Peter London offers inspiration and fresh ideas to artists, art students, and art teachers—as well as to people who think they can't draw a straight line but want to explore the joys of creative expression. Inside every person, he believes, there is an original, creative self that has been covered over by secondhand ideas, borrowed beliefs, and conditioned behavior. By freeing the capacity for visual expression—a natural human language possessed by everyone—we can awaken and release the full powers of that original self. Among the topics and exercises included are:    •  How to increase the ability to visualize, fantasize, and dream    •  Obstacles to the creative encounter and what to do about them    •  Experimenting with art media as true mediators between imagination and expression    •  Making masks to reveal the hidden self    •  Painting with "forbidden" colors    •  Arranging found objects as metaphors for one's life

    Expressing yourself creatively--through drawing, painting, sculpture, photography--allows you to tap into a source of inner wisdom that provides guidance, soothes emotional pain, and revitalizes your being.The Soul's Palette reveals art's transformative powers. Exercises include working with materials for drawing, painting, sculpting, and collage; simple drawing and journal projects; self-guided meditations and affirmations; ideas for cultivating intuition, inspiration, and spontaneity; exploring personal symbols; and making art a spiritual practice.

    An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today—or perhaps even more so—than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work. In a new introduction to the book, Julia Cameron reflects upon the impact of The Artist’s Way and describes the work she has done during the last decade and the new insights into the creative process that she has gained. Updated and expanded, this anniversary edition reframes The Artist’s Way for a new century.

    It is about where art in the widest sense comes from. It is about why we create and what we learn when we do. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms. Free Play is directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own creative powers. It integrates material from a wide variety of sources among the arts, sciences, and spiritual traditions of humanity. Filled with unusual quotes, amusing and illuminating anecdotes, and original metaphors, it reveals how inspiration arises within us, how that inspiration may be blocked, derailed or obscured by certain unavoidable facts of life, and how finally it can be liberated - how we can be liberated - to speak or sing, write or paint, dance or play, with our own authentic voice. The whole enterprise of improvisation in life and art, of recovering free play and awakening creativity, is about being true to ourselves and our visions. It brings us into direct, active contact with boundless creative energies that we may not even know we had.

    Keep Playing. Keep Creating. In his previous books Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work!, both New York Times bestsellers, Austin Kleon gave readers the keys to unlock their creativity and showed them how to become known. Now he offers his most inspiring work yet, with ten simple rules for how to stay creative, focused, and true to yourself—for life. The creative life is not a linear journey to a finish line, it’s a loop—so find a daily routine, because today is the only day that matters. Disconnect from the world to connect with yourself—sometimes you just have to switch into airplane mode. Keep Going celebrates getting outdoors and taking a walk (as director Ingmar Bergman told his daughter, ”The demons hate fresh air”). Pay attention, and especially pay attention to what you pay attention to. Worry less about getting things done, and more about the worth of what you’re doing. Instead of focusing on making your mark, work to leave things better than you found them.Keep Going and its timeless, practical, and ethical principles are for anyone trying to sustain a meaningful and productive life.

    It has fast become the slow way to manage the modern world - without chanting mantras or finding hours of special time to meditate.Bring these simple 5- and 10-minute practices into your day to find freedom from stress and ultimately, more peace in your life.

    In this book, Shaun McNiff, a leader in expressive arts therapy for more than three decades, reflects on a wide spectrum of activities aimed at reviving art's traditional healing function. In chapters ranging from "Liberating Creativity" and "The Practice of Creativity in the Workplace" to "From Shamanism to Art Therapy," he illuminates some of the most progressive views in the rapidly expanding field of art therapy:    •  The "practice of imagination" as a powerful force for transformation    •  A challenge to literal-minded psychological interpretations of artworks ("black colors indicate depression") and the principle that even disturbing images have inherent healing properties    •  The role of the therapist in promoting an environment conducive to free expression and therapeutic energies    •  The healing effects of group work, with people creating alongside one another and interacting in the studio    •  "Total expression," combining arts such as movement, storytelling, and drumming with painting and drawing

    Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart. After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people; essentially-statistically speaking-there aren't any people like that. Geniuses get made once-a-century or so, yet good art gets made all the time, so to equate the making of art with the workings of genius removes this intimately human activity to a strangely unreachable and unknowable place. For all practical purposes making art can be examined in great detail without ever getting entangled in the very remote problems of genius."--from the Introduction

    It's a little bit like reading my diary -- with permission. Succulence is powerFull! and so are we as women.

