Drawing from Life: The Journal as Art [Paperback]

This book is absolutely stunning. It's a collection journals and notebooks from people of varying professions and interests. The book is broken down into 4 sections: observation, reflection, exploration and creation. Each section headed with introductory text with further text on the individual "journalists". The journals themselves vary widely in styles, from scribbled notes to pages that have been rigourously worked on. If you want to see some images then you should visit www.pergl.net/jennifernew. The shape of the book resembles a traditional journal, the paper is of good quality and the layout is clean and easy to enjoy. Drawing from life is truly inspirational.

I liked this book very much. Essentially, it is a collection of samples of the journals of a wide range of different kinds of people, some who use journals professionally, some as recreation. Therefore, the styles and contents vary widely. For me it is an invaluable source of reference material and ideas to try out in my own journals.

I began keeping a journal some six years ago whilst doing a Masters Degree at university. Not having studied an `art' type degree before, the idea of a journal/sketchbook was new to me but I became fascinated and addicted to journals and interested in how people used them, discovering the likes of Mike Rohde, Danny Gregory and Matthias.

Jennifer New's book published in 2005 is a fascinating insight how different people use their journals, with some lovely examples - who would have thought that David Byrne's simplistic sketch could have been the starting point for the visual and musical masterpiece `Stop Making Sense'?

Essentially, the book deals with different aspects of the use of journals:
Observation, Reflection, Exploration, and Creation.
(though quite clearly, as the New points out, this is simply a device to group the examples rather than a hard and fast taxonomy, as all the journals reflect each aspect of the creative process)

Observation includes the beautiful drawings of marine biologist Jenny Keller, whose precise yet beautiful drawings bring to mind the works of explorers of a different epoch. Retired engineer Masayoshi Nakano has used his journals to meticulously map the area of Musashino, creating miniature volumes that have the `Bonsai-type' appeal of reduced scale perfection.

In Reflection, the journals range from the dark brooding sketches of John Copeland to Tucker Shaw's `everything I eat in a year' project, a seemingly banal subject matter transformed by its context and collection into a body of work.

David Byrne's section under Exploration is fascinating to anyone familiar with or interested in his work. In complete contrast are the journals of John Clapp, arts professor at San Jose State University. He sees the journal as an integral part of the creative process, saying: `A journal is the friendliest place an artist can practice being honest with himself, which is a scary thing to learn how to do.'

Finally under Creation, we have the record of artist Steven Hall's twenty years of creating at dawn with watercolours and a notebook, whereas Robert Parkeharrison's journals give us a glimpse `behind the scenes' of how he produces his photographs.

In her introduction Jennifer New says: "Journals are the unsung heroes, the working stiffs of the creative life." It is an excellent book for anybody interested in the role of the journal in the creative process, and a book you can dip into time and time again. Enjoy!