Creative Edge: Exercises To Celebrate Your Creative Self

You'll Love This Mixed Media Painting Book If:

• You want to try new creative exercises
• You love learning new mixed media techniques
• You want to learn how to develop an artistic point of view

In The Creative Edge: Exercises to Celebrate Your Creative Self you'll learn how to be creative in a whole new way. Mary Todd Beam shows you more than 25 unique techniques and demos geared toward teaching you new ways to create & how to think more creatively. These creativity exercises include painting and collageing techniques and so much more.

With your new understanding of color, texture and design you'll approach your canvas like never before. This creativity book is full of projects such as creating a symbolic stamp, redesigning a painting and portraying ince-covered rocks.

In The Creative Edge: Exercises to Celebrate Your Creative Self You'll Learn:

• How to create a found object collage & more collage techniques
• How to create texture with light molding paste
• Techniques for understanding & using color

Check Out This Excerp From The Creative Edge: Exercises to Celebrate Your Creative Self

Cop an attitude:Make relaxation your goal. Avoid thinking that the white of the surface presents a precious commoditiy that can be ruined. Make the frist strokes energetic and convince yourself that you can always definte and tighten up later.

Challenge old techniques: One of my early teachers, Home Hacker, made his class use a 3-inch (76mm) brush to paint a 12" x 14" (30cm x 36cm) painting. This taught me to handle the brush in an expert fashion, breaking old patterns of stilted brushwork. Use larger brushes in the beginning of the painting and use small ones to delineate details. Try to save drawing for the very last touches.

Take advantage of the medium: Infuse your work with more of your personality and energy by using more paint and water. So often a good idea is lost of becomes weak with the stingy use of the medium.

Discover new surfaces: Have you tried all the papers and other types of surfaces on the market? Go on a hunting trip through your supply source and test different surfaces. Try texturing layers of gesso on your surface before you paint. This will pull unexpected ideas from your mind that could bring surprising results. Use gel medium in a similar manner to get your creative juices flowing.

Take an inward look: Sometimes the subject matter becomes a stumbling block to our creativity. You can free yourself from slavishly sticking to the subject by putting your reference material away and using the numerous images you have stored in your memory instead. This often produces amazing results.

A Word From the Author:

"I believe that artists are the visionaries of this world. They help us see and interpret this amazing experience of life. We spend our lifetimes struggling to do that special masterpiece and don't realize that WE are the masterpiece. Your paintings are your shadow. I value you, my dear fellow artists. I know you can bring us a better vision of this world.

In this book, I've included the work of artists who, in my opinion, are masters or masters in the making. It's hard to tell the difference. I hope you'll be as inspired by them as I am. I've also shown you new ways to become totally involved in the painting process, ways to interpret your own life and see the world in a new way. My goal to give you a few tools to help your artistic voice speak loudly and clearly." — Mary Todd Beam

What Other Artist's Are Saying:

"This book is outstanding. I am a fiber artist, not a painter of wall art but I found that all of the exercises and techniques in this book are easily adaptable to my type of work. I haven't put this book down since I got it and it's really pushed me to do more experimenting with different types of mediums and tools for applying color to cloth. It's a spiral bound book so it lays flat when opened and it's filled with page after page of beautiful photos of the processes and the finished works. If you're looking for a way to jump start your creative muse buy this book, you won't be dissapointed." — Sue Bleiweiss

"What a marvelous and idea filled book, one of the best art books I have ever seen. Am blown away by look, feel, quality, and content of this wonderful book." — Vera Dennen

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