A lovely book full of creative projects created by the author with flowers, twigs, leaves and things you usually find in your garden. Having recently attended a local creativity in nature workshop this was great book to follow it up.
It would be better if there was instructions for the projects or at least for some. A lovely book to insoire you to get out in nature. Great for wellbeing.

A strikingly beautiful book that celebrates the natural world and the healing powers of its organic matter.

Gorgeous doesn’t even begin to describe the inside of this book as this is truly a work of art. While the art is what truly shines, it does discuss the artist, discussing both her history and her craft/process. It makes for an interesting read that is as cozy and comforting as it is informative and breathtaking.

This is a beautiful art book, and I truly believe that nature and art are powerful and can contribute to healing and peace of mind. The pictures were all so lovely, it made me want to look around and make nature art projects with my daughter. I loved the pictures of the workspaces, and have been inspired to work more on my creative space.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rock Point for the ARC and the opportunity to review this book.

This was a lovely, and so so inspiring book! It's filled to the brim with beautiful pictures of even more beautiful art works made entirely from foraged materials and buckets of imagination and talent. This has given me so much inspiration and made my fingers itch with the need to try it out for myself.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rock Point for the ARC and the opportunity to review this beautiful art book.

I read this book in one go. Because there is not much to "read" but this book is to see , to be inspired and to create. And honesty, I just witnessed some of the best artworks I have seen in my life.
Now, before anybody comes at me with 'you call this one of the best? You have not seen this person called..." no. No, I mean I really have not seen much of anybody making these types of art. I am not an artistic person. My only prowess at art is to observe some object and the try to recreate that on paper. And the object has have some straight lines which I find easier to draw than the curved lines.

Vicki Rawlins showed me a complete different world of art called "foliage art". She forages the forests, gardens and any part of vegetation she finds to gather the materials of her art which are often flowers. And she creates arts with them and using mixed media. Vicki talks about her hardships with health and how foliage art gave her a new life almost which is inspiring to read. I loved the Frida Kahlo arts.

The books could have given some more tips on how to start the foliage arts as a newbie. I would have liked to know and how to try to preserve the arts but she doesn't preserve them. After creating and taking some of photographs, she takes them away giving back to the flora to the mother nature. Interesting again.

This book is not for everyone. If you think that you can learn new art form with tips and tricks, please don't buy this. But if you are someone who like to discover new things and love to collect books on art, this books should be in your collection. For the mesmerizing arts in every page, I will give this book a solid 4 star out of 5.

Very pretty images and artwork created by the author using natural items collected out the back door. I never thought of creating artwork in this manner, and the natural material used are harvested locally. I would recommend this book for ideas, especially using an ecological and environmental approach to the arts.

There are no words to express how breathtaking and stunning Vicki Rawlins of Sister Golden works of art were. Any one that picks this gem up can clearly see the joy of flowers, stories and the images that are capture. I wish I had an ounce of Vicki's creativity and can't wait for this release so I can share the joy with love ones.

This book was absolutely not for me. I thought this book was going to talk more about symbolism or meanings of flowers and plants and the ways to use them in art. To infuse the art with symbolism. That was not the case, basically it's just a book of pictures of this woman's art made from plant materials. Although it is impressive that she was able to make the art from these materials, the finished product is not an art style I enjoy.

I've admired this artist's work as I've come across photographs of various pieces online, and I was excited to be able to look at a whole book of her creations. The scenes are sweet and nostalgic, and the portraits creative and fun. The author shares some of her history with a health crisis and the way working with nature helped restore her. It's somewhat disappointing that live plant creations are difficult to preserve or share other than from a photo. I was surprised to learn that she doesn't use any adhesive but just freely lays down the pieces of plant matter in her composition (careful to have no fans or open windows). There's not much in the way of tutorials or instruction, but the artist shares a paragraph or two of her thoughts about each artwork or series of art pieces. The variety of matter is inspiring and I loved the contrasts of colors and textures. A wonderful source of inspiration for foraging and creating!

Disclosure statement: A complimentary copy of this book was provided from a tour group, publisher, publicist, or author, including NetGalley, OR was borrowed from the library, including OverDrive, OR borrowed from Kindle Unlimited, OR purchased. A review was not required and all views and opinions expressed are unbiased and my own.

Delightfully fun. It has so many fun ideas using nature. Honestly I didn't know completely what to expect when opening this book, but it is full of colorful, seasonal pictures made from flowers and other items from nature. It was so much fun to read through and look at the amazing pictures. It gave me ideas that I could do, for myself and with my kiddos!

Wild art at its purest!

Everyone knows the regular art forms that can often be found in museums like paintings, sculptures, …
Although really loving these, I'm also very much drawn to lesser known ones.
Have you ever heard of Skullmapping, shadowology, beach art, infinity rooms, … ?
These are just some of my favourite alternative art forms (you can find more about them on my blog: https://world-of-tau.blogspot.com/ ).
And now I've discovered a new one: foliage art!

For a little over seven years Vicki Rawlins (° 1960) has been creating art with gathered foliage.
Twigs, leaves, flowers, pine cones, … everything that can be found in nature is turned into amazing temporary portraits and sceneries by this extremely talented artist.
And once she's finished a masterpiece? A photograph is taken and Vicki gives everything back to nature where it belongs.

There are só many talented artists whose works aren't exposed in a museum, while that should be the case.
Vicki Rawlins is definitely one of them and it would've been a real shame if the rest of the world couldn't savour the beauty of her creativity.
That's why a very big thank you is in order here to Vicki's daughter Brooke!
Because she recognized this beauty and deciding to share it with the outer world, she became the driving force to promote her mother's artwork. She came up with the idea of an online artwork store and thus Sister Golden was born. In the beginning they started by selling prints of the watercolor paintings Vicki used to make. But as she became obsessed by foliage art due to serious health problems, this art form became increasingly important.
And guess what? Today they not only have their online business, but they have a thriving brick and mortar store in Fish Creek neighbouring the Peninsula State Park in Door County (Wisconsin) as well. Should I ever travel to the USA and be in the neighbourhood, I'll make sure to pop in.

Anyway, all I've been doing until now is talking about this amazing foliage art.
But a picture says more than a thousand words ;-)
So, let's take a look, all the while keeping in mind that there's no glue, marker or anything else used.
What you see is pure nature!

On the website of Sister Golden you can click on 'flower art' to see prints, greeting cards, a 2023 calendar and this book.
The best introduction are definitely the prints which you can see at: https://sistergolden.com/collections/flower-art-prints

Although the book mainly consists of pictures, there's also an introduction in which you learn more about how Vicki started with this art form and how she proceeds.
Here and there she shares some details about how a specific artwork came to be and sometimes she also offers a glimpse of pieces at different times in their progress.
If you'd like to watch a short movie to showcase a part of the artwork or if you want to read interesting interviews with Vicki Rawlins and her daughter Brooke in which you can see even more amazing pictures, you're also welcome to head over to my blog: https://world-of-tau.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-power-of-flowers.html

If one would ask me which picture I like best, it would be an impossible choice to make because each and every artwork is truly beautiful.
There are cosy and dreamy sceneries like 'Fireside friends