Art journaling is never “perfect” — but then again, neither is art!

When I began my first art journal, I decided to “let go” of perfection so I could play, explore, and create without worrying about the finished result.  By giving myself permission to be imperfect, I gave myself permission to see where this journey would take me.

The handwriting on this page says, “By the way, there will be wrinkles!” followed by “Life isn’t perfect, and neither are art journals!”  This was my way of stating up front, at the beginning of my art journal, that some of the pages would be wrinkled (from glue, paint, inks, and sprays) and that imperfections were not only allowed but were welcome.  It’s a good thing I started out with this mindset because I ran into problems while working on this journal: a split binding (fixed with washi tape), a spilled bottle of paint (resulting in blue paint on a lot of the pages), stickiness (solved with candle wax), and more.  But I embraced these misfortunes along the way and found ways to work with them instead of letting them ruin my art journal.

On this page, I used Dylusion sprays to create the background: yellow sprayed directly onto the page, followed by orange applied through a stencil.  I applied the red circles and large numbers using Distress ink rubbed through a stencil with a blending tool.  I did a little rubber stamping, added a few rings of white paint (using a bottlecap), and hand wrote the rest.

This is actually a very simple page — and one of my first — but its message solidified my mindset as I began my art journaling experience.  By setting aside perfection, I opened myself up to creativity.