ONE SIMPLE HACK TO BEAT YOUR FEAR OF THE BLANK JOURNAL PAGE

DOES THE FEAR & PRESSURE OF A BLANK WHITE PAGE STOP YOU FROM CREATING IN YOUR JOURNAL? HERE IS MY 1 SIMPLE HACK TO BEAT THAT . . .

THE HACK: DON’T HAVE ANY BLANK PAGES

I told you it was simple!

But seriously, this is what I do, every single time, because that blank page is overwhelmingly intimidating.

There are of course a few ways you can go about not having any blank pages in your journal before you start using it and in this post, I am going to share 3 of my favourite ways (one of them involves coffee!)

#1 use an old book & gesso

One of my favourite things to do is go ‘old book hunting’! I love trawling the op shops and second-hand book stores to find those really old, well-worn, musty-smelling vintage books. They have the most beautiful covers and title pages inside.

Old books make the perfect journals, they’re beautiful on the outside and there are no blank pages on the inside.

All it takes to get the book ready for art journaling is to add some Gesso to the pages, this is to strengthen the pages a little and allow them to hold any wet medium. I like to use just enough to still allow some of the original page to show through and become part of the journal page. This aethetic is one of my all time favourites.

#2 create your own journal

Sounds hard, right? It doesn’t have to be, not all journals have to be beautifully bound. The truth is you can create a journal really easily.

The point here is to use' ‘found papers’ so that your pages are not blank, so this could anything from magazine pages, wrapping paper, postcards, old letters etc.

A lot of my journals are made from a collection of papers I had at hand at the time. My ‘Wellbeing in Bloom’ journal below is made from magazine pages, parcel paper and tissue paper. To secure the pages together I simply ran the centre through my sewing machine. Easy!

I’ve also created journals from found papers just using washi tape to stick the pages together, the best part about this is that the washi tape becomes part of the art.

Then there are zines! Tiny little folded books made from just one sheet of paper, learn to make one in this blog post.

3. MAKE A QUICK AND EASY BACKGROUND WITH COFFEE

Creating a series of backgrounds that you will come back to later to create on is another simple way to remove that fear of a blank page. The secret here is to get a background down quickly and with no thought about how it turns out. This is why I love to use coffee.

There is nothing complicated about this, it’s simply making coffee and brushing, pouring, or splattering layers of coffee onto your pages.

Using coffee instead of paint removes the pressure to ‘paint’ something or to have a background that looks a certain way. There is little control with the coffee and then it looks different again once it dries, so you’ll find yourself feeling free to play and get it down on the page without worrying what the end result will be. You will then be inspired by the beautiful results when you come to create and write on your page at a later date.