I have a love/hate relationship with this art journal

Art journal portrait painting created with watercolors

I’m sharing a different art journal today. You might have seen bits of it before because I’ve been messing around in for a few years now. It’s been slow going in this one, mainly because it’s not a favorite I grab off the shelf every time I see it.

It’s an old old school book (Mathematics, I think) from the late 1800s, which I absolutely adore, but I avoid using this book whenever I can. The main reason is its size – the pages are skinny, and the book is kinda thick. It makes drawing awkward because I can’t rest my hand comfortably anywhere.

It also doesn’t lie flat, and I’m constantly losing my place, and flipping through the book to find the page I’m working on. It’s a bit annoying. I also can’t leave the book open to dry. If I’m out & about, and not near my blowdryer or hand held fan, I just have to hold the book open and wait.

It’s old and persnickety, what can I say? I have a love/hate relationship with this art journal.

Even though this old book is falling apart at the spine, and the antique pages are foxed, and quite brittle, I don’t baby this art journal. If it falls apart, it falls apart. If it crumbles into a pile at my feet, so be it. This art journal gets the same kind of abuse and hard knocks as all my other art journals, except I haven’t thrown it outside for months in the weather, like I’ve done to some of my other art journals. lol

As you can see, I sprayed lots of water on this page, and got these really cool drips everywhere. This person did have a nose, but because it melted everywhere, I decided to leave it as is.

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