Art

“Awakening Your Creative Soul” by Sandra Duran Wilson

Awakening Your Creative Soul: A 52-Week Journey to Artistic Discovery Book Cover Awakening Your Creative Soul: A 52-Week Journey to Artistic Discovery
Sandra Duran Wilson
Arts, Crafts & Hobbies
North Light Books
October 17, 2018
paperback
624



"Awakening Your Creative Soul: A 52-Week Journey to Artistic Discovery" by Sandra Duran Wilson is partially an inspiration, partially step by step mixed media book. Sometimes it is hard for me to distinguish where you should follow your own concepts when even the paint colors are names in the details section, and when you should go on your own, exploring own creativity and values.

Beautifully illustrated with the author's example arts, the book is deeply personal and encourages travel down your soul while working on the visual art projects. In fact, one of the projects evolves around a piece of the music, and how you do respond to it. The book is also a very spiritual one, although drawing equally from Native American as from India or other Eastern cultures. Its organization, weekly chapters grouped by the seasons, reflect concepts of Easter philosophy itself.

What I did not appreciate at first, but later realized is a part of the mix media art, is how many different suppliers are required to finish any of the projects. Papers, glues, paints, and this is just a beginning. And after you came back from the visit to the local art supplies store, you can also incorporate a number of items found around the house to create three-dimensional construction. At the same time, I recall at least one sculpture project.

I would recommend "Awakening Your Creative Soul to people wanting to explore visual arts on the more intimate, spiritual level.

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from NetGalley. The links in this post contain affiliate code.

“Painted Botanical Collage” by Tracey English

Painted Botanical Collage: Transforming Mixed-Media Papers into Cut Paper Blooms Book Cover Painted Botanical Collage: Transforming Mixed-Media Papers into Cut Paper Blooms
Tracey English
Arts, Crafts & Hobbies
Quarry Books
October 16, 2018
paperback
96



"Painted Botanical Collage: Transforming Mixed-Media Papers into Cut Paper Blooms" by Tracey English is a small, colorful and fun to-do visual arts books. It encourages you to look at the plants around - and see how you can turn what you see into an evening project. Its sole purpose is to give you step by step instructions to build 33 collages representing single flower arrangements. The detailed tutorials are proceeded by a section on preparing the materials, most importantly the papers from which you then make the collage elements. While it feels a little bit like painting by the numbers at first, I appreciated the art when I actually tried to make one of the projects myself. And the projects shown in detail in the book are just a beginning, an inspiration to get out and find your own ideas to execute.

"Painted Botanical Collage" is beautifully illustrated, full of color and interesting shapes and forms. It is a really fun gift book for somebody who wants to do some simple, but rewarding art projects. Even if just wants to browse through.

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from NetGalley. The links in this post contain affiliate code.

“Conscious Creativity: Look. Connect. Create.” by Philippa Stanton

Conscious Creativity: Look. Connect. Create. Book Cover Conscious Creativity: Look. Connect. Create.
Philippa Stanton
Leaping Hare Press
December 4, 2018
paperback
160



In a very short time, I read ""Conscious Creativity: Look. Connect. Create." by Philippa Stanton and "Awakening Your Creative Soul: A 52-Week Journey to Artistic Discovery" by Sandra Duran Wilson. The two books, while on surface talk about the same thing, could not be any more different.

"Conscious Creativity" is far more general in terms of the target art you want to develop and practice. In fact, it does not talk about the act of artistic creation at all - it is what you do in your "other time". And while many exercises use photography to document (and the book is full of great photography), I would not necessarily limit the book audience just to photographers. The exercises are designed to make you look, see and make sense of the world around. There is no step by step instructions, just ideas, and assignments. There are simple observation tasks, doing, like collage or photography, or even hearing - making it applicable to all arts, is it music or writing or visual arts.

I myself started to incorporate the exercises into my daily life. For example, instead of picking up a phone the moment I have nothing to do, I select the first color I lay my eyes on and then scan my surroundings for other objects of the color. Surprisingly, if I go around a few more times, each time I discover more and more! Clearly, I have a long way to go to get my observation skills up to speed.

