A journal designed around mindfulness. The goal is to help provide some ease of mind when the user is having negative thoughts, often due to anxiety or depression.
Many students within my school are anxious artists. This book seemed like a fantastic tool to provide for them. Originally, I thought the book would give step by step tutorials on how to draw as a way to work through anxious feelings. Turns out, you’re supposed to write in the book itself! This is fantastic, acting as a guided journal for anxiety. However, it's not fantastic for libraries. This is a one-use book, but I can think of multiple people who would use it. This is the only thing keeping me from purchasing it for the library. Aside from that, the book is fantastic & will be a wonderful tool for anxious minds.

Drawing on Anxiety is a charming and welcoming book with illustrations and prompts to get what’s on your mind out and onto the page. There is something laid back and comfortable about this book, almost whimsical despite covering some (maybe) difficult topics. Perhaps it is the loopy lettering, that makes it look hand-written. And I love that there is no wrong way to do this. I thoroughly enjoyed this sweet and inviting book/journal.

Thanks to Kate Sutton, Quarto Publishing Group-Leaping Hare, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this work.

Drawing on Anxiety by Kate Sutton is a lovely book. Equal parts self-help, journal, self-care, and meditative anxiety releaser, it will surely be helpful to a wide variety of people.

Anxiety is my unfortunate go-to, and I haven’t yet found a way to meditate that doesn’t add more frustration (I’m so bored! Am I doing it right?? Failing at this is making me feel more anxious!) I have found greater success in choosing mindful activities that keep me in the moment and allow me to process my feelings: Drawing being a perfect example.

I am NOT an artist, yet as I followed the prompts from these pages I let that go and just had fun. I found myself loving these activities, and my only complaint is that I
wish the book were longer. I’ll surely buy this more than once, and/or constantly refer back to its prompts to use on a blank pad (as I did this time since my ARC copy was digital).

Extra bonus points for the inclusion of some excellent resource pages!

Wholehearted thanks to Kate Sutton for creating this book, and to both NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group-Leaping Hare for access to this digital ARC.

This was such a fun journal! As someone who suffers from anxiety daily, this journal really helped me put everything into perspective. I loved all of the little activities along with the advice. It was super helpful and allowed me to get out of my mind and work through some things. I loved all the examples, they were fun and helpful as I am not super creative. I loved that this journal severed not only as a distraction but a tool guide. .

I love this book! It is a great tool to use to understand, manage, and make friends with one’s anxiety. The author utilizes the techniques of mindfulness, visualization, free writing and others that have a DBT or CBT basis while using expressive art. I can see how this would be helpful to a person learning to better navigate anxiety through multiple modalities that ties into artistic creativity. I will be recommending it!

I received an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. The opinions are mine alone.

A creative approach to dealing with anxiety. I have a number of these type of books as they are helpful in giving my mind space to breathe, create and appreciate. You can dip in and out of it when you wish in no particular order, just to what you feel like. Would highly recommend.

I received a digital copy of this book through NetGalley.

Drawing on Anxiety is a guided journal. There are adorable illustrations with props and examples to help you explore your creativity. At first, my perfectionist side of my anxiety felt it was a bit chaotic, and almost fueled my anxiety more. But I quickly realized…that’s the point!

I was drawn to this book because I’ve recently been exercising my own creativity through drawing and hand lettering. The thing is, I’m not very good 😂 but this book helped me realize it’s not about perfection. The process of drawing and exploring your thoughts and ideas to help with anxiety is just about getting it out on the paper. Some people do that through words and journaling, but this hits my creative side and feels more fulfilling to me at times.

I would highly recommend this book as a great starting point to someone dealing with anxiety, and looking for a practice to help them explore mindfulness and creativity. Even if you feel like you don’t have time, just a few minutes can help.

This was an absolutely beautiful, soothing, lovely journal-type book that felt inspiring to me (even though I am not an artsy person).
The author candidly shares bits of her own struggle with anxiety, interspersed with pages and prompts for you to draw your own pictures as you follow the progress of the anxiety narrative. And then she moves to the things that have helped her--which are, of course, things that could help anyone! There's space to draw and write every couple of pages, which feels like it allows you to assimilate these helpful tips and make them your own. The tone is friendly and extremely relatable, like a chat with someone you know well.
Although, as I said, I am not a particularly creative person, I still found it calming just to page through this book, and I can imagine that a physical copy of it with pen or pencil in hand would be irresistible to just start doodling or jotting things down. Loved the style so much!

