Drawing From Life: The Journal as Art by Jennifer New is a compilation of journal pages from a wide variety of sources (including artists) that is meant to be inspiring, but also is a tease for the nosy and inquisitive. As a writer, I tend to receive more than my fair share of blank journals as gifts, but find it terribly intimidating to sully those pages, so taking a peek at what other people do and how they do it is fascinating. Mixed media is certainly a way to distract from one’s own handwriting, one of many ways this book shows how to make journaling les intimidating and within reach.

Paperback, 192. Princeton Architectural Press, 2005. $16.50 at Amazon.

+ Drawing From Life at Amazon