White Page, No More!

A few months ago I splurged and spend way too much money on a journal. I think buying that journal was the last straw. The price tag said $70 for this tiny 5x7 inches journal. I bartered a little with the seller and got the price down to $50. Yes I really liked the journal.

So I get the journal in the mail and it is just so pretty. The cover is gorgeous and the pages are all so pretty white. How am I supposed to start splattering paint in this pretty book? I just couldn't do it. It was sitting here on my desk with it pretty cover and white pages, just mocking me. I couldn't do it!
Then one day I needed to test the pigments in some watercolor pencils and I just grabbed the book, opened to a random page and started making little colored squares. I thought for sure that I had gotten past my "white page block". No, I still couldnt get started. Now I had a pretty book, with pretty white pages, plus one page with neatly drawn colored squares. A couple more months went by and I decided that I just couldn't let the book just collect dust. So I took it out, and just started gluing collage pieces in. It felt really good. And then I started adding color. Felt even better. And then I needed to test a few products, so I did that in the book too. It has sort of become my test book. Who would have thought that a $50 book would become my go to book for testing art supplies.
I am posting some pages below for you to see. It is just to get past those white page. Maybe you have a book you want to journal in but just can't. Try using it to test your paints, colors, markers, and glue. Now I really think this book has become an ART journal. Finally!

On these pages I tested come gouache colors. The left side was done several days prior to the right side. The right side I was trying to see what effect alcohol had on gouache.

Left over collage pieces from another project. Instead of putting them away, or tossing them, I just decided to add them to my "test journal".

Left side is Inktense, and a stencil I had just found and wanted to test. The right side is more gouache colors.

Here I had bought a set of colored tinting pigment and wanted to test the intensity of the color. I used a glass nib to write with the pigment tint. And then there was a ticket left over from another project.
This page will most definitely be painted over at some point, but it is fun knowing what is below all the layers.

The right side is actually a finished journal page. Amazingly, I do have several finished pages now in this journal.
The left side is the one that got me started. It is the page with all the pretty colored squares. Yeah you can't tell, but they are down there. After I finally got started adding color to the book I painted over the squares with water color. Not a great idea, cause the squares were watercolor pencils. So the colors started turning to mud. So I added some collage pieces from some old books. Then some gouache color. Now the colors are just mud. I painted over with a little blue acrylic, and then scraped white paint (gesso) on with a plastic card. It is now completely ready to be made into an art journal page.

More watercolors and markers.

The left side: I tested some black ink, then I added left over collage pieces. Then I was testing two different yellow acrylics. (Found that neither of them was what I was looking for). Then I added some paint scratches using acrylic paint on the edge of a plastic card. And last I had some white paint on a homemade stamp and is stead of wiping it off I decided to use it here.
The right side: Testing the same two yellows when painted on top of green.
Both pages are ready to be used for art journal pages. Either as is, or painted over ... again.

More paint testing and left over stamp colors. This one I painted blue and orange acrylic, then yellow gouache.

Left over collage pieces. Then some tan gouache color and then testing homemade stamps.

This is the page I am working on now.

This was the first page I finished in this journal after I started adding color. I love that bird template.

So as you can see I got past my "fear" of white pages. At least in this journal. I do have a couple of other journals that are still full of white. But I have also decided not to ever again spend so much money on a journal. First of all, it is not about what the journal looks like. You can just a simple journal and then add your own color to the cover, or you can use lose leaf paper and add them to a simple ring binder. It is never about the journal, but it is all about the journey to get where you want the pages to take you.