---
title: "8. Visual Journal"
description: "One AI-generated image per day mapped to your mood/event."
source: "Obsidian Academy"
source_url: https://obsidian-academy.pages.dev/workflows/08-visual-journal/
saved: 2026-05-16
tags: [obsidian-academy, saved-from-web, workflows]
---

**TL;DR** — Add `mood:` and `event:` frontmatter to your daily note. The `nano-banana` skill generates an abstract image representing that day's state, saves it next to the note as `10-Daily/YYYY-MM-DD.png`, and embeds it. End of year: 365 images that visually map your year.

A low-stakes, high-delight workflow. Don't take it too seriously.

## When to use it

- End of day, when you fill in the evening review section
- Catch-up batch: generate the last week's images on Sunday during weekly review
- Looking back: re-render an old day with a different art style and see how it changes the read

> **Try it now:** `"generate today's visual journal"`
>
> Or: *"make the image for today's daily note"*, *"visual journal Tuesday"*. You can also just embed an `<!-- generate-visual -->` HTML comment in the daily note template and let it auto-trigger.

Frontmatter the skill reads:

```yaml
---
date: 2026-05-15
mood: focused
energy: 8
event: shipped the api refactor
weather: drizzle
---
```

The skill builds a prompt like:

> *"Abstract digital painting. Mood: focused. Energy: high. Visual metaphor: completing a long technical project under soft drizzly light. Soft palette: deep teal, off-white, hint of warm orange. Minimal composition, generous negative space. No text."*

## Under the hood

- **Skill location:** `~/.claude/skills/nano-banana/SKILL.md` (the same skill, different invocation)
- **Reads:** today's `10-Daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md` frontmatter
- **Writes:** `10-Daily/YYYY-MM-DD.png` (~400 KB JPEG/PNG, 1408×768)
- **Tool:** `gemini --yolo "/generate 'prompt'"` under the hood
- **Cost:** ~$0.045–0.07 per image, well within free-tier daily limit

## Watch out for

- **Don't filter for "good" days.** The point is honesty across time. Bad days deserve images too — drab tones tell a story.
- **Style consistency** — pick one art style and stick with it for at least 30 days before changing. Otherwise the gallery looks chaotic, not coherent.
- **Filename ≠ embedded image** — Obsidian Markdown embeds use `![[YYYY-MM-DD.png]]`. The skill adds this for you, but check on first run.
- **Mobile sync size** — Syncthing pushes the PNGs to your S26+. Over a year you'll have ~50–150 MB of journal images. Fine, but plan storage.

## Gallery

End of month / year, build a `40-Resources/visual-journal-YYYY-MM.md` that uses Obsidian's image gallery or the Dataview plugin to show the month's images in a grid. Or use the [Gallery component](/reference/skills-cheatsheet/) on a published version.

## Make it yours

- **Pick a signature palette** — e.g., earth tones, monochrome blue, pastel. Encode in the skill's prompt template.
- **Add a "year-end remix"** workflow that picks the 12 most representative images and lays them out as a poster.
- **Layer text** — version 2: also overlay one word from your evening review onto the image (use the nanobanana extension's `/edit` command).

## Related workflows

- **[Daily Driver](https://obsidian-academy.pages.dev/workflows/01-daily-driver/)** — Provides the daily note this skill reads
- **[Content Engine](https://obsidian-academy.pages.dev/workflows/05-content-engine/)** — Same nano-banana skill, different use case