Life, Paint And Passion is a deeply involving approach to using the creative process as a tool for self-discovery. With vibrant and contagious enthusiasm, the authors liberate the reader's urge to create freely and spontaneously, as a painter or an artist in another medium, purely for the process of exploration, not for result. With eloquence and simplicity, the authors encourage the reader to journey inward toward his or her authentic self and discover the unique intuition awaiting there. It is this intuition that provides all the tools the reader needs to crumble the barrier between the innermost self and its uncensored manifestation. Through lively interviews with students, the authors explore painting as a practice that facilitates the ecstasy of unfettered expression. With simple brushes, a few dishes of paint, and this book, the reader will be able to coax the hidden self out of the heart and onto a paper. Life, Paint And Passion is the result of nearly thirty years of intensive work with the painting process. It provides powerful insights into the act of creation, a solid base for facing and transcending creative blocks, and brings fresh perceptions and healing to life.

Artist and founder of The Painting School Sara Woster invites readers into the vibrant world of painting as a creative practice powerful enough to transform our lives. Sara Woster is a painter, teacher, and art evangelist. She believes in art as a form of mindfulness, a ritual for healing, and an outlet for self-expression. In Painting Can Save Your Life, Woster welcomes readers into this transformative art form, inviting them to pick up a brush and discover how painting can help you see the world in a whole new way. Weaving soup-to-nuts instruction on how to paint—from choosing the right materials to painting the human body—with her own story of discovering a passion for painting, this book includes: simple and easy techniques for painters of all skill levels playful and challenging painting exercises tips on how to build a creative community using art insights on how to use painting to cultivate a sense of calm in a stressful world Part how-to-paint, part sheer inspiration, Painting Can Save Your Life is a wise and inspiring guide to the power of painting.

A Passion for Painting aptly describes Roger Dale Brown and his life-long fervor for artistic excellence. Evan a casual visit to his studio will unveil his dedication and commitment for painting. Eye-opening massive landscapes stand on his easel and adorn the walls, waiting for transit to eager gallery owners and collectors from Maine to Montana. Looking around, the viewer is drawn not so much by the detail as by the subtleness of design and colors on canvas.These pages are embellished with over 200 images from the brush of one of America's premier landscape artist - Roger Dale Brown. Although his Southern heritage emerges throughout this book, he equally embraces the culture and ambience from other places, then interprets the scene with his signature mixture of oil paint. No matter where the book is opened, the journey through script and illustration are alluring. "The artist's ultimate aim should be to evoke the mood of a strand of time" Roger reflects. "I use the scene as a platform to create from, instead of being literal to it. God mad us creative. If we are being literal to a scene and do not interpret with our own voice, we are depriving ourselves of using the talent given to us to its greatest capability."Follow Roger as he travels through like, exploring regions of this country and abroad. The paintings he renders are tributes to his craftsmanship, an artistic voice that is clearly A Passion For Painting.

Bursting with superb photography and exquisite room drawings, a sumptuous showcase of interior decorating ideas and trendsetting design details that add rich character to any home, by one of America's brightest decorators. Full-color photographs and drawings throughout

A small book with a big message. Painting, Passion and the Art of Life is an inspirational, artistic journey that will change the way you think and feel about your own gifts, your purpose and your impact on the world around you. These meditations on painting and drawing contain universal messages on work, love and life. Readers don't have to be artists to connect with this moving collection of personal stories; we all have our own unique gifts to share. Clear, inspiring, and short, the book is divided into 5 parts -- each section covering an aspect of the gift of creativity. Organized into concise segments (some only a paragraph or a few, impactful sentences long) this book is also filled with imaginative and quirky illustrations taken directly from the author's sketchbooks. Bledsoe devotes much of Painting, Passion and the Art of Life to God, spirituality and the pursuit of higher meaning. It encourages the use of our talents for a purpose beyond the commercial value of our gifts. Painting, Passion and the Art of Life gives creative people of all ages the motivation and enthusiasm to cultivate their gifts, share their talents, and recognize their place in the fellowship of life. These heartwarming stories will inspire the reader to embrace their purpose, and to recognize the profound impact that dedication, faith and vision has on family, friends and all those who connect with us. MICHELE BLEDSOE is a self-taught artist and has been exhibiting her paintings and drawings in galleries for over 20 years. She is the co-author and illustrator of The Secret Kingdom - a children's book of paintings and poetry, and the illustrator of Lemon Bee and Other Peculiar Tales by author, Patricia Lynn Dompieri. Michele and her husband, artist Richard Bledsoe, live and paint happily together in Phoenix, Arizona.

A national bestselling author examines one of the mind's most exalted states—one that is crucially important to learning, risk-taking, social cohesiveness, and survival itself. “[Jamison is] that rare writer who can offer a kind of unified field theory of science and art.” —The Washington Post Book World With the same grace and breadth of learning she brought to her studies of the mind’s pathologies, Kay Redfield Jamison examines one of its most exalted states: exuberance. This “abounding, ebullient, effervescent emotion” manifests itself everywhere from child’s play to scientific breakthrough. Exuberance: The Passion for Life introduces us to such notably irrepressible types as Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir, and Richard Feynman, as well as Peter Pan, dancing porcupines, and Charles Schulz’s Snoopy. It explores whether exuberance can be inherited, parses its neurochemical grammar, and documents the methods people have used to stimulate it. The resulting book is an irresistible fusion of science and soul.

When first-time author and artist Deborah Paris stepped into Lennox Woods, an old-growth southern hardwood forest in northeast Texas, she felt a disruption that was both spatial and temporal. Walking the remnants of an old wagon trail past ancient stands of pine, white oak, elm, hickory, sweetgum, maple, hornbeam, and red oak, she felt drawn into a reverie that took her back to “the beginning, both physically and metaphorically.” Painting the Woods: Nature, Memory and Metaphor explores the experience of landscape through the lens of art and art-making. It is a place-based meditation on nature, art, memory, and time, grounded in Paris’s experiences over the course of a year in Lennox Woods. Her account unfolds through the twin arcs of the changing seasons and her creative process as a landscape painter. In the tradition of Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, narrative passages interweave with observations about the natural history of Lennox Woods, its flora and fauna, art history, the science of memory, Transcendentalist philosophy, the role of metaphor in creative work, and even loop quantum gravity theory. Each chapter explores a different aspect of the forest and a different step in the art-making process, illuminating our connection to the natural world through language, comprehension of time, and visual depictions of the landscape. The complex layers of the forest and Paris’s journey through it emerge as metaphors for the larger themes of the book, just as the natural world underpins the art-making drawn from it. Like the trail that winds through Lennox Woods, memory and time intertwine to provide a path for understanding nature, art, and our relationship to both.