I recently discovered the book, The New Creative Artist, by Nita Leland. She calls it a “Guide to Developing Your Creative Spirit”. I have read other book by Nita Leland in the past and have found her to be very insightful and generally spurns me on creatively, but she has outdone herself with THIS book! It is chock full of inspiration.
There is an activity to stretch your creativity for nearly every day and the book explores many mediums and new ways to use each one. Many of the exercises use everyday things you may have around the house and is easily adaptable to helping change up your lesson plans or personally trying a new technique.
In the book, Nita Leland discusses forms of Art and Craft (printmaking, quilting, scrapbooking, etc.), as well as Realism -vs- Abstraction. There is also a complete chapter on building your confidence as an artist. The ideas in this book help you stretch your own ideas for lesson plans, as well as your personal art experience and I think it is appropriate for artists of all ages!
The book is really well laid out and easy to read. A beautiful book! Try it! If you can’t find it at the library, Amazon or Barnes and Noble sell used books for around $14. It is a hard-back, ringed book and easy to flip through. I like the rings because it opens fully and stays open while you are following the instructions!
After a long day of creating masterpieces and cleaning up afterwards, THIS is the look of a job well done! Unfortunately, while we had a great time my hands are a little worse for wear. I am not someone who wears gloves generally (only for liquid watercolor that stains FOREVER) because I lose my “feel”. I am a very tactile person and my hands pay a price. I do like to have decent looking hands and nails though … (-:
CreARTive Sparks & Artful Thoughts 