to tear or not to tear

I overheard a discussion at last evening's journal collective meeting about whether or not to tear out journal pages that you really don't like. Its a tough call--sometimes we all do pages that don't turn out the way we would have liked or don't "fit" with the rest of the journal and our inner critic has a field day.

I don't think you should keep a page that will make you cringe each time you happen upon it, but there is a lot that can be done before you resort to the scissors. Gesso, collage, stencils, stickers can all cover a little or a lot of the offending page. In fact, a painter friend of mine advocates getting yourself "into trouble" as quickly as possible in a painting because working yourself out of it is always more satisfying. And more importantly, I think, it means that you took a risk. If you never have a "bad journal day" then you are probably not pushing yourself as far as you could.

In that spirit, I'm posting a page that I had decided to skip over in the public posting realm (I can't tear it out because its an accordian page journal). I painted over some of the parts I didn't like and added a couple images from the paper and I'm happier with it. I still don't love it, but I'm OK with that.