There are certainly a variety of tutorial books which utilize prompts and meditative exercises to facilitate creative expression. This is another such. The author and guest teachers use guided fairy tale and fantasy imagery to help the reader tap into their creativity to produce paintings and other graphics and to develop their own artistic style.
The introduction (~10% of the page content) covers the structure of the lessons, tools and supplies, some artistic philosophy, paper choices, along with instructions for getting the most out of the lessons.
Creative prompts are listed in sidebars as questions to think about before each lesson in order to get the process going: what inspires me, what techniques do I love, what scares me, what would I do differently, which color combinations speak to me, what emotions does this conjure, etc. The tutorials are well and clearly photographed and the accompanying written instructions are easy to follow.
Each of the lessons has an introduction with some history of the origin and background for the stories themselves along with a short artist's statement about intention and desired outcome for the painting. The intro is followed by process tutorials showing the creative process with explanations. The end of the lesson includes suggestions for alternative finishing and other refinements on the basic tutorial to allow for the reader's own embellishments.
The graphics are gorgeous. Illustrated in full color, the layout is both whimsical and beautiful with margin illustrations in the headers and footers of many pages. There are several different media covered including painting, collage, drawing, stamping, stenciling and more.
Although aimed at adults, this would certainly make a lovely gift along with drawing supplies, for a teen/young adult.
Four stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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