Subtitled “250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain,” this book offers some tremendously fun and stimulating exercises to get you un-stuck as an artist… in minutes.

This book suggests things I’ve never seen anywhere else.  For example: Write down 20 things that smell great when they are cooking.

See?  Doesn’t that kick your senses out of the doldrums?

Or how about these:

• Go take 15 pictures of different kinds of barriers.
• Build the shell of a robot out of objects around you right now.
• Choose a song and make a children’s story out of it.

This book offers 250 fresh, exciting ways to refresh your brain and your creativity.

It’s visually inspiring, too. The presentation — a mix of fonts in a very creative book design — makes this book tremendous fun to flip through.

Ordinarily, I try to say something negative (but fair) about every book, even those I rave about. With this book… I can’t think of anything bad to say about it.

Go buy a copy and take it out when you’re stuck. It will work. I promise.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain by Stefan Mumaw and Wendy Lee Oldfield.

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Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain
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This book will stay open whether laid flat or propped up on your workstation, so that you can follow along – with the page in question open right in front of you (how many of us are driven absolutely wild with frustration when trying to follow a particular technique we haven’t tried before – only for the book to flop closed – usually right at the crucial moment!).

Each chapter leads you into a new technique which is clearly explained in language I can understand, and with absolutely loads of full-colour photographs including stepped How To’s as well as finished pieces – by herself and other artists, so that you can see each technique from a different point of view.

Although Mary is essentially a Fine Artist, this book would also serve well for anyone interested in other branches of arts and crafts, from collage, mixed media and journaling to calligraphers, altered book artists, quilters etc.

The techniques incorporate many different mediums including watercolours and acrylics, along with items you may never have thought of (eg: shelf liner, aluminium foil). Mary covers subjects such as resist (used in a way I hadn’t seen before) and creating surface texture, how to find your own personal voice and streamline and strengthen your own designs. She also deals with personal symbolism, something I had never really thought about.

Mary Todd Beam’s use of colour is truly inspirational and will definitely encourage you to work out of your “safe” colour zones. She also suggests layouts, and shows actual examples of paintings using those layouts, which is really helpful. Every style is covered, from figurative and virtual (photographic) style through to truly abstract.

Mary’s techniques also cover practical problems you might encounter: how to make realistic rocks that have weight; really wet water; rough, grainy sedimentation; a leafy, loamy forest floor – not just in colours of paint but also in use of texture so that you really FEEL your subject (quilters and embroiderers especially will love this).

I highly recommend this book, and hand on heart I think anyone would gain a tremendous amount of information from it. It is true eye candy from a deservedly highly successful artist, who not only talks the talk but walks the walk. An essential for any artist’s book shelf.

Summary

• Each section very clearly explained and easy to follow
• Tons of full colour step-by-step photographs
• Truly inspirational use of colour
• I really felt encouraged to try these projects

Learn more about Celebrate Your Creative Self

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Celebrate Your Creative Self
Price: USD 19.79

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When I read the title of this book, No More Secondhand Art, I knew I had to own it. Until Mr. London phrase it that way, I had never thought of other people’s art work in and prints as “secondhand. ”

It’s not that he’s discouraging you from buying other people’s art. It’s important to own art, but is just as important–and perhaps more so–to create your own.

The back cover of this book says, “This book is about using art as an instrument of personal transformation, enabling us to move from an inherited to a chosen state of being.”

Frankly, if you don’t like self-help books, you won’t like this one. It includes a variety of exercises to enhance your ability to visualize, and to overcome obstacles that prevent you from creating authentic art.

From making masks, to painting with “forbidden” and dangerous colors, to discovering meaning in found objects, this book is an adventure.

If you are stuck as an artist or aren’t creating art that makes you sing in the shower, this book may be exactly what you need.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

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No More Secondhand Art
Price: USD 11.21

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