My First Impressions of the Dina Wakley Ledger Journal

I recently discovered my new favorite journal, the Dina Wakley Ledger journal!  Join me as I share my first impressions and test this unique art journal using my favorite techniques.

In the fall of last year, I had the opportunity to take a few classes in person with the lovely Dina Wakley. She was excited about her new art journal that would be coming out but couldn’t tell us anything about it. I’ve been waiting for months for this journal to come out. I was not disappointed!

Hop-A-Long Studio is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission at no cost to you. Learn more.

Dina Wakley Art Journals

If you’ve been following Dina Wakley for a while, you’ll know that her journals have unique papers in them. Her original media journal is a mix of kraft, burlap, carnvas, and watercolor paper. Her blue journal includes white burlap, watercolor paper and denim.

This is the new Dina Wakley Ledger Journal and I was so excited when I saw the release of this journal. Her journals have always been so unique that they open so many creative possibilities. This new journal is no exception. As soon as it was announced, I pre-ordered one and started working in it as soon as I received it last week.

Dina Wakley Ledger Journal

This journal is based off a vintage ledger that Dina purchased. I love the grey vintage book cover. It has a smooth feel and is so nice to hold. The embossed letters on the font give that 1920’s feel. But the real beauty of the book is when you open it up and look inside.

Dina has reproduced a beautiful vintage ledger, but with heavyweight paper that can withstand all the creativity we throw at it!

Not only does it have printed heavyweight paper, but what I love the most about this journal is that the pages aren’t uniform, just like a true ledger. The pages covered in handwriting, with notes in the margins, and spots with dates cut off.

There are also some blank ledger pages. I love the imperfection of this journal. It’s a throwback to a time when ledgers were used for managing business. I love that you can see the items purchased, the name of the customer and the amounts. It reminds me so much of the displays that I saw at the Empire State Building, that had ledgers like this. Not only is this a unique journal, but it’s also a reminder of one of my favorite trips to New York City.  

Is This Ledger Journal Right for You?

Where I appreciate the random nature of this ledger, I’ve seen comments online from people who don’t like the imperfection of this book. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I love to embrace imperfection. It’s been very freeing and fun to play in this beautiful vintage journal. If you are a perfectionist who needs a perfectly uniform journal, this isn’t the journal for you.

But if you’re open to exploring a journal that you can play in, expand your creativity and have room to play and make mistakes, I would suggest getting one of these soon!

When I was flipping through this book, I thought about how perfect it would be, not just for art journaling, but also for junk journaling. This journal has a feel of that vintage, used book. Those who like the junk journal format will also really appreciate this design!

What Art Products can you use in this Book?

Though these page books are strong, how much wet medium can we use on them? This paper is a smooth but heavy paper that takes water, paint and acrylic mediums really well. The feel of this paper is like smooth Bristol. This makes it fantastic for sketching and writing on. It’s also the perfect surface for ink blending.  

Here’s my first project using this ledger journal. I started with watercolor pigment powders, layers of paints, brushed on wet ink, blended with ink, and added gel mediums and collage. Yes, there will be a bit of buckling, but that’s normal for any Bristol or mixed media paper. Unless you’re working with 140lb watercolor paper or thicker, you’re just going to have a bit of paper buckling.

I found that after letting my project fully dry, just closing the book will help the pages flatten out a bit.  

Testing My Favorite Art Products in the Ledger Journal

To help you through the learning curve of this ledger journal, especially if you’re new to mixed media, let’s add a few wet mediums to the pages in this journal and see how they react.

Acrylic Paint

Depending on how much water you add to your acrylic paint or the fluidity of your paint, it will act differently on the surface depending on your application. Using a combination of Paper Artsy and Amsterdam Paints, let’s add them to this page. The paint generally doesn’t make the pages buckle. But the more water you add to your paint, the more chance you’ll get of it buckling on the surface.

Modeling Paste

I’m using a combination of modelling paste and gel medium to test on this page, but you can use any sort of paste or gel in this ledger journal. I’m adding this through a combination of large stencil images as well as detailed stencil images.

As you can see, you don’t get much buckling with these mediums.

Watercolor Products

Watercolor products will give you more buckling than almost any other medium depending on how much water you’re adding to the surface. Here’s a piece I just finished using gouache paints. Gouache paints are opaque watercolor paints, so they work very similarly to traditional watercolors.

You can see that even after adding a strong layer of gouache, you don’t lose all the beautiful text details, and they can add interest to any project.

But to show you watercolors in action, here’s how watercolor powders will work on the page. Sprinkle watercolor pigments to the page and spray with water. Considering how much water I’m adding, I’m surprised how little buckling there is on the pages!  

What is amazing is that both the watercolor and gouache don’t bleed through the page! I honestly was expecting it to, so I was pleasantly surprised when it dried beautifully with little buckling and didn’t seep through.

The one exception is using the highly pigmented Brusho Crystal Colours. Because I added so much to the page and added so much water, I did get a bit of bleed through.

But I did add more water and pigment than I normally would.

Ink Blending

This is a great surface for ink blending. The paper is so smooth, and it takes inks so well. If you love ink blending, this is the surface for you. Just be aware that the color will shift a bit due to the vintage tint of the pages. It’ll be like ink blending on a manila tag.

Pens and Markers

Using paint pens on this surface is great, they lay on top of the surface and don’t bleed through.

I did try sharpie markers on the surface, and these did bleed through the paper. If you are using markers, especially Copics or sharpies, you need to be aware that you may get bleeding through the other side. Regular paint pens, Gelly roll pens and Sakura microns have worked well but just be aware the depending on the type of marker you use, you may end up with some bleed through.  

My Final Impressions

Overall, I found that the Dina Wakley Ledger Journal held up to paint, ink, pens, watercolor, and mediums very well. It exceeded my expectations. I planned to go into this book testing to see how it might not hold up, but instead, I ended up having a fabulous experience with this art journal.

These ledger journals are very popular right now, so make sure to order one soon. I’m not sure how long Ranger is going to offer these books. One thing I’ve realized is that if you like a particular journal, purchase an extra one! Some of the Dina Wakley journals that I purchased several years ago are no longer available. So I always make a point to purchase several copies of my favorite journal to enjoy. I hope that you will like this Dina Wakley ledger journal as much as I have!

If you’d like to see my article about choosing an art journal, click here!  

Project Supply List