Making Journals by Hand: 20 Creative Projects for Keeping Your Thoughts

Rating:
Summary: Very Inspiring
Review: This book is terrific! Accessible enough to not scare you off (some projects are simple things like garden journals) but encouraging you to extend yourself.

Rating:
Summary: expansive techniques, but the art is up to us ?
Review: This luscious book peeks into the art journals of many talented artists, giving step-by-step instructions on basic techniques for compiling and binding journals that mix image and word. Because the contributors are all highly talented artists, this book should have been more intimidating to my non-artist self than it was. Instead, it is encouraging and freeing, and the author provides short helpful tips on the process of writing a journal along with illustration and decoration. I read the book in two addictive sittings and am looking forward to spending more time with it, and with the books and websites listed in the bibliography, even if I never try any of the techniques. Thank you, Jason, for a generous, empowering, and visually stunning book.

Rating:
Summary: Skimps on Content
Review: While the journals in here were really beautiful, it doesn't look like the author put a lot of effort into explaining them. It only took me about an hour to read this book and, even with a few creative ideas(mostly from the pictures), the general content was sparse. Some of the shaded sections on the side looked like space filler (for example, one on "themes" describes a travel journal's purpose as "chronicling your travels"...no way!). It bothers me when writers use pretty pictures to try and pull off the appearance of a quality book. Flip through this book in the library to get some good ideas, but don't expect thoughtful written advice.