After a brief summer hiatus, Painting With Joy is back. It proved to be what I needed to end my own hiatus!
We painted Van Gogh's sunflowers yesterday, and I really enjoyed it. I used watercolor, Neocolor crayons and watercolor pencils in my 9 x 9 Leuchtturm1917 sketchbook.
Now that COVID travel restrictions are lifted, people are enthusiastically embracing travel once again.. Although travel isn't in my near future, I love any books about journaling, so I jumped at the offer from NetGalley to review an electronic version of this book.
The test with any art-related book for me is: Does this book inspire me to get out the supplies and dive in? This book certainly passed the test, and as the author Abbey Sy promised, this kind of journaling is easily transferable to my life at home. It has given my journaling habit a much-needed kick start. The guest artist section soon had me discovering new artists to follow on social media.
If you are new to journaling, this book has everything you need no matter what format/style you want to try. The book covers art heavy, text heavy, photo heavy, and collage heavy formats, and if you can't decide, try the author's favorite, the ultimate combination!
The end of the book still needs a few edits to be ready for final publication, in my opinion. Although promised in the introduction to Chapter 6 Honing Your Habit, I couldn't find the tips on storing journals. (I was really looking forward to those tips, too!) Chapter 7 The Guest Artist features some terrific journalers, but the section on Resources is disappointing, and two of three website links are wrong or no longer in service.
All in all, this is a terrific book despite the weak ending - 4 out of 5 stars!
You can find the details for Miss Isabel, along with the inspiration photo by @mozarts_ride here. In his Instagram post, Carey goes for a trip down memory lane remembering one of my favorite bands - ZZ Top.
