Rethinking and Revising

Do you remember my post about the Travel Journal I was making of my trip to Paris with my sister? That trip happened almost a year ago and I'm still not finished the journal.

I had bought a French hardcover book at a second hand book store in Paris to use for this journal. I brought it home and ripped some pages out of it to make room for the things I would add to the book. I gessoed the remaining pages so I could draw and paint on them and started to glue things onto the pages.

Well, the further I got, and because I was handling the book a lot, it began to fall apart. I didn't like the look of it at all. So I ripped all the remaining pages out of it, including my finished pages so that I was left with only the cover.

I decided to use the original cover because I like the look of it and I made new pages out of card stock (which will be sturdier than the book pages) and I gessoed and painted them for backgrounds to my journal items. I rescued some of my drawings and parts of the pages I had already completed and started over on my new pages.

I painted the new pages with acrylic paints by dropping dots
of paint in various spots on the page and then ran an old
plastic gift card across the page mixing the paint and creating
these marbled designs..

The Eiffel Tower was drawn on one of the old pages of the
original book so the words typed in the background are all
in French. I think it's an interesting touch.

I'm putting in all the pictures and paraphernalia first and then going in later to add some details of what we did, how we felt, things I want to remember.
When all the pages are done, I'll sew them into the cover and finally be done the journal.