patlo's Reviews (1.32k)

Perhaps like me, you've heard a great deal of buzz about this book. The buzz is spot on, and the book is even better than you would expect. It is one of the most powerful, wrenching, engaging memoir that I have ever read.

I recommend it highly to every single person.

I've had this on the Amazon wishlist for a while after a friend recommended it to me, but I didn't look at it sooner because I didn't want another person's sketchbook. However, Jude Siegel has done a nice job with a high-level, not super detailed or demainding, call to nature sketching and journaling. Her discussions of drawing, composition, watercolor are all helpful. The fact that she works in the Pacific Northwest where I live is a bonus too. This is well worth checking out at the library (as I did) and then buying a copy (as I did next.)

I especially liked her loose style, no painstaking details. And her warmup exercises, including "spirit drawing", trying to loosely grab the spirit/life/energy in a place before thumbnailing and then actually sketching.

Excellent exercises throughout; I'll be doing these on schedule this summer!