The Illustrated Emily Dickinson Nature Sketchbook

The Illustrated Emily Dickinson Nature Sketchbook (Quarry Books, 2016) has a beautiful embossed cover, and is filled with Emily Dickinson’s brilliant poetry about nature and love to inspire drawing and literary exploration with gorgeous full colour illustrations and prompts. With lush illustrations from Lilla Roger’s 2014 Global Talent Search winner Tara Lilly, this interactive sketchbook is the perfect gift for the artist or poetry lover in your life. Become inspired by beautiful full-colour illustrations, partial drawings, and small sketches based on Emily Dickinson’s brilliant poems!

Though fewer than a dozen poems of the over 1,800 she wrote were published during her lifetime, Emily Dickinson is now almost universally considered to be one of the greatest American poets. This beautifully illustrated poetry collection relies on the joys of verse to inspire drawing and sketching. Filled with Emily Dickinson’s brilliant poems about nature and love, and prompts based on vivid imagery from those works, the book is filled with a mix of gorgeous full colour illustrations, partial illustrations and small details that invite further drawing and exploration from the reader throughout the pages of the book.

This poetry-inspired drawing journal is absolutely beautiful from cover to cover.  The cover itself is embossed and filled with a vibrant nature scene featuring a peacock and florals. The true beauty, however, lies within the pages and Emily Dickinson’s timeless poetry bursting with imagery and metaphors paired with Tara Lilly’s vintage inspired floral sketches.

This book is a must for creative Emily Dickinson fans.  You can draw your own pictures inspired by the poems, colour in the black and white drawings or elaborate upon the small sketches found on some of the spreads.

Emily Dickinson is one of my favourite poets, I own another collection of her poems but I enjoy that this one features only her nature inspired poems and leaves out the darker, although somewhat more well known pieces about death. This creates a collection that is full of life and moving verses.