I grew up in a family of artists and then went to art school, so I have been thinking visually my entire life. I have always collected random, inspiring books with both words and images. I love being able to pick up a book and read a chapter at a time or flip through it for visual inspiration. I keep some of my favorite books at my bedside just because they give me comfort. There are so many more books I could recommend in the category I have chosen!
I wrote
Draw Your World: How to Sketch and Paint Your Remarkable Life
I love this book for many reasons, but the first is that you can pick it up and open to any page to find inspiration. It is full of motivation and provides clarity to the roller coaster that is the creative process.
Rick Rubin has a way with words, and with just a few, he can get you to make your art, music, writing, etc, and enjoy the process.
From the legendary music producer, a master at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book many years in the making that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us.
"A gorgeous and inspiring work of art on creation, creativity, the work of the artist. It will gladden the hearts of writers and artists everywhere, and get them working again with a new sense of meaning and direction. A stunning accomplishment.” —Anne Lamott
“I set out to write a book about what to do to make a…
I love that at any moment, you can pick it up and flip through it to mix and match ideas so that you always have a reason and content for creating. Choose a color combination, a subject, and a medium at random, and off you go.
A unique mix-and-match book that generates thousands of ideas for tackling a blank sketchbook page
Designed to kickstart creativity for artists and hobbyists, the pages of this book are divided into three separate sections that can be flipped, mixed, and matched to generate more than 100,000 unique sketchbook prompts! Jennifer Orkin Lewis, author of Draw Every Day, Draw Every Way and 100 Days of Drawing, has gained a dedicated following on Instagram by posting her daily sketches. The Sketchbook Idea Generator begins with an introductory section, in which Jennifer provides examples of her work as well as insight into her…
If you are interested in the history and stories behind the colors that we see daily, this book is for you.
I loved discovering that gold is the color of desire, when and how shades of blue were first discovered, and what is mixed to create blue pigment. Modern stories of punk rock pink, to the first colors painted on the walls of caves.
It is a fascinating read that you can pick up whenever you are curious about the colors in your world.
One of USA Today's "100 Books to Read While Stuck at Home During the Coronavirus Crisis"
A dazzling gift, the unforgettable, unknown history of colors and the vivid stories behind them in a beautiful multi-colored volume.
"Beautifully written . . . Full of anecdotes and fascinating research, this elegant compendium has all the answers." -NPR, Best Books of 2017
The Secret Lives of Color tells the unusual stories of seventy-five fascinating shades, dyes, and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to…
Be sure not to let the title deceive you, though. It is useful for artists at all levels because it is a place to refresh basic skills. To see in a very clear way how to draw a man standing is super helpful no matter where you are in your art practice.
If you aim to draw fantastical caricatures or very realistically, this book breaks it all down for you so that you can hit the ground running in your own personal style.
This inspiring book makes drawing in a realistic style easier than you may think and more fun than you ever imagined!
Authors Mark and Mary Willenbrink (Watercolor for the Absolute Beginner) cover it all-from choosing materials and the correct way to hold your pencil, to expert advice on the tricky stuff, like getting proportions and perspective right, drawing reflections, and designing strong compositions. (It's not as scary as it sounds...not with Mark and Mary as your guide!)
At the heart of this book, a series of fun, hands-on exercises help you practice and perfect your strokes-24 mini-demos lead up to…
Like Kleon, I believe that everything has been done before, and it is not a matter of always coming up with a new idea but interpreting and recreating old ideas in your own unique way. Once we take the pressure away from the “big idea,” then we can work on doing what we love and adding a personal flair.
I love the way Kleon writes and speaks to people of all ages. My son listened to his viral talk and read his book in his freshman class on speaking about ideas.
When asked to talk to students at Broome Community College in upstate New York in the spring of 2011, Austin Kleon wrote a simple list often things he wished he'd heard when he was their age: 'Steal like an artist; Don't wait until you know who you are to start making things; Write the book you want to read; Use your hands; Side projects are important; Do good work and put it where people can see it; Geography is no longer our master; Be nice (the world is a small town.); Be boring (it's the only way to get work…
In this book, Samantha Dion Baker gives you everything you need to begin a new art practice or enliven an existing one. She shares her favorite tools and materials, simple technical lessons such as composition, shadows and light, symmetry, and perspective, plus fun, motivational exercises like drawing from memory, urban sketching, travel journaling, and experimental art.
With helpful step-by-steps and stunning visual examples from Baker's own work, it will help you hone your skills and capture the details of your unique and remarkable life in a sketch journal or as finished artwork.
I come by my interest in history and the years before, during, and after the Second World War honestly. For one thing, both my father and my father-in-law served as pilots in the war, my father a P-38 pilot in North Africa and my father-in-law a B-17 bomber pilot in England. Their histories connect me with a period I think we can still almost reach with our fingertips and one that has had a momentous impact on our lives today. I have taken that interest and passion to discover and write true life stories of the war—focusing on the untold and unheard stories often of the “Average Joe.”
October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on any other single day of the war.
The narrative of No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident while focusing its attention on ordinary individuals—clerks, radio operators, cooks, sailors, machinist mates, riflemen, and pilots and their air crews. All were men who chose to serve their country and soon found themselves in a terrifying and otherworldly place.
No Average Day reveals the vastness of the war as it reaches past the beaches in…
October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, or on June 6, 1944, when the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, or on any other single day of the war. In its telling of the events of October 24, No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident. The book begins with Army Private First-Class Paul Miller's pre-dawn demise in the Sendai #6B Japanese prisoner of war camp. It concludes with the death…
