Artist's Journal and The Art of Journaling

I've been fascinated in this concept for some time.  For years I've been doing most of my work in journal books or spiral watercolor pads............most often including technical notes and/or sometimes what's on my mind at the time I produce whatever.  My goal at this point is to learn the Art of Journaling which gets into design of the page I work my exercises or paintings on.  There's a lot to learn about it and like anything else, takes practice, trial and error.

This page is pretty plain but I did get into playing a little arranging wording and images.  (This is how it actually looks in the Hand-book journal that has buff or light cream color pages - which my scanner really doesn't pick up).  I have since added "Bachelor Buttons" written small with pen and ink under the blue flowers and "Butterfly Weed" under the orange.


The second image shows where I was playing a bit using photoshop with a color background.  Potential idea of how it might look adding color to the page before I start sketching or painting.

From this I can see where I might not want the entire page covered with color but maybe splashes here and there leaving some white (or buff) showing.  I plan to experiment more on possibilities so I'll have an idea of what I might actually want to try in my journal book.

Of course sometimes I think it's just best with the plain background.  Like with anything, one can go over-board.

Think I like something more like this with some of the background left unpainted.  One could dry sponge on paper before sketching or painting; sponge on wet paper for that blurred look; or even pale washes of color here and there.  And this just barely scratches the surface of possibilities.

UPDATE:  After several days of viewing this, my vote goes to keeping the white background......at least with this particular page example.  I think the elements on the page show better ....... at least to my own eyes.  :)