Journal It! by Jenny Doh (book cover)
Book review time today again. Yay! I’ve been reading and enjoying Jenny Doh’s book Journal It! and thought you might like it too!

It’s one of those books with techniques from many different artists, showing bits of their individual style. To me it’s like meeting old friends since I follow many of these art journalers online. I recognize their style, know their names and read their blog posts. Getting them in book form is a real treat, but even without that I think this is a neat inspiration book. There are also several names that are totally new to me, and that’s a pleasant surprise.

Journal It! includes a lot of different styles. There is lettering, photography, mixed media, sketching and sewing. At least one or two things for everyone to like and maybe try. To me it’s a book for beginners or art journal newbies, with many tips on how to get started on a page, how to use stencils, watercolours, play with acrylic paint or use your journal to record a project.

A book for beginners, yes, but I really like that this book doesn’t include information about paper, pens and must-haves. Instead it jumps straight to the yummy stuff! The artists and their pages.

Journal it! book spread 2
Pages by Bruce Kremer.

Many of us, me included, use our art journals to create extremely pretty pages, much like finished wall art sometimes. Therefor it makes me happy to see sketchy, grungy pages included in this book too. I’m feeling I’m being drawn towards this style a lot lately. Maybe because it comes more natural to me.

Journal it! book spread 1
Pages by Alison Worman, who uses fabric, stitching and mesh on her pages. More of her cool sketchbook work here.

Journal it! book spread 3
Pages by Carolyn Sewell, who’s journal is full of stream-of-conscious journaling done in lectures or while listening to others. She fills a page with notes, and later goes back to thicken and prettify the letters. Very cool looking, right?

I think this book shows, in a nice way, that art journaling can be a lot of things. And what it contains, how and why, is different for everyone. There isn’t a right way to do it, nor a wrong way. It’s only your way. Looking how others do things can both help us and intimidate us. It’s up to you to find inspiration, let it fill you up and then to put it away and open a notebook of some kind and fill it with what is in our hearts.

To start creating in our own way!

Further book inspiration links

* Journal It! – information and a look inside the book at Amazon
* Previous book reviews that I have written
* My favorite artists in this book are Zom Osborne, Alisa Burke, Roben-Marie Smith and Debra Cooper!

*  Happy Rainbows + Journal It! – Tammy of DaisyYellow also wrote a review of this book
* Jenny Doh – visit the editor’s blog