Your Art Journal Isn't Finished? Start a New One Anyway (A Spring Reset)

The guilt pile under my desk

I have four unfinished art journals right now. Four. One has maybe twelve pages used. Another got abandoned after I spilled an entire cup of coffee on page three and decided the universe was telling me something. A third one has gorgeous handmade paper that I've been "saving" for over a year — saving for what, I genuinely don't know.

And you know what? Last weekend I started a brand new one.

If you're the kind of person who feels guilty about starting fresh when your current journal still has blank pages left, this post is for you. Because I used to be that person too, and it kept me from making art for weeks at a time.

Why we feel weird about it

There's this unspoken rule floating around the journaling world that you need to finish one journal before starting another. Like it's a novel and you owe it an ending. Like those blank pages are somehow waiting for you, disappointed.

I think it comes from the same place as the "don't waste supplies" fear — the belief that our creative materials are more precious than our creative momentum. That a $12 journal sitting half-empty on a shelf is somehow a bigger loss than three weeks of not making anything because you don't feel like opening it.

It's not. The journal is paper. Your practice is the thing that matters.

The real reason you want a new journal (and it's valid)

Every time I've wanted to abandon a journal, there's been a reason. Sometimes it's physical — the paper doesn't take water well, or the binding is annoying, or the size doesn't fit my current life. But more often? It's emotional.

The journal holds a version of me I've outgrown. The pages I already made feel like someone else's work. Opening it puts me right back into a headspace I've moved past — a breakup, a rough work season, a period where I was trying way too hard to make everything pretty.

Starting fresh isn't wasteful. It's honest. You're a different person now than when you started that journal, and your creative space should reflect that.

My "spring reset" rules (which are barely rules)

Since it's almost spring and I just did this myself, here's the loose framework I used:

1. Give yourself actual permission. Say it out loud if you need to. "I'm allowed to start a new journal." I know it sounds silly. Do it anyway. The guilt dissolves faster when you name it.

2. Don't transfer anything from the old one. No re-copying quotes, no tearing out "the good pages" to paste into the new book. That's just homework. The old journal is a time capsule. Let it be.

3. Start messy on purpose. The first page of a new journal has so much pressure. So I wreck it immediately. I'll smear gesso across the whole spread, stamp some random texture into it with a paper towel (my paper towel texture trick is perfect for this), and let it dry while I make coffee. Now page one is done and it's ugly and it's mine.

4. Pick a journal that fits RIGHT NOW. Not the aspirational one. Not the fancy one. The one that matches your current life. For me this spring, that means a smaller A5 hardcover because I've been journaling at coffee shops more and my big spiral was too bulky to carry. Your needs change. Let your tools change with them.

5. Write today's date on the first page. That's it. No manifesto, no "this journal will be about..." declarations. Just the date. Everything else reveals itself.

What happens to the unfinished ones

People ask me this like there's a right answer. There isn't. Here's what I actually do:

They go on the shelf. Sometimes I pull them out months later and the blank pages become something unexpected — test pages for new techniques, collage backgrounds with junk mail, or warm-up pages when I'm struggling to start a session. The blank pages in an "abandoned" journal are actually incredibly freeing because there's zero pressure. Nobody's going to see them. They're not part of the narrative anymore.

One of my favorite spreads ever started as a test page in a journal I'd "given up on" two years prior. I was trying out a new set of Posca markers and needed somewhere to scribble, and forty-five minutes later I had a page I genuinely loved. No intention. No plan. Just play.

The real waste is not making things

Here's what I keep coming back to: every week I don't journal because I'm avoiding an old book is a week of pages I'll never make. The empty pages in that abandoned journal cost me $12. The lost creative practice costs me something I can't put a price on.

Spring is a natural reset point. The light changes, the air changes, something in your brain starts wanting new things. If your current journal feels heavy or stale or just wrong — that's not a failure. That's information. Listen to it.

Go get a new journal. Start tonight. Make it messy. I'll be doing the same thing at my kitchen table with Gesso asleep on my feet, probably using that two-cup color drop technique because it's my current obsession and I'm not sorry about it.

There's no wrong way to fill a page — and there's no wrong time to start a new one.