Staff Picks
Reality Break: Get Creative Edition
- Morgan R.
- Friday, March 27, 2020
Collection
Stuck at home? Starting to go a little stir-crazy? Why not use this time to learn a new skill like how to repair a flat bicycle tire, or get lost in a new-found hobby like paint pouring? Take a moment for some self-care action by making your own sugar scrub, or declutter your space so you can focus on what's important. Check out this small sampling to get those creative juices flowing, break out of the Netflix binge, (maybe change out of your pajamas?) and let yourself experience something new!
The Complete Beginner's Guide to Drawing
More Than 200 Drawing Techniques, Tips & Lessons
Published in 2015
With helpful tips and easy to follow step-by-step lessons, The Complete Beginner's Guide to Drawing is the perfect resource for artists looking to hone their drawing style and technique. The Complete Beginner's Guide to Drawing is a comprehensive guide to drawing a vast array of subjects, from landscapes and flowers to animals and portraits. This helpful resource begins with a thorough introduction to the essential tools and materials artists need to get started, including different types of pencils, sketchbooks, papers, and other tools. Additionally, artists will learn the fundamentals of drawing, as well as a variety of drawing techniques, including rendering realistic textures, creating volume, and capturing perspective. The Complete Beginner's Guide to Drawing guides beginning and intermediate artists through a series of easy-to-follow, step-by-step projects covering a variety of subject matter. With helpful tips and beautiful artwork to inspire, The Complete Beginner's Guide to Drawing is the perfect resource for artists looking to hone their drawing style and technique.
Creative Pep Talk
Inspiration from 50 Artists
Published in 2017
Every artist needs a little pep talk now and then. An inspiring tool and beautiful art book in one, Creative Pep Talk offers illustrated words of wisdom from 50 of today's leading creative professionals. With full-color, typographic prints and explanatory statements from a host of creative luminaries-including Aaron James Draplin, Oliver Jeffers, Lisa Congdon, Mike Perry, and many others-this volume encourages artists to stay excited, experiment boldly, and conquer fear. "Create curiosity," "Learn to say no," and "If you can't be good, be different" are just a few of the motivational maxims in this visually rich collection that's perfect for students, designers, artists, and creatives at any stage in their careers.
The Kaufmann Mercantile Guide
How to Split Wood, Shuck an Oyster, and Master Other Simple Pleasures
Published in 2015
Modern living isn't easy. It often seems to require some know-how our parents didn't pass on, or a special tool. Happily, Kaufmann Mercantile has both, and in this comprehensive field guide, they share their expertise on a huge range of topics, from frying an egg, tying a tie, or brewing coffee to things the inner utilitarian in all of us aspires to do, like splitting wood, building a fire, growing our own food, or making our own soap. Fifty how-tos are organized into five sections: Kitchen, Outdoors, Home, Garden, and Grooming. Written in clear detail and extensively illustrated, The Kaufmann Mercantile Guide teaches us what we ought to know how to do, as well as what we'd like to. Supplemental sidebars feature the best tool for the job, whether a dibber for planting, the best rawhideand- ash snowshoes, or flammable smoking bags for making authentic BBQ. This book is a must-have reference tool for living well in the twenty-first century.
The More or Less Definitive Guide to Self-care
Published in 2019
From a top mental health writer most recently at Buzzfeed, the go-to guide for self-care-from aromatherapy to finding a therapist to catching some zzz's, and everything in between.
One Painting a Day
A 6-week Course in Observational Painting--creating Extraordinary Paintings from Every Day Experiences
Published in 2013
"One Painting A Day offers you an inspiring six-week course exploring the timeless traditions of observational painting through daily experience and routine. This motivational guide is broken up into three parts to focus on the three major traditions of observational painting: still life, landscape, and portraiture. Each of the 42 daily exercises launches a small, immediate, and responsive painting based on a theme drawn from your daily experience. You will find suggestions on technique, approach, and materials for each day, while the "weekly lessons" explore a format or a rhythm for creating content, inspiring you to make the ordinary extraordinary as you create from every day experience. This beautiful collection of contemporary paintings serves as a workbook of ideas for aspiring artists, art students, professional designers, and art lovers alike"-- Provided by publisher.
Joyful
Published in 2018
Designer and TED star Ingrid Fetell Lee presents groundbreaking research to explain how making small changes to your surroundings can create extraordinary happiness in your life. Have you ever wondered why we stop to watch the orange glow that arrives before sunset, or why we flock to see cherry blossoms bloom in spring? Is there a reason that people — regardless of gender, age, culture, or ethnicity — are mesmerized by baby animals, and can't help but smile when they see a burst of confetti or a cluster of colorful balloons. We are often made to feel that the physical world has little or no impact on our inner joy. Increasingly, experts urge us to find balance and calm by looking inward — through mindfulness or meditation — and muting the outside world. But what if the natural vibrancy of our surroundings is actually our most renewable and easily accessible source of joy? In Joyful , designer Ingrid Fetell Lee explores how the seemingly mundane spaces and objects we interact with every day have surprising and powerful effects on our mood. Drawing on insights from neuroscience and psychology, she explains why one setting makes us feel anxious or competitive, while another fosters acceptance and delight — and, most importantly, she reveals how we can harness the power of our surroundings to live fuller, healthier, and truly joyful lives.
