I didn't really care for this book. I guess I was just expecting something different but it didn't really inspire me or explain how to do anything well enough.

As a longtime fan of Flora Bowley, I was thrilled to receive access to this delightful book. It walks you through the creation of 100 small mixed media paintings using a variety of tools, as well as soul work. I love this and have a physical copy on my Christmas list. I’d recommend this to anyone interested in mixed media art.

Fresh Paint: Discover Your Unique Creative Style Through 100 Small Mixed-Media Paintings is a fabulous art experience. It encourages you to immerse your whole self with complete freedom and abandon into the process of making art, without rules or judgement. It really encourages you to explore, dig deep, and let loose. It is different to most other art instruction books and takes a completely different approach. There are a variety of prompts, meditations, personal experience, nature and other influences used to encourage you to find your own individual style. The authors use 100 small small mixed-media paintings based on these personal inquiries. and experimentations with all sorts of methods and media. The illustrations and instructions are brilliant and this book would be a real joy for any artist.

This book posed an intimidating challenge -- 100 small paintings! interrogate your use of color, shape, design, materials, etc?! "Discover Your Unique Creative Style Through 100 Small Mixed-Media Paintings" -- and at first I was dubious, but now that I've finished I want to jump into those hundred paintings right now. I'm actually rather disappointed that I have to go and make dinner instead. Adulting is hard sometimes.

I loved the example paintings throughout, and found the exercises insightful and brimming with possibilities. My excitement grew with each chapter and new idea. I also really loved the tip of cutting up large watercolor paper to paint on. First, because that would never have occurred to me, and second because I actually have giant watercolor paper and I've been wondering what I would do with it.

I have been making a mental list of the supplies I will need to start. I have a lot of them already -- embroidery floss, glitter, various paints, pens, markers, colored pencils, etc... But what I don't have are acrylic paints (I sold mine from school when making room for my baby several years ago). I DO however have a better understanding of the colors I like than I had in art school, and a lead on the colors I will need to get started.

I'm so excited. I have been wanting to get back into acrylic painting, but I was laboring under the impression that I needed to have canvases or panels, an easel, and the room to store those things (which I don't have). But. Paper I can definitely do.

I also love to browse my local independent art supply store and the idea to purchase one color or pen or other small thing to add to the paintings with each trip is brilliant. A whole list of supplies? Expensive and intimidating. But I always come out with a few things anyway.

Another tip I found brilliant is the idea of working on several paintings at once, and pulling them out and adding more layers and details as inspiration strikes. I've never tried that, but I really want to try.

If you're at all interested in mixed media painting, this book is a must and I would definitely recommend it - especially if you're trying to develop your own style and color palette. I will be purchasing a hard copy to refer back to as I work on my paintings.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group for providing an e-arc for review.

Fresh Paint is a fun book that helps you create your own art with materials found around your house and using whatever media you prefer. There is a little bit of everything thrown in here and you should find at least a couple projects that spark your own creativity.

The book is well put together and the message is one I agree with: understanding yourself through the creative process or art being a way of self discovery. However, for our collection, I do not think our patrons will latch on to this as much as other books in our collection.

Fresh Paint is a cheerfully exuberant art workshop in book form with tutorials by Flora Bowley & Lynzee Lynx. Due out 17th Aug 2021 from Quarto on their Quarry imprint, it's 128 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats (ebook already available).

Throughout much of history, people have been taught that they learn by copying. This approach has applied to everything from representational art, sculpture, writing, even scientific methods. We're not encouraged to develop a unique style before mastering the basics (and often not even after).

The authors here have a fresh approach to facilitating readers/students in doing some guided creative exercises in order to find their own unique style. The authors place a lot of emphasis on honesty, exploration, creative joy, and discovery. There's a short intro with basic advice on gathering tools and supplies and setting up a creative space. The basic items they recommend should be readily available and relatively inexpensive. That's one thing I liked a lot about the authors' approach - they don't rely on expensive and exotic materials - they emphasize that the important inspiration and creativity will come through the students themselves (and use some neat guided techniques for finding inspiration internally and from the world around us).

The following chapters include well written specific tutorials with prompts for creative exploration. The tutorial exercises include clear color photographs with captions. Many of the tutorials also have galleries of student work. Most also include some writing prompts to help students focus on expanding their comfort zones with untried (or tried and discarded) methods and materials.

Through the process of creating 100 small works, the student will build up a stash of inspiration which can be referred to and expanded on later.

The book feels like (and apparently is) a workshop in book form, based on the authors' online courses.

Five stars. This is a well written, honest, *fun* course on creativity and building up an inspiration gallery of small mixed media works.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.