Painting from the Inside Out: 19 Projects and Exercises to Free Your Creative Spirit

Stroud brings years of one-woman shows, awards, and published articles to this inspiring book on pushing boundaries and exploring creative expression. She provides 19 projects and exercises for loosening up, improvising paintings, and combining media. The exercises explore texture, floral design, self-portrait, and still life in a semi-abstract, semi-representational style. Stroud references philosophical traditions like Zen, but the emphasis is on freeing up one's art. Williams's Creative Utopia, on the other hand, takes the designer or illustrator much further into the realm of the creative subconscious. Williams uses yoga, aromatherapy, feng shui, meditation, and the Tibetan mandala to achieve mental clarity and creative energy. Whether these methods can work for everyone, as the author contends, is up for debate. They have certainly worked for Williams, whose art design group has won hundreds of awards. Stroud's book is highly recommended for general collections as the next logical step after Nick and Diane Meglin's Drawing from Within: Unleashing Your Creative Potential, a humorous yet meaty book for neophytes. Williams's book may be a little too mystical for those suspicious of promises of "utopia" and "total creativity." Jeanne Carbonetti's The Zen of Creative Painting: An Elegant Design for Revealing Your Muse approaches the same territory in a more earthbound fashion. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.