    

    But so may the thought of finishing, showing, or even selling their work. It is in this "artistic anxiety" that creative blocks begin.With an understanding that could only be gained through years of experience in counseling artists, writers, and performers, Eric Maisel, Ph.D. discusses each stage of creation-wishing, choosing, starting, working, completing, selling--and the anxieties particular to each. He then shows how these inhibiting tensions can be turned to artistic advantages, how truth and beauty arrive in the work of art precisely because, and only when, anxiety has been understood, embraced, and resolved.Fearless Creating guides the reader, whether an experienced artist or someone just starting out, past the pitfalls that appear in each stage of the process. By following Dr. Maisel's exercises related both to the world at hand and the ongoing struggles of artistic life, readers will emerge from this book with a completed work of art and a new perspective on their potential to be a fearless creator.

    This volume uses knitting as a metaphor to discuss the unity of all life and the spirituality involved in all endeavours carried out with mindfulness.

    Take time to create. Take time to reflect, take time to let go. A book that’s unique in the way it mixes reading and doing, A Book That Takes Its Time is like a mindfulness retreat between two covers. Created in partnership with Flow, the groundbreaking international magazine that celebrates creativity, beautiful illustration, a love of paper, and life’s little pleasures, A Book That Takes Its Time mixes articles, inspiring quotes, and what the editors call “goodies”—bound-in cards, mini-journals, stickers, posters, blank papers for collaging, and more—giving it a distinctly handcrafted, collectible feeling. Read about the benefits of not multitasking, then turn to “The Joy of One Thing at a Time Notebook” tucked into the pages. After a short piece on the power of slowing down, fill in the designed notecards for a Beautiful Moments jar. Make a personal timeline. Learn the art of hand-lettering. Dig into your Beginner’s Mind. Embrace the art of quitting. Take the writing cure. And always smile. Move slowly and with intention through A Book That Takes Its Time, and discover that sweet place where life can be both thoughtful and playful.

    For author Flora Bowley, making art and expressing herself creatively have always served as potent forms of personal evolution and holistic healing. Creative Revolution is the reader's key to unlocking the door to their own personal journey while making beautiful art.Creative Revolution is the culmination of Flora's life's work as an artist, offering guidance for others to embrace their authentic selves through paint. She has taught more than sixty workshops since she wrote her first book, Brave Intuitive Painting, and has witnessed miraculous things when people engage with the intuitive painting process. Creative Revolution is the next best thing to taking a course from Flora. Many readers and students can't help but exclaim, "This was about so much more than painting!" After reading Creative Revolution, readers will have a deeper connection to their intuition, increased confidence to make bolder choices, freedom to let go and explore various options, an understanding that everything is transformable, the trust that it will all work out in the end, and a renewed sense that creating can be fun and playful. All of this powerful transformation begins with paint. Flora has been writing and reflecting on these transformational aspects of the creative process for years. Creative Revolution is an insightful and practical guide for realizing the transformational power of fully embracing your creativity.

    He died 37 days later. The timeframe made an impression on her. What emerged was a commitment to ask herself every morning: What would I be doing today if I had only 37 days left to live? The answers changed her life and led to this new kind of book. Part meditation, part how-to guide, part memoir, Life is a Verb is all heart.Within these pages, Digh identifies six core practices to jump-start a meaningful life: Say Yes, Trust Yourself, Slow Down, Be Generous, Speak Up, and Love More. Within this framework she supplies 37 edgy, funny, and literary life stories, each followed by a 'do it now' 10-minute exercise as well as a practice to try for 37 days - and perhaps the rest of your life.