Recovering Perfectionist’s Journal Pages

Somewhere in your head is the vision of the perfect journal. Maybe it’s an art journal, with ink-and-watercolor wash pages, which instantly recall a vacation or a romantic getaway.  Or maybe it’s all written in fountain pen, in a lovely Palmer penmanship. It’s a nice thought, but it’s unlikely.

Even Gwen Diehn, who creates breathtaking journals, admits to mistakes.

Life is messy. Your journal will be, too.  In fact, it should be. I teach journaling classes, so I meet people who are shocked when they page through my journals. “This isn’t beautiful!” they will accuse. Or, “I thought you would have only lovely pages!” Whatever gave them that idea? Why would I want only lovely pages? How would I know they were lovely if they aren’t interspersed with unlovely pages for comparison?

Unless you create a neat stack of wonderful pages and then bind them into a book, there are going to be imperfect pages in your journal.

Journals are for experimenting, not documenting perfection. While I love pen-and-ink drawings, I have  lot more then that in my journal–everything from collage to pencil sketches, and ideas for raw art. I’ll admit I’m biased–I don’t like journals that look like they were made from a kit. I like journals that look like real life on real pages—some inspired, some desperate, some with incomplete ideas, drawings, snippets of words. A real journal looks like a real life. And real life, at least mine, isn’t neat or tidy or all wrapped up with an elastic closure.

As a recovering perfectionsist, I’ve come to grips with a journal I use daily. That means pages written on with various pens, idea-generators torn from magazines, ideas that didn’t work out and a few magnificent pages.

It’s a much more realistic approach to journaling. There are people who tell me that they are waiting for their lives to “quiet down” before they start coaching, go back to school, get married, or have a baby. They never get around to any of those things. Life doesn’t settle down.  Coaching,  journaling and marriages takes place in the middle of messes, tears, joy, and confusion, generally of your own making.  That’s how life is.

Occasionally, if I really messed up a page, I’ll cut it out or cover it with gesso, but largely, I leave it in as a reminder that I’m a recovering perfectionist, and today was another day in recovery.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer who keeps a messy journal. Several of them, in fact. She is also a life coach and creativity coach.

The “Perfect” Journal May Be A Mess

“What does your journal look like?” one of my class participants asked. She was putting away her own carefully crafted art journal filled with delightful patterns and colors that she had copied from magazines.

“What do you think it would look like?” I asked, knowing where this conversation would lead.

Thinking in circles © Q. McDonald

“Your journal would have exquisite artwork on every page, with beautiful handwriting in lovely colors. And the whole book would be perfect–no mistakes. You’ve been journaling a long time,” the participant said with the joy that comes right before the bubble pops.

Silently, I handed her my journal. It has a water-stained front cover and the elastic is over-stretched. She opened it, and gasped, involuntarily. She had opened it on a page in pencil, with an ugly sketch of a thing that might be a butterfly followed by several swashes in pencil. She looked at me in real doubt. I was the teacher here? She flipped to another page. A drawing done diagonally across two pages, with a not particularly good illustration of a hand reaching up to find a pen on a table.

The participant looked at me with pity. “This is yours? Is it recent?” She was horrified. How could the instructor in a class have a journal that was so. . . ugly?

The class had gathered and I held up the ugly butterfly page. “When I saw this butterfly done in repoussé  and chased on a pendant, I loved the Asian feel it had. When I drew it, as an illustration, it was flat, missing the raised element of the repoussé and the deep outlining of chasing. The Asian influence came from the technique, not the illustration, and I didn’t understand that until I did the drawing. Had I added shading and definition, added a framed,  it would have looked like the pendant.

“Why didn’t you?” Another participant asked.

“I learned all I need to learn from what I had drawn,” I said. “Having learned it, I noted it on the page and then could move on.”

“And the . . .hand?” another participant asked.

“Hands are hard to draw, but this was not about the hand. This was about breaking the page–creating an artificial edge with a diagonal line across the page. Elizabeth Perry is an expert at it. I was not, so I practiced, and gave myself a chance to copy my own hand at the same time.”

My journals are not little artworks ready for framing. My journals are explorations on translating what I see into a flat surface. My journal is about experimenting and failing, and knowing why I failed. My journals are about experimenting and succeeding and knowing why it worked this time. Some pages have instructions for an idea, some a diagram that makes sense only to me. Some pages are beautiful, some are not. My journals are my work, my thoughts, my ideas, and they are not perfect. They can be a mess on the way to pretty good. And that’s why my journals make me indescribably happy.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and recovering perfectionist.  Quinn is also a life- and creativity coach who helps people through change. She teaches people who can’t draw how to keep art journals.

Keeping a Messy Journal

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Somewhere in your head is the vision of the perfect journal. Maybe it’s all online, on a beautifully decorated page. Or maybe it’s all written in fountain pen, in a lovely Palmer penmanship. It’s a nice thought, but it’s unlikely. … Continue reading →