whole list. Nothing on it assumes prior knowledge, and that is a deliberate choice rather than a concession: the simpler the materials, the easier it is to start.

The protocol, step by step

Part one, the background element

Choose three colors that feel good to you, colors that will act as anchors, and one color that expresses the difficulty. Lay the good colors down with relatively slow movements while breathing deeply. The slow movement slows the breath, and that is part of the work rather than a preparation for it.

The color that carries the difficulty goes on last, and deliberately so. You cannot ignore the difficulty, and you certainly can find ways to quiet it on the page.

Part two, the intention element

Write down every resource in your life. You can organise the list by area or leave it entirely open. Two questions that take it deeper: what would I like to strengthen in myself, and which resources do I wish I had and feel I still do not.

Part three, the image element

Choose between two and four images that represent your strengths, and think of one more resource you would like to build. Cutting from a magazine removes the pressure to draw well and leaves the choosing, which is the part that matters.

Part four, the line element

Take a thin black marker, or any marker, and connect the images so that a sequence forms. At this stage there is no need to think about the story, only to perform acts of connection with lines. You can also draw over the images you have glued down.

Part five, the color element

Add color to the page any way you like. Draw your own additions, or symbols that bring relief and act as anchors: hearts, flowers, houses. This is the stage where you are allowed to add a color simply because it strengthens a good feeling.

Part six, the text element

Look at what you have made and at the words you wrote, and see whether you can assemble short, strengthening sentences from them, a kind of message rising out of all the resources on the page. The sentences can be entirely spontaneous, as though the resource itself badly wants to tell you something: my body is strong as an oak, it is allowed to cry, my imagination flies like a bird.

Write the sentences on a separate white sheet, cut around them, and glue them onto the work wherever you choose.

Part seven, the magic of chance

Once the visual work is finished, look for what surprises you in it and put a spotlight on it.

In the piece I made, I glued down a figure of a colorful stag with antlers. Only at the end did I understand that the stag stood for my grandfather, Zvi Hadar, a Holocaust survivor who lost his entire family in the war, came to Israel and rebuilt his life from nothing. That connection to his strength moved me deeply, and helped me reach the power of transformation inside myself.

How do you share at the end without doing harm?

At the close you can show each other the work and share whatever you wish: the process itself, the meaning of one part or of the whole page, and you can also let a particular part speak in the first person, as though it were you.

Another option is to ask the group to say what they see in someone else’s work, which widens her perspective. Here it matters a great deal to stay inside the phenomenological approach: speak only about what I see in the piece, with no interpretation, no grading and no opinion.

If time is short, a brief personal share in pairs or small groups is better than a rushed circle with everyone.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Bridges to Myself protocol?
A structured seven-step protocol for making one page in a visual journal, following the seven elements of the SoulPages method, aimed at easing tension, uncovering inner resources and connecting to hope. It was published as protocol 32 in Protocols of Strength and Hope, Ono Academic College, 2024.

What age is it suitable for?
Ten and up, and it works equally well with adults who have no art experience at all. The techniques were chosen so that no drawing ability is required.

How long does it take to run?
It has seven parts and ends in sharing, so it needs an extended session rather than fifty minutes. A SoulPages group session usually runs two to three hours.

Can I use it professionally with groups?
Yes. That is exactly what it was published for, as a protocol for professionals in therapy, education and community work, in a book released free in Hebrew and Arabic. Credit and a link back to the source are appreciated.

What is the magic of chance?
The seventh element of the SoulPages method, in which you look for what appeared on the page without being planned and discover what it means. It connects you to surprise, to synchronicity, and to the knowledge that reality holds many layers of meaning.

Where can I read the original protocol?
In Protocols of Strength and Hope, edited by Dr Ronen Berger, published by Ono Academic College in 2024 and freely available on the college website. The protocol appears there on page 225, in Hebrew.

This protocol was written inside a war, for women who did not know when they would go home, and that is exactly why it is so simple. Give yourself twenty minutes today, take a page, some watercolor, a few images, and make something that reflects exactly what you are feeling right now. If you want the ground beneath it first, the research behind the method is here, and there is a free lesson waiting when you join the list: soul-pages.com

Originally published in Protocols of Strength and Hope, edited by Dr Ronen Berger, Ono Academic College in partnership with the Community Stress Prevention Center, 2024 (Hebrew). For everything else, see publications and press.

With love, Rakefet

What Do You Do With a Page After You Make It?

You witness it. Once a page is finished, set it upright, sit with it for a full minute without touching it, and let it look back at you. Then ask it three questions rather than explain it: what do I see, what surprises me, what does this page need from me now. Date it, close the journal, and leave the meaning to arrive in its own time.

My name is Rakefet Hadar. I am an art therapist, an author, and the founder of a school that trains facilitators in the SoulPages method of visual journaling. Almost everything written about art journaling stops at the moment the glue dries. That is strange to me, because in my own practice the page only becomes useful after it is finished. I made my first journal page in 2014, the year my mother was dying of cancer, and I remember sitting in front of it afterward with no idea what to do next. This is the part nobody taught me, so I will teach it to you.