"Conscious Creativity" is beautifully illustrated book with color photographs and could serve as a coffee table book (if it was not published as the paperback). And some of the photos were clearly taken with an iPhone, showing you that you do not need any special tools to do the assignments in the book, just set out to follow the instruction.

"Conscious Creativity" is simply a great gift ideas for a creative (or aspiring to be a creative) person in your life.

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from NetGalley. The links in this post contain affiliate code.

“Your Year in Art” by Chelsea Ward

Your Year in Art: A project for every week of the year to overcome blank-page anxiety and inspire creative exploration Book Cover Your Year in Art: A project for every week of the year to overcome blank-page anxiety and inspire creative exploration
Chelsea Ward
Arts, Crafts & Hobbies
Walter Foster Publishing
November 27, 2018
paperback
112 pages


"Your Year in Art: A project for every week of the year to overcome blank-page anxiety and inspire creative exploration" by Chelsea Ward has a broad title, but really is focused just on drawing techniques. Which is not at all a bad thing! The book has a very short list of art supplies, making it easily accessible for everybody to get started.

While "Your Year in Art was primarily designed as inspiration, providing weekly prompts and ideas, you do not need to be an expert in drawing to get going. In fact, it starts really easy, with decorating words or coloring your own doodles. There are weeks devoted to getting used to drawing techniques- simplifying shapes, mixing, colors, mark making or contour drawing. Later things get more interesting, with projects like recipe illustrating and various lists. Assignments also get far more challenging later in the year, with exercises like drawing hands. There are intimidating assignments that make you draw outside your house, in public spaces or fun, like making a map - it really is a mixture of easy and challenging from week to week. To purpose- to keep you drawing, systematically and for simple pleasure.

"Your Year in Art has a very modern design and informal feel. Pages are consistently organized, with the week project idea description, assignment, and additional challenge "Try this".

I really enjoyed reading "Your Year in Art, and I plan to go back to the 52 projects often. Perhaps even finish most if not all of them, eventually. So let me go and but my watercolor pen brushes now...

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from NetGalley. The links in this post contain affiliate code.

Nature Art Workshop: Tips, techniques, and step-by-step projects for creating nature-inspired art

Nature Art Workshop: Tips, techniques, and step-by-step projects for creating nature-inspired art Book Cover Nature Art Workshop: Tips, techniques, and step-by-step projects for creating nature-inspired art
by Katie Brooks, Sarah Lorraine Edwards, Allison Hetzell, Mikko Sumulong
Arts, Crafts & Hobbies
Walter Foster Publishing
September 18, 2018
paperback
128

I spend a lot of time outdoors - it is my favorite way of relaxing. I simply go for a walk, perhaps take my camera and do some photography on my way. When I picked up "Nature Art Workshop", I got excited about a possibility of finding another creative outlet relating to my time outdoors, allowing me to preserve some of my experiences for the days when the weather or other activities keep me indoors.

The projects in "Nature Art Workshop" are of great variety. They are either based on collected items: stones, feathers, petals etc. or are only nature-inspired. Or are a combination of both. They vary in their difficulty. Some consist of simply arranging objects like shells or flowers, on the surface to create a display or a unique centerpiece. More elaborate involve painting on small surfaces like shells or wood slices. Although the step-by-step instruction allows following almost as paint-by-the-numbers.

Although wood carving is a more elaborate technique and not broadly known, the related projects take the disproportional amount of space in the book. The technique, tools, and other materials are described in detail. It caused a few of other projects not make it into the final book- but no worries, they can be downloaded separately, for free, on the book website.

The one thing I found missing from the book was some kind of Resources section. I could use a list of numerous art supplies used in proposed projects, like brushes, palettes, paint (what kind of paint? is there only one kind?). For beginners, who do not have the most basic art supplies at home, going to the art store can be a daunting and discouraging task. Another thing I found useful in similar books was a template section, allowing the more involved shapes to be copied, preferably at the correct scale. After all, not everybody can sketch even such a simple thing as a bunch of herbs.

