📓 Why I Sometimes Put Multiple Unrelated Paintings on One Journal Page - Finding Your Style!

✨Most art journaling advice pushes cohesion: one theme, one palette, one mood, one tidy idea.

Sometimes I want that.

But often? That’s not how I think, and it’s not how I paint.

Some of my favorite journal pages are made up of several unrelated paintings—different subjects, different moods, different levels of finish—sharing the same page without trying to explain themselves.

Here’s why I do it, and why it quietly made my work stronger.

✂️ It Removes the Pressure to Make “A Good Page”

When a page has to be one thing, every brushstroke feels loaded. You start painting like you’re being graded.

Breaking the page into multiple, unrelated spaces instantly lowers the stakes.

Each painting becomes:

• a moment

• a test

• a thought

Not a verdict.

If one section doesn’t work? The page survives. You keep going.

🔗 It Matches How Ideas Actually Happen

My ideas don’t arrive in themes.

They arrive as:

• atmosphere

• edges

• color temperature

• how wet the paper is

• how much I don’t want to overwork something

Putting unrelated paintings together mirrors that reality.The page becomes a record of thinking, not a presentation.

That honesty matters.

✂️ It Trains Flexibility Instead of Control

When everything on a page is connected, you protect it.

When it’s not? You adapt.

You learn to:

• shift moods quickly

• let go sooner

• stop “fixing” things

• leave parts unfinished on purpose

Those skills transfer directly into finished work—even though this page was never meant to be finished at all.

🛑 It Stops the Need to Explain

A themed page invites interpretation. An unrelated page doesn’t ask for permission.

There’s no narrative to decode. No concept to justify.

Just feeling. Just paint.

And honestly? Those are the pages people tend to linger on the longest.

🧱 It Feels Like a Studio Wall (Not a Showcase)

A studio wall holds:

• experiments

• fragments

• near-misses

• things you’re not sure about yet

That’s what these pages feel like.

They’re lived-in.They’re honest.They’re not trying to impress anyone.

✨ And that’s exactly why they work.

☑️ When I Choose This Approach on Purpose

I’m most likely to use this kind of page when:

• I’m practicing water control 💧

• I don’t want color harmony to be the focus

• I feel creatively stuck

• I want to paint without committing to “a piece”

• I need the page to stay experimental

It’s not random — it’s intentional looseness.

🫶 The Quiet Benefit No One Talks About

When you stop forcing cohesion, something interesting happens:

Your actual style starts showing up.

Patterns emerge without effort. Preferences reveal themselves naturally. You notice what you return to again and again.

That’s far more valuable than a perfectly themed spread.