Journal Fodder 365: Daily Doses of Inspiration for the Art Addict, by Eric M. Scott and David R. Modler. North Light Books, 2012

 This book doesn’t really have 365 daily prompts; it actually provides 48- it’s divided into twelve monthly sections and each section has four prompts. There are a lot of art techniques in each chapter, though, so you could still consider it to have 365 ideas.

The authors expect the reader to do some deep journaling. Along with the more common subjects of dreams and personal history are ones like owning your shadow self. They recommend strongly against using standard imagery- like the ever popular woman with wings or a crown- and coming up with your own- use pictures of yourself and ephemera you’ve saved. They don’t want you just creating collages; they want the collages to be personally meaningful.

Unlike many art journal projects, they don’t advise that you have to own every art supply ever made to do the job. In fact, the basic list is very short- journal, colored pencils, glue stick, scissors, water colors and a few pens, pencils and markers. These simple supplies- and a few others recommended in each chapter- are used in numerous ways to create many different looks. Each chapter shows different techniques for writing, drawing, painting, collage and more. There is even a URL you can go to for extra technique tutorials online. There is a lot to the book.

The down side is that the techniques are fairly basic. They are geared to the beginner artist. This is not a bad thing- it’s great that there is a book that won’t intimidate the beginner. But a more seasoned artist may want to seek out a more advanced book.