Has Journal Guilt happened to you? Maybe! How many of us have bought a finely-bound 100-page sketchbook journal with glittering aspirations to fill the whole thing with elaborate thoughts and sketches, only to get three or four pages in and be subsumed by life as it happens. And so we re-open the journal weeks or months later and learn once again that Time Waits for No Man, or no person. But we had such a good feeling about this journal! This journal was going to be The One, the journal that we finally sat down to work on, a heirloom we could all look back on with warmth and, hashtag gratitude. Maybe it’s not the journal’s fault. It’s wonderfully made, after all. Maybe it’s us.
Traveler’s Notebook has a flexible approach to journaling, scrapbooking, collecting, and scheduling that has worked for me like no other journal. It ended all the guilt I had about Never Filling Up a Journal.
The Traveler’s Notebook No. 27 Watercolor Paper Refills usually are priced anywhere from 6.50 to 7.60. Maybe 8.00 online if you need it in a rush. Each refill contains 24 pages, and I typically only use 12 pages since I want to paint on one side of the paper.
If I make an indelible mistake, as I often do with watercolors, it is easy to remove the perforated page and recycle it. And it’s a low risk situation - the whole thing only costs seven dollars.
If I fill up the whole book - yay - ! I feel like I don’t have to beat myself up, and I can buy another refill without worrying.
With Traveler’s Notebook, the question isn’t “Can I fill 100 pages?” Or “What if I lose this notebook?” It’s “I already filled 6 of 12 pages so maybe I better get my next refill”
Funnily enough, with making watercolors, I’ve learned that the secret for me personally is to have three watercolor pieces on rotation in a setting, because often, as watercolor goes, each piece needs it’s heavier water pools to dry before it can be moved to the next step. So I keep three Travelers Notebook watercolor refill booklets on hand. Sometimes I might even have four of them in my backpack.
An example of how I use three Traveler’s Notebook watercolor refills at a time to rotate between pieces that are drying or dry.
Sometimes it is easier to take the refills out of the notebook to help them lie flatter and dry more evenly if I utilize a lot of water to make a piece.
A rare moment where I bought a smaller-size refill packet of watercolor paper. I like the format of this size, too!
A close up example of a sketch I did copied from concept art of Haanit in Octopath Traveler.
The way I think of my Traveler’s Notebook “build” is that I have my finished books in storage or on display, and I have three to four active, working notebooks. This keeps me moving through books at a pace that works for me. And, as I see the finished books stack up, it builds my confidence about completion.
Completion is one arena within which I battle, another is the scrappy dueling field of perfectionism. Fortunately, I don’t have any feelings about perfectionism with Traveler’s Notebook refills, because each one is, again, only seven dollars. That’s like half a fancy sandwich these days. Yet, I’ve definitely had feelings of perfectionism with sketchbooks that are more along the lines of $20.00+. Even though I’m sure I’ve spent hundreds by now on Traveler’s Notebooks, I’ve certainly used them without being stalled by my perfectionism.
Perfectionism? Guilt about … not using art supplies? Hopefully you don’t struggle with any of this, and as you are reading this blog, it’s kind of a curiosity to you more than anything. Maybe you fill book after book of 100 pages and you draw dazzling images on both sides and you haven’t had a perfectionist moment since 1999. But if you feel inklings of any of this affecting you, I can’t recommend Traveler’s Notebooks enough. Plus, it’s really, really nice paper. Traveler’s Notebooks have truly set my sketching life free.