HOW TO ART JOURNAL?

This post is about how an art journal page is made. Now to me that title feels totally presumptious, since I'm just feeling my way at this and it's quite new to me. But so many people have asked me about it that I thought I'd try to take a series of pictures of the development of a page, or at least mine anyway. One of the things which has helped me a lot is being liberated from the feeling that I have to sit down and finish one whole page all at once, and now I'm more comfortable with just adding a bit here and there until it seems "finished" or I can't fit any more stuff on!! The above page was inspired by seeing something that was made up in similar layers or waves, like strata in a rock, so I used my watersoluble crayons to set down the basic layers.
Then this is what happens when you add water - brilliant isn't it?? I love the transformation from rubbed-on crayon to deep, intense colour!
So then this is the page after I'd added water to all the layers. As a bit of a perfectionist it's been quite hard for me to work from the bottom up in this way, and to take my time about finishing it. The original vision had been about weaving writing and black lines into the layers.
So I got out my black acrylics and added some new black strata, and I really liked the way this gave definition. Bear in mind always that the gestation of this page was over several days, and I kept returning to it and adding a bit more ... yes OK if you like "fiddling" about with it.
Then I got down the basic theme of what I wanted to write about. At this stage I thought there wouldn't be any more writing and just began to doodle in the spaces.
But I turned out to have more things to say, and I added some more circles of soluble crayon to intensify areas of colour I could draw around. I'm not sure I understand why but I seem to have this need to fill up most of the space, and I've found the artist pages I seem to really respond to are those which are full and busy. Funny, because it's not as if I'm scared of space or silence, perhaps I'm just somebody with a lot I'm bursting to say?
And this is the final result - which does actually feel "finished" rather than my just having filled up the space! I really loved making this page and its one of the ones I'm most pleased with so far. Perhaps I've been using too much scrapbook paper in my pages, but then again I like doing that too. I think I like this one so much because of the layers and strata which touches something deep in me, as indeed the whole art journalling thing does. I guess this is how I truly am, a person with lots of layers and strata, some deep and wise, some colourful, some dark, some which are just splashes of colour or doodles, and it gives me great pleasure to have managed to communicate that.

But most of all it seems that, for the first time, my art and SOUL seem to be coming together, and it's a wonderful feeling. I hardly dare to say this but I think I've found my niche at last ....REJOICE, let joy be unconfined!