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Book review: Journal It!



I know of Jenny Doh from her years a Somerset Studios, and now she has brought her editing talents and her eye to Lark PublishingJournal It! is Jenny's latest edited volume, featuring nineteen art journaling stars.  If you've wanted to go take a class and immerse yourself in mixed media techniques, creativity boosters, and art exercises, this book might be the next best thing to having an instructor in the room with you!


In paging through the book, I had some favorites.  I loved Belinda Fireman's merger of words with doodle art.  Since doodling is currently so popular, I took note that quite a few of the artists featured here incorporate some form of it.  I also loved Debra Cooper's scraped paint backgrounds with added doodles.  But my very favorite was Melanie Mowinski's tree rubbings!  Yup.  That's right.  Like grave rubbings only with those tall textured things.

Occasionally people want to know why they should bother to do art journaling.  The best answer so far came from Jill K Berry (page 62):

Journaling helps me take time to be in the here and now.  I notice more about my life when I journal.  I don't miss the little stuff I should be appreciating, like the color of the sky, the pearls of wisdom from my kids, the food on my table, the view from where I am sitting.  In my journals, I make sketches of what I notice and the ideas that come to me.  My larger art pieces usually germinate in my journals.

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