While I can not wait for spring flowers to try some of the easy projects in "Nature Art Workshop", I am excited that I was reminded of simple roses made of colorful fallen leaves. I suppose many people are familiar with this one from their Social Media streams. I still cannot wait to do it again this year, following the steps in the book. Perhaps I will do another project with remaining leaves?

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from NetGalley. The links in this post contain affiliate code.

“Capture the moment” by Sarah Wilkerson

“Capture the moment” Book Cover “Capture the moment”
Sarah Wilkerson
photography
Amphoto Books
April 7, 2015
hardcover
256

I was browsing mindlessly for another book to read. Nothing was appealing, and nothing was coming up with “photography” as a keyword. Until the cover image caught my eye and I decided to take a closer look at the “Capture the moment”. I read the short description and I was hooked.

I knew I made the right choice when the book arrived at my doorsteps. “Capture the Moment: The Modern Photographer’s Guide to Finding Beauty in Everyday and Family Life” is beautifully published book. Slightly larger than your typical novel, the black and white picture on hardcover adds to fine art feel, heavy and elegant. The good quality paper gives justice to amazing imagery, many double page spreads (see example spreads in the post – click on each to see larger version). This is how I interacted with the book at first, just picking it up here and there and browsing through images, like you would with a coffee table book.

The book, however, was not meant to be a coffee table book, at least not as the only purpose. It is also a basic photography handbook, explaining some basic concepts of photographing the world around you. However, “Capture the moment” is not filled with large blocks of text. Now, the teaching is done by the very short paragraphs, which can be read when you have a minute or two in your busy day. There is an informative phrase, like a bullet point, followed by a few sentences of explanation and an example image. That’s it. Learning photography in small bites. The tips are organized into following chapters: Natural Light, Composition, Storytelling, Fine art, Black and white, Low light. Each chapter ends with a number of creative exercises, to make reader pick up the camera and go out to explore the world, photographically.

This is not the book you want to pick up when you are beginning photographer and what to learn technical side of using your first DSLR. This is just not the focus of “Capture the moment”. This particular book is about creativity and finding subjects to photograph around you, in everyday life. I find it its strength, since there is plenty of technical manuals on the market.

And just to shortly mention – all the amazing imagery in the “Capture the moment”are of female photographers, part of the group “Clickin Moms“. Their vibrant community is worth checking out.

This review is re-posted from my photography blog, where it was first published on May 19, 2015.

I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Blogging for books. The links in this post may contain affiliate codes.

“Daily painting” by Carol Marine

Daily Painting Book Cover Daily Painting
Carol Marine
art
Watson-Guptill
November 4, 2014
trade paperback
192

 

I am a photographer, not a painter. I grabbed the book as the idea of creating daily art and selling it online appealed to me. I wondered what lessons will be more general that I can use them, too.

"Daily painting" by Carol Marine is a very hard to classify book. It is a very comprehensive guide - technical, business and inspiration. It explains the concept and advantage of daily painting. Then it goes on to basics of painting - sketching, measuring, mixing colors, composition - all those technical details that make a huge difference in the final output. I learned a lot of tricks I wish I was taught in school when I was struggling in art classes! And some compositional tricks photographers do not talk about (and they should!).

Two chapters deserve special attention. In chapters about choosing subject and about artist's block author did not also present her perspective, but included many voices from the industry - other daily painters, with different experiences and subject matters. It adds tremendous value to the book. So do the authors own painting and countless examples of other artists' art, beautifully reproduced, many on the full page spread - on a higher quality, lightly textured paper. Just to browse through the book is a treat.

There are few business related chapters as well- where to sell, how and why to start your own blog, how to take pictures so painting looks at its best, how to edit photographs and many more!

I finished the book inspired to go back to creating photographs, and maybe even start painting.
I have received a free copy of the book for the purpose of this review from Blogging for books. The links in this post may contain affiliate codes.