Drawing On Anxiety: Finding calm through creativity is an interactive therapy journal. There are pages and spaces for you to draw, doodle and follow the creative prompts given. There is lots of information on anxiety, worry and fear and tips for how to deal with it using creative means. The book is calming and encouraging and full of gorgeous cute art work and colours. Every page is a delight for the eyes. Get your coloured pencils out and relax into thoughtful doodles and creative writing. A lovely book that would make a great gift.

Absolutely love this idea. Beautifully illustrated. Wonderful prompts. Felt very intimate with the authors experiences and what has helped her. Was a very grounding and self-reflective experience. Can’t wait to have the hard copy to actually use it.

This is an excellent experiential book/journal for anyone living with anxiety of any variety. The suggested drawing and journaling exercises are simple enough for non-artists and meaningful enough for everyone.

I believe that this book will make a difference in peoples’ lives.

Also, the resources section at the end is rich and helpful.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for this Arc in exchange of my review.
Thank you for it, I absolutely love this book. I am suffering from anxiety disorder and recently discovered that art therapy actually help me. This book gives me exactly this king of vibes. It gives artsy exercises agains anxiety, expressing thought and drawing them or expressing them through drawing. I find it easy to imagine what to draw on some of the pages. But as you guessed it is an earc and couldn’t draw on it but on a piece of paper. It convinced me so bad that I want to buy a physical copy to use it. I liked the concept and it is calming. For every person suffering for the same trouble, I really recommend you this book and to use this kind of exercises to calm your anxiety. There are so many of exercises in this book, and you don’t need to follow an order. So just open the book and find one that seem relevant for the moment.
Thank you for this discovery !

I loved perusing this art journal so much. The author divides her pages between writing and drawing her own experiences with anxiety, and giving space for the reader to do the same. It's a friendly approach that doesn't at all feel like a self-help book, but instead a cozy chat with someone who can relate to the challenges of anxiety. Along the way, it provides a number of resources and ideas for how to feel better, and these are so beautifully illustrated that it's easy to feel positive about the suggestions. Even a person who doesn't feel overly creative (like me) can be inspired by a friendly journal like this one. I recommend it enthusiastically!

I enjoyed the explanation of the differences between anxiety, fear, worry and stress in the beginning. When in the throes of anxiety it can be so difficult to identify where your feelings are coming from and this was a helpful, simple explanation to help with understanding those feelings.

I also really liked the tone of voice that this book was written in. The way Sutton writes is so calming and gentle. The book most definitely did its job at helping me feel relaxed! The interjections of little personal anecdotal stories and various quotes was a really nice addition as well. They added variety to balance out the drawing exercises and made the book feel more relatable which was really refreshing.

The exercises were different from those that I’ve seen in other “drawing challenge” books. I liked that they were unpredictable and they actually encouraged healthy introspection. I love a challenge that makes me think and helps me to work through my anxiety at the same time.

The illustrations were also very well done. They were simple, not too overwhelming and just very cute! I especially loved the one of the pond with the duck and plants surrounding it.

Lovely book! I can’t wait to get a print copy when it is released.

I've been waiting with anticipation for this book and am really excited to get the chance to review it. I'm a big fan of Kate's wonderful illustrations and have recently completed her excellent drawing class on Domestika. This book, 'Drawing on Anxiety', is jam packed full of exercises and prompts aimed at getting the creative juices flowing and getting the reader into the 'flow' state or being more in the present moment. I love the way Kate weaves her own experiences and thoughts on anxiety into the book which makes it feel more personal to the reader. Kate's section on health anxiety really struck a chord with me personally and I'm so pleased she included it. Some of my favourite exercises in the book are, 'What view can you imagine from this plane window?' Draw yourself a helpful morning routine', 'Seen on my walk' and 'Fill these pages with brightly coloured worry dolls.' I don't see myself as a particularly good illustrator but Kate makes me feel like I can give drawing a good try. I'm really looking forward to getting this book in print when it comes out in January and getting started on some of these lovely exercises. What a lovely book and I hope it does well.