Drawing From Life: The Journal as Art (edition 2005)

An eclectic collection of journal pages worth reading not only for what they say in themselves, but also for what they can inspire in the reader. I illustrate my own journal and this book was a nice charge of energy for my own writing/drawing. ( )

Book dedicated to showcasing intricate art journals, mostly hand-drawn. The journals themselves are so self-evidently fascinating that it's hard to say why presenting them in this fashion doesn't quite work. The choice to reduce intricate journal-pages down to postcard size, rendering them mostly unreadable, certainly doesn't help; I think there's also a problem with the sheer number of journals represented here, which helps to give a sense of scope and variety but eliminates the ability to really immerse yourself in any particular journal. The framing essays profiling each journal-maker are worth a read, but ultimately they're not nearly as interesting as the journals themselves: it's just one more degree of remove between the reader and the subjectivity that's alive in the journal-pages. There's so much "frame" here that the art itself is choked out. ( )