Tag: Creative

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The Artist Unique: Discovering Your Creative Signature Through Inspiration and Techniques

Make your mark your way!

Every artist seeks to stand apart from the crowd. But how? Let author Carmen Torbus inspire you to new creative highs in this collection of hands-on techniques and heartfelt stories from 16 artists who have worked through their own artistic struggles and stalls to emerge triumphant, with looks uniquely their own.

Whether art is new to you, or you have been at it awhile and are having trouble discovering your own style, this encouraging book will guide you to experiment with different mediums, techniques and possibilities to make a mark that is exclusively yours. Inside you’ll find: 17 of the artists’ favorite mixed-media techniques shown step by step, with suggestions for how to make them your own Beautiful finished art illustrating how individual artists use and combine these techniques in their own work Easy worksheets to help reveal your artistic skills, strengths and preferences A quick-start guide to various mediums, mark makers and creative paraphernalia Lots of tips and advice for putting yourself into your art Embrace who you are and find out what defines you as an artist. Make your art far from ordinary–become the artist UNIQUE!

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Cultivating Your Creative Life: Exercises, Activities, and Inspiration for Finding Balance, Beauty, and Success as an Artist

Cultivating Your Creative Life: Exercises, Activities, and Inspiration for Finding Balance, Beauty, and Success as an Artist is a multi-faceted book where creativity and wonder intermingle to show how to live a creative and balanced life while moving toward your goals. You’ll find ideas for keeping your creative well full, an illustrated guide to healing herbs and plants, basic yoga poses and breathing exercises, and tips for moving your artistic career forward. Alena Hennessy’s illustration style combines nature, whimsey, delicacy, and a modern sensibility; vibrant pen and ink illustrations accompany relevant quotes ofinspiration, tips, and creative journal exercises. Cultivating Your Creative Life is not only an interactive creativity guide; it is a work of art, in itself—a beautiful, collectible volume—to save and to savor, or to give as a gift to the special creative person in your life.

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The Artful Garden: Creative Inspiration for Landscape Design

“I want to put the mystery back into the heart of garden design, where it needs to be. It’s what lures you in through the gate, keeps you moving through the landscape, and fills you with excitement along the way. The sense of mystery is what turns a mere display of plants, paths, and ornaments into an adventure.”                          
—James van Sweden
 
Guided by world-renowned landscape architect James van Sweden and horticulture expert Tom Christopher, any gardener can learn the secrets of the gardener’s art and absorb the essence of inspired garden design. In their gifted hands, creating your own perfect garden, with its own alluring mysteries, turns out to be not only easy but a delight.

Whether it’s a ten-foot-square city terrace or a ten-acre expanse, the same principles apply: the intelligent use of positive and negative space, of form and scale, of light and shadow, of rough and smooth textures. Do you want a garden you can immerse yourself in? A garden you can smell and listen to as well as observe? An exuberant garden or a contemplative garden?

In this elegantly written and visually stunning book, van Sweden reveals the secrets of famous gardens around the world and encourages you to find inspiration in the arts—in painting (from America’s classic regional artists to the abstract expressionists), music (from classical to jazz), sculpture, even dance. He introduces you to famous artists who share how their art has influenced the design of their own gardens, and teaches you to think not in terms of borders and beds or even paths and meadows but of a tapestry woven from sky, trees, rocks, vines, flowers, grasses, and space.

Richly illustrated throughout with magnificent photographs, The Artful Garden both tells and shows, sharing with beginning and experienced gardeners a wealth of inspiration and practical help. “What’s my message?” van Sweden asks in conclusion. The wise answer: “Don’t squander the potential for surprise and wonder.” This beautiful book guarantees everyone who reads it a priceless store of gardening wisdom.

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The Sketchbook Challenge: Techniques, Prompts, and Inspiration for Achieving Your Creative Goals

Have you ever bought a new sketchbook, opened to the first page, and thought, “Now what do I do?” Sue Bleiweiss and the talented minds behind The Sketchbook Challenge are here to help.

Imagine a supportive community of artists sharing the innermost pages of their sketchbooks and offering you tips and techniques for overcoming creative blocks. That’s what The Sketchbook Challenge is all about, and the popular blog of the same name has already inspired thousands. Inside this book, you’ll find:
 
· Themes that will motivate you to start your sketchbook—and, more important, keep at it

· Tutorials spotlighting such mixed-media techniques as thread sketching, painted papers for collage, digital printing, and much more

· Strategies to get off the sketchbook page and start creating inspired art—whether you’re into painting, collage, fiber art, or beyond.

· In-depth profiles of artists who have taken the Sketchbook Challenge and used it as a launching pad for their own meaningful artwork

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Inspiration Sandwich: Stories to Inspire Our Creative Freedom

Sark’s first book, A CREATIVE COMPANION, has charmed all who come across it, so we were delighted when she came back to us with this collection of 43 ways to awaken your creative self—including “invite someone dangerous to tea,” “take lots of naps,” and “make friends with freedom and uncertainty.” As the author puts it, “This book is food for your soul, and a bubble bath for your spirit. It is a guide to keeping your creativity alive, and I wrote it for you. In the SARK tradition, it was written while in pajamas, and in between naps. My first job was at age four as the wake-up fairy in kindergarten. I believe in waking up creative spirits.” This colorful work also includes the complete text of her popular pieces, “CATS ARE ANGELS WITH FUR” and “DOGS ARE MIRACLES WITH PAWS.”

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Creative Writing: A Subliminal/Self-Hypnosis Program

This is the Creative Writing help you’ve been looking for. Creative Writing will give you techniques that, once learned, will allow you to write as easily and effortlessly as you read. Barrie Konicov has used these techniques in creating scripts for over 180 Subliminal Self-Hypnosis tapes. You too, can make use of these Creative Writing techniques in any area where you need to use your writing skills. How to be a creative writer? Use this CD and find out for yourself.

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The Tarot Activity Book: A Collection of Creative and Therapeutic Ideas for the Cards

Did you know that tarot cards can have a rich and varied life outside of divination? They certainly do when you combine them with expressive arts activities such as writing, making art, and crafting.

In this book, you’ll learn how mixing tarot into the creative process is a fun and powerful way to stimulate your imagination. After all, each card is itself a mini artistic masterpiece, packed with symbolism and meaning. This makes them natural tools for developing self-awareness and personal transformation.

Whether beginner or advanced, if you have an interest in tarot you will find much to enjoy in this book. The nearly 100 activities and exercises will add quite another dimension to your experience with the cards.

This book will also be useful if you are a mental health professional or art teacher who uses the expressive arts in your practice. Inside, you will discover a wealth of creative and therapeutic ideas regarding how to incorporate tarot into the work you do with clients or students.

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Create Your Own Affirmations: A Creative Visualization Kit

Creative Visualization is the art of using mental imagery and affirmation to produce positive change. Employing her proven method, Shakti Gawain teaches how to trust intuition and act on our inner truth as a means of both releasing and developing creativity in every area of life. This kit offers her dynamic tools for transformation: a supportive guidebook, a visualization journal, 25 printed affirmation cards, and 25 illustration-only cards for individually-customized affirmation cards, all packaged in an elegant portable box.

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75 Tools for Creative Thinking: A Fun Card Deck for Creative Inspiration

This creative card deck toolbox will guide the player to be creative at the different stages of any process or situation where new ideas are desired. The seventy-five tools are organized around six steps in the process: get started, look around, ask around, break it down, break free, evaluate, and select.