Week 42 Prompts for Illustrate Your Week 2024
Prompts for Week 42 of 2024 for #illustrateyourweek in your illustrated journal
I post a new set of Illustrate Your Week prompts every Sunday to help inspire and nurture the process of keeping an illustrated journal of your life. Add text and images to make a visual record that is uniquely you.
Illustrate Your Week Prompts for Week 42
Week 42 for 2024! As the weeks spin toward the end of the year, everything seems to pick up speed. I hope you are finding time to record something each day in your illustrated journal, fitting in a bit of line-work or doodling alongside your notes.
We each have “staple” things we include on our weekly spreads (or as part of our daily notes). The more comfortable and familiar you become with your own set of contours and footholds, the easier it is to spend even a few minutes a day recording your week.
Illustrate Your Week is a flexible project. I share weekly prompts and calendar notes that can be used as fill-in or fodder. Or, you can use the prompts as your starting point. Write or draw as much as you want. The illustrated journal is a record of your life. Only you can record this story in your unique voice and style.
You can draw anything on your pages and fill in with your daily notes. There is no one-size-fits-all formula for how to keep an illustrated journal or for what counts.
Your illustrated journal is a freeform space to hold your personal documentation, memories, hopes, wishes, and the tiny details that make up everyday life. — Amy Cowen
Calendar Connections
The calendar connections each week give a bit of random context that might inspire you to think about or notice something specific. Maybe they spark memory. Maybe they nudge you to draw something you wouldn’t normally draw or give you an idea for something to draw when you want to draw but don’t want to figure out “what” to draw. Many of these are very informal observances, but they can be fun starting points.
Here are some of the calendar notes that made my radar for Week 42:
I Love Lucy Day (13)
National M&M Day (13)
Indigenous Peoples' Day (14)
National Mushroom Day (15)
White Cane Safety Day (15)
National Fossil Day (16)
Dictionary Day (16) (16)
National Necktie Day (18)
I leave most of the information below week to week so that anyone finding the prompts will have some guidance no matter what week it is.
Illustrated Journal Basics, Background Information, & How to Get Started
You can start your illustrated journal at any time of the week. Just pick up and start where you are with whatever the current week is. You may also find these earlier posts helpful:
There Are a Lot of Prompts
Should you do them all? Probably not! Prompts are always just ideas for things you might include in your journal. Your immediate life is really where your journal starts - and it may be that your memory life has an equal role. Observances can be a conduit to memory, an excuse to buy and draw (or Google) something simple (like a Twinkie), or simply fun to write down for context in terms of the passage of time.
Daily Notes
As always, I hope you take time to make plenty of notes in your pages. As an illustrated journal, there is an implicit mix of drawings and words. For me, the project is always a journal, not simply a sketchbook. Even though I draw lots of random things (especially portraits), the book as a whole is a “journal” — an illustrated journal of my life. For me, this isn’t simply a sketchbook. My daily notes help keep the journal anchored in my life.
While I don’t believe in rules for personal projects, for myself, I do think the personal notes, stories, lists, and tidbits are a foundation.
Something is Missing on the Calendar List
There are lots of dates on the calendar each week. I don’t want the weekly prompts to be simply a calendar toss-up, so I pick and choose, always aiming for a list I hope will inspire you to draw or reflect. Your journal has the space for any and all of the days that are important to you. What you value and want to record comes first. Prompts are always best thought of as filler, not as a prescription. You might have other days that are of particular note for you. We shouldn’t all be recording exactly the same things in our journals!
Use the Prompts that Speak to You
As always, the prompts are provided simply as optional nudges you may want to mix in with the recording you do of your day-to-day life. If you do Illustrate Your Week for a while, you will find that some prompts recur. (This is a good thing and true to the process of keeping a journal based on your life.) The weekly prompts give you options if you find yourself, pen in hand, and not sure what to draw, paint, write, or record in your journal.
You don’t need a more exciting life. This project celebrates the quotidian.— Amy Cowen
Your journal has the space for any and all of the days that are important to you. What you value and want to record comes first. Prompts are always best thought of as filler, not as a prescription. — Amy Cowen
I FINALLY got around to reading this post a week late. Thank you for normalizing all of the things that keep me from creating. I have so many ideas in my head on a daily basis followed by thoughts of, “that would be fun, but I don’t have the time,” or “I would love to make that, draw that, paint that, but I don’t have the specific tools I need. Last summer I fell in love with tiny watercolor paintings and put together a small kit that holds everything I need. I have used it a couple of times, but have this idea in my head that each one needs to be “finished.” Maybe finished will become whenever I stop. 😊 Then maybe I won’t torture myself about not finishing the tiny painting I started on the field trip to Yosemite two weeks ago. How revolutionary!