Why is finishing the page only half the practice?

Making the page moves something. Witnessing the page is what lets you know what moved. While you are working you are inside the process, choosing colors, tearing paper, following an impulse, and you cannot see the whole while you are making it. The moment you step back, the page becomes an object outside of you, and for the first time you can meet it rather than be it. That shift, from maker to witness, is where the insight lives.

This is also the difference between art journaling as a craft and art journaling as inner work. A craft practice ends when the page looks right. An inner practice ends when the page has been seen.

How do you witness your own page, step by step?

1. Set it up where you can see it. Prop the journal upright, lean it against a wall, put it on the floor and step back. Distance matters; a page held in your lap is still an extension of your hands.
2. Stay for sixty seconds without touching anything. Do not fix, do not add, do not photograph. The urge to improve it is the fastest way to stop looking at it.
3. Describe before you interpret. Say out loud, or write in the margin, only what is literally there: a large dark shape on the left, a small figure near the bottom edge, three strips of torn red paper. Description keeps you honest. Interpretation too early becomes a story you already knew.
4. Notice what surprises you. There is almost always one element you did not plan: a color you never use, an empty corner you left alone, something placed off-center. Surprise is the page’s own contribution, and it is usually the most important thing on it.
5. Ask what it needs, not what it means. More space, a second page, a word, a border, or simply to be left alone. The page often asks for something concrete before it offers anything abstract.
6. Date it and close the journal. Write the date in a corner. Then close the book. Closing is a real gesture, not housekeeping; it tells your system that the visit is over.

What questions do you ask a finished page?

Keep the list short and use the same questions each time, so that over months you can hear how the answers change:

• What do I actually see here, before I explain anything?
• What is the first thing my eye goes to, and what did I almost miss?
• What surprises me?
• Where is the energy on this page, and where is it empty?
• If this page could say one sentence to me, what would it be?
• What does it need from me now?

Write the answers somewhere: the back of the page, a margin, a note on your phone. Six months from now the answers will be more useful than the page.

Why shouldn’t you interpret a page too quickly?

Because interpretation closes what the image opened. An image works precisely because it holds more than one meaning at once, and the moment you name it (“this is my anxiety”) you trade all of that richness for a label you already had words for. Nothing new can arrive after that.

This is also why, in SoulPages groups, we never interpret another woman’s page. A facilitator trained in the method creates alongside the participant rather than standing outside as an interpreter, and when a page is shared, the group witnesses it and reflects what they see, not what they think it means. Having your page received without being decoded is, for many women, the first time that has ever happened to them.

The same courtesy applies to your own pages. Witness first. Meaning, if it wants to come, will come.

What do you physically do with the pages?

The pages you want to throw away are the ones worth keeping most often. A page that embarrasses you is usually a page that got close to something.

When should you go back and look at old pages?

Every few months, and always in batches rather than one at a time. Lay out ten or twenty pages together and look for what repeats: a color that keeps returning, a shape you draw without deciding to, an edge you never cross. A single page shows you a day. A stack shows you a pattern, and the pattern is the thing you cannot see from the inside of your own life.

Choose a calm moment for this, not a low one. And if a page brings back something heavy that does not settle, close the journal and read my guide on journaling about trauma safely, which covers pacing, closing rituals, and when to bring this work to a therapist.

Frequently asked questions

What do you do with art journal pages after you finish them?

Witness them. Prop the page up, look at it for a minute without touching it, describe what is literally there, notice what surprises you, ask what it needs, then date it and close the journal.

Should I analyze or interpret my art journal pages?

Describe first, interpret rarely. Naming a page (“this is my grief”) closes the image down to a label you already had. Witnessing keeps it open, and any meaning that matters usually arrives later on its own.

Should I keep art journal pages I don’t like?

Yes. Pages that embarrass you are often the ones that got closest to something real, and you cannot judge that in the mood that made them. Keep everything, dated and in order.

How often should I look back at old journal pages?

Every few months, and in batches of ten or twenty at once. A single page shows you one day; a stack reveals the repeating colors, shapes, and edges that are invisible from inside your own life.

Is it okay to share my art journal pages with other people?

Only by choice, and best with someone who will witness rather than interpret. In SoulPages groups we reflect what we see on another woman’s page, never what we think it means.

What if I look at the page and feel nothing?

That is a legitimate result, not a failure. Write “nothing today” next to the date and move on. Pages frequently open months later, and a blank response now says more about timing than about the page.

There is a particular quiet that happens in a room full of women when the making stops and the looking begins. The noise of scissors and water jars fades, someone props her page against a chair, and she goes still… that stillness is the actual practice, and it is the part almost nobody is taught. Give yourself twenty minutes to make a page this week, and then give yourself one more minute, just one, to sit with it before you close the book. If you want a structured way in, my guide to keeping an art therapy journal walks through the first pages, and the SoulPages courses at soul-pages.com go further whenever you are ready.

With love,
Rakefet