Draw Your Day: An Inspiring Guide to Keeping a Sketch Journal

"Draw Your Day" is a cute book that can inspire you to get into the habit of sketchbook journaling. Very bright illustrations and nice ideas about drawing the everyday things around you. Good overall descriptions, explanations and resource lists of tools and materials. Color theory and some drawing and painting techniques are discussed. This is a good resource for beginners.

An absolute treasure trove of inspiration, suggestions for materials, process approaches, and samples. A must anyone who journals, draws, or is exploring starting a journal.

This is a great book, full of useful advice about keeping a visual journal of your daily life. The author's journal pages are beautiful and make me wish I could "do that." As someone who can't (yet) "do that," I was encouraged by several references about how it's fine to use stick figures if you can't draw people, etc. I wish the author had included a chapter showing some of her own less-than-perfect work. Please let us see how your own ability to draw, paint, compose a page, progressed and improved. Page after page of perfect artwork is more daunting than inspiring. I'd love to see a satisfying journal page showing stick figures. I also have to add that there is a level of glamor here that left me feeling envious. Many of the sample pages refer to trips to museums, coffee shops and specialty food stores, skiing trips, dinners at restaurants that sound fascinating. I had to give myself a very serious reminder that no one's life consists of only those things, everyone has days when the whole family is sick and the highlight is that everyone made it to the bathroom in time. I wish there had been some pages about those days, too.

I bought this book for my personal art library. The author does a beautiful job of sharing her daily observations in text and her lovely water color sketches in her journal. Anyone from NYC will enjoy her little stories and illustrations about all that is NYC. I highly recommend.

I purchased this book after learning the basics of watercolor painting. After reading through the entire book I started making my first sketch journal. I returned from vacation with several fun photos and memories to refer to. I'm new to sketching, so this part was harder for me. But I took it slowly, adding pencil sketches, then ink using Micron pens. Next, I added some journaling about my vacation and finished using watercolor and Tombo water-soluble markers for shading. It was a blast! I added a few more pages about my vacation and am currently working on pages about my spring garden. This is addictive! Samantha's book is inspirational and contains a ton of examples and advice. I loved this book so much that I recently purchased her book, Draw Your World. I likely won't be sketch journaling like a daily diary, but more to record snippets of my experiences and use photos I've taken as references to compose them into pages. I'm fairly slow at this point so trying to keep up with a daily complete page would turn it into work for me and I want to keep it light and fun. Samantha, your books are wonderful! I can tell this is a new hobby for me that won't fade over time.

Well-written and easy to read. I started and finished the book in one reading session. Loved the illustrations throughout the book. This is not a tutorial kinda book, it is an inspirational and how-to guide on sketch journals. I already have her next book "draw your world" in my hands and ready to read, and I have her next book on pre-order. Excited to see what knowledge she shares next.

Very helpful book but I knocked two stars off because the text is hard to read. The type is lightface (washed-out) and lacks contrast against the page. The small lettering breaks the rule about a minimum 12-point size for readability, and there is ample page space for bigger type. The font is wrong for the main body of a text; it should be a Roman face rather than sans-serif which the pros say is hard on the eyes. Function over form, for goodness sake! OK, that said, I love this little book. At first I thought there was going to be way more soft content (inspiration) than I wanted, but after reading a few pages I was hooked. I actually needed the pep talk and found it a great help. The author went to some trouble to explain and reinforce the importance of consistency and effort. I am already re-reading some parts. I have taken quite a few art courses over the years from credentialed instructors, yet I picked up many fine points on technique from this book. I credit the author's meticulous, detailed way of explaining things.

Recently I came across the work of Samantha Dion Baker on Instagram and I was instantly transfixed by the images of her work that she was posting. Drawings of the everyday ordinary things she comes across throughout her day done in her sketchbook done in such a way that you can’t help be charmed and intrigued by them . I have been missing the days of the sketchbook challenge that a group of us did years ago and have been thinking about making 2019 the year I get back into a regular sketching habit. So I picked up Samantha’s new book “Draw your Day” and I find myself definitely inspired by what’s in it’s pages. You won’t find step by step directions on how to draw in this gem of a book but what you will find is plenty of inspiration along with some great information about tools and materials to get you started on developing your own sketching practice. She has a very approachable writing style and you feel as if you are sitting across from the author sharing a cup of coffee flipping through her sketchbooks. You won’t find any photographs in this book – it’s entirely illustrated with the authors drawings taken from her own sketchbooks. It’s a beautifully done book and I highly recommend it!

Sweet book but overpriced for what you get, its smaller than expected

I don't normally purchase books but I heard this author on a podcast and wanted to support the print world of publishing so I ordered. It's inspiring, well written, beautifully illustrated, and overall a nice and high quality book. I have already gotten inspiration from it and look forward to completing my first sketch journal.

Lo ame!, super facil de entender cada palabra y los sentimientos de Samantha al describir como se siente dibujando y demás, me llegaron al corazón, me he animado gracias a ella a comenzar mi sketchbook, y esto me a ayudado mucho a ver la vida de una manera mas bella! he estado pasando por un tratamiento de depresión y definitivamente esto en mi caso me ha ayudado a hacer lo que amo y ver la vida a través de los dibujos mas llena de color. Lo recomiendo amplia mente.

I was looking for some form of push to start journaling, but it's was hard to get started. Came across this book, and reading this has been a blessing. The authors simple examples of daily objects and easy to read language has been so effective in giving that required nudge to draw and journal. It's been quite a therapeutic activity.

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