Gallery of acrylic paintings by South African artist Miranda Gerber

Art revolution: Alternative Approaches for Fine Artists and Illustrators - A Review.

The Courageous by Lisa Cyr Lisa Cyr is a favourite contemporary artist of mine and Art Revolution: Alternative Approaches for Fine Artists and Illustrators is a brilliant book for the contemporary artist who wants to explore how other artists approach picture making by reinventing and redefining art making, from the surfaces on which they work to the end product.

In Art Revolution Lisa says: "We are currently in the midst of an artistic revolution. No other time has seen such innovation in the way art can be intellectualized, produced and presented into the culture. Artists are breaking from conventional approaches, reexamining the fundamental methodology in which they work. They are becoming much more forward-thinking, almost entrepreneurial, venturing out with a content-driven approach to discover new pathways for their work to flourish and prosper. The traditionally accepted roles of art and the artist are being reinterpreted, reinvented and redefined to embrace a new paradigm, opening the door to a more progressive social consciousness."

Although I am not an admirer of all the art created in the book (for an animal lover adding live doves in extremely small cages as part of a painting, does take innovation too far!) I did love reading the very personal approaches of the artists and the intimate view of how these paintings were constructed.

Her new book Experimental Painting is due on bookshelves at the end of August 2011.

Here is a bonus Custom Roller Demonstration from the book, as well as a demo from her first book, Art Revolution, on Dimensional Substrates

Cloth Paper Scissors - Choose from 166 craft instruction articles

Cat Art Fabric Painting A a mixed media artist I am always looking for interesting new ideas to incorporate in my artwork. Although I am not really a fabric artist, I still love Cloth Papers Scissors magazine, especially all the free ebooks on different art techniques that they offer.

Here are some of their ebooks I like best:

http://www.clothpaperscissors.com/Art-Journaling/

http://www.clothpaperscissors.com/Digital-Art-Tutorials/

http://www.clothpaperscissors.com/mixed-media-collage/

http://www.clothpaperscissors.com/Mixed-Media-Art-Techniques/

Here is the link to their "free stuff" page:
http://www.clothpaperscissors.com/media/12/default.aspx

Drawing Picasso Dogs - free online drawing tutorial

Although I love to paint, drawing is not a strong suite of mine. That is one of the reasons why I loved Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists - 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun by Carla Sonheim!

The book did just that - it made drawing fun again! This video on how to draw Picasso dogs was a real bonus - Cathy seems like such a down to earth person!

For those who wish they had the book - get it on Amazon! Here is my version of the "Cats in Bed" exercise!

Cats in Bed Drawing Exercise

Creativity is not magic and copying is not a sin!

Detail from The Creation of Man by Michelangelo. See original here. It always amazes me at art workshops, and even in everyday live, how many people think that the only reason why some of us are creative and some of us are not, is because of a divine spark of creativity – privileged to only a few!

What nonsense - all of mankind possesses that spark of creativity inside – some are just lazier than others! Believe me, not a very popular response! And yes, I do agree – some of us have a larger spark than others!

But! If it really comes down to the chips – the most creative people I know are also the most hard working – nurturing and fueling their natural creativity until it becomes a roaring fire that amazes those around them.

And the best way to start being creative? Copy, copy, copy! And I do not mean: right click, copy and paste! Start by finding an artist (classic or modern) whose style you really admire and try to copy one or two of his works. Really emerge yourself in that artist’s world – do some background reading to get to know the artist. Then try to emulate, even if only a piece of the artist’s painting, his strokes, colour use, etc. Be sure to make your copy the exact same size as the original! It is extremely difficult to try and reproduce a life-size Rubens on an A4 canvas!

After you have done a few copies and you feel like you have a really good handle on the artist’s style and technique – stop copying and start doing derivative work. Still use the artist’s style, but do your own compositions, alter the original until it is more yours than the artist you admire.

And remember Edison had to try 6000 different materials for the light bulb filament before hitting the jackpot! If you do the work, creativity will take care of itself!

The following video definitely confirmed my believe in how I view creativity, and although it uses the development of the PC as analogy, it is still very relevant to anyone interested in creativity.

Part three of this four-part series explores how innovations truly happen.