Handmade Garden Projects Step-by-Step Instructions for Creative Garden Features, Containers, Lighting & More
Published in 2012
You can transform your garden into a handmade, personality-infused oasis. Author Lorene Edwards Forkner — part eco-friendly non-traditionalist, part crafty creative — will show you how. Projects run the gamut from eye-catching structures, like a pergola made from plumbing pipes, to imaginative details, like a tree-hung chandelier for nighttime ambiance. You'll also find helpful plant guides to accompany projects: delectable herbs to fill a stacking container tower, stellar succulents for a vertical gutter garden, glorious flowering vines to climb a bamboo obelisk, and so much more. Ready to get started? All you need are refreshingly simple, inexpensive materials — hardware store basics, salvaged goods, repurposed castoffs from cluttered basements — along with a little do-it-yourself spirit. With clear instructions and inspiring variations on every theme, this book is easy to follow and easy to love. Your journey to a made-from-scratch outdoor space starts here.
Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner, Revised 15th Anniversary Edition
Published in 2018
-- Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner applies a positive, accepting tone to a progressive series of lessons in sketching and rendering. The book's step-by-step methodology and examples of student works from earliest efforts to completed drawings give novices the tools and techniques needed to make competent and eloquent renderings of still lifes, portraits, and more. In this revised edition, Garcia covers such in-demand subject matter as drawing-on-the-go, drawing in three dimensions, and drawing the portrait at a three-quarter view. The reinvigorated art and text ensure that this drawing instruction classic will continue to appeal to new generations of aspiring artists.
One Drawing a Day
A 6-week Course Exploring Creativity with Illustration and Mixed Media
Published in 2011
Through 46 daily exercises which make up a complete 6-week course, you will keep your artistic skills sharp and your imaginations fertile by doing One Drawing A Day. Each spread in the book features a beautiful drawing by one of 8 professional illustrators, with a description and comments by the illustrator as well as a companion exercise. Each exercise includes suggestions for various mediums or mixed-media solutions, advice on how to approach and execute the drawing, as well as professional tips. The book also includes exercises designed to spark new ideas and increase creativity.
My Creative Space
How to Design Your Home to Stimulate Ideas and Spark Innovation
Published in 2019
48 Techniques to Boost Your Creativity at Home, According to Science A great deal of psychological and productivity research has gone into discovering how the design of the physical environment can improve creative performance, yet nearly all of it has focused on the workplace, commercial spaces, and schools. What has been largely overlooked is the one place we spend more time in than anywhere else and where more people than ever are now working: the home. My Creative Space shows how readers can boost their creative output by applying science-backed techniques to the design and decoration of their home regardless of size, type, style, or location. With over 200 stunning color photographs of creative spaces, including many designed by top architects and interior decorators, this lavishly produced book will inspire readers while offering practical and specific ways to transform your own home into a creative haven. Readers will: - Learn practical techniques to shape a home for peak idea generation - Acquire insights into how everyday activities at home can boost creative performance at work, play, and school - Discover hands-on household products designed to foster creative skills - Gain a new understanding of the meaning and psychology of creativity Read about the best lighting to foster a creative environment, how to use walls to capture ideas, why round shapes spur greater creativity than straight lines, the benefits of incorporating nature into your surroundings, and more. Whether you're an artist, design professional, writer, entrepreneur, work in a creative industry, or pursue a personal passion for pleasure, this book is an invaluable guide for turning living space into creative space.
Outer Order, Inner Calm Declutter and Organize to Make More Room for Happiness
Published in 2019
For most of us, outer order contributes to inner calm. And for most of us, a rigid, one-size-fits-all solution doesn't work. The fact is, when we tailor our approach to suit our own particular challenges and habits, we're then able to create the order that will make our lives happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. Gretchen Rubin has found that getting control of our stuff With a sense of fun, and a clear idea of what's realistic for most people, Gretchen Rubin suggests dozens of manageable steps for creating a more serene, orderly environment—one that helps us to create the lives we want.
Make Yourself at Home
Published in 2017
From the author of the hit journals The 52 Lists Project and 52 Lists for Happiness, comes a home design book that helps you discover how to style your home for a deeper sense of comfort. Part self-help, part memoir, part décor inspiration, fans of Moorea Seal will love this book for its warm voice and candid exploration of what it means to create a comfortable home. Organized room by room, each chapter delves into what each room represents in our lives, and how we can feel at home in our spaces and at home in ourselves. What you won't find? Strict design solutions. This isn't about a prescribed style. Instead, Make Yourself at Home will help you find which expression feels most authentic to you through color palates, interior design modes, conversation prompts, essays, approachable DIY projects and more. You don't have to have the perfect life or perfect home in order to infuse your space with your signature spark and feel relaxed in your space. Each chapter includes: · A personal essay from online curator and style maven Moorea Seal. · Exclusive looks into her home and office spaces with tips for inspired, mindful living. · Two on-trend, beginner-friendly DIY projects to personalize and decorate your home on a budget. · Intimate looks into the homes and inspiring lives of a diverse set of creative women, with their best tips and tricks for comfortable, imaginative decor.
Origami A Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Making Animals, Flowers, Planes, Boats, and More
Published in 2012
From playful animals to delicate flowers and fun paper airplanes, this origami guide has projects that will delight both children and adults. With words, illustrations, and more than 300 photographs, even the most complicated of folds and manipulations are made simple by this book’s easy-to-follow instructions. Master Norio Torimoto takes the mystery out of the art of paper folding by teaching readers the proper mindset behind the art and the basic formations that are the foundation for all his projects.
The Quick & Easy Home DIY Manual
Published in 2016
For the first time homeowner and the venerable household-handyman, there is no better resource than this ultimate DIY manual. Learn how to prepare for unwelcome surprises as well as how to handle them when they inevitably happen. With high-quality design, intricate detail, and a durable flexicover-this manual is the perfect gift!
Expressive Flower Painting
Simple Mixed-media Techniques for Bold, Beautiful Blooms
Published in 2017