Sunday Book Review, Journal Bliss by Violette

Happy 2011 to all of you. Are you recovered yet? No? Me either. Crickey. This was a crazy couple of weeks. My daughter is safely back in Missouri with her Man. Young Dan is home relaxing between semesters. The house is quiet and a major clean-up happened today after our trip to the airport. We had peaceful times, ate a ton, saw The Blue Man Group and partied way too much. I'm looking forward to getting back to work.

On to the book review. I met Violette in October at JournalFest in Port Townsend, WA. She's a delight: warm and open and down to earth. My kind of people. Her book is the same. I'm looking forward to getting to know her better via The Sketchbook Challenge (the first theme is up here, btw).


With its bright colors and simple line drawings, Journal Bliss is a good choice for the beginner or teenager who wants to get started with minimal fuss.

Violette's drawing style is one you can learn by looking and practicing a bit: simple drawings and watercoloring. Rather than earth-shattering techniques here, Journal Bliss is an encouraging voice for a beginner. A couple of my favorite ideas were the simple borders and lettering.

I like an open-ended book and this is one of those. I can open it to any page at times when the blank page is just staring back at me and feel inspired.

A technique I enjoyed was patchwork borders with a bit of charcoal. Fun and simple.

You can see Violette's Sketchbook Challenge profile here. There are so many books available right now on art journaling. There is truly something to appeal to everyone! Happy times.

Big hugs all around. It's sure to be a great year.
Diana