A friend of Koloist found this cool and inspiring book during a recent shopping spree at Blick Art Materials. It lets you peek inside the journals of some very talented, creative folks. Here are brief excerpts from the preface of the book Drawing From Life; The Journal As Art by Jennifer New:

Journals are unsung heroes, the working stiffs of creative life. They live in the pockets and shoulder bags of all sorts of people. A birder on a morning walk, a scientist in the field, a film director delayed in a foreign airport, a fashion designer musing over next season's collection, a teenager avoiding schoolwork: all keeping journals as trusted confidantes and reliable workhorses...

...When I visit my old journals, what attracts me most are the random images stuck into the pages. Usually these are free-floating, loosely folded, and tucked between pages rather than glued. A newspaper photo of a homeless man circa 1991 plants my feet back on the Seattle streets of my early twenties, passing the empty-eyed men and women panhandling outside my apartment building. A tissue-thin bag from a patisserie in Aix falls out of another book, and a cream-filled cake blooms in my mouth. But I did not so much as mention the pastry or even the shop in my written entry of that day in France.

This book is also available online at Barnes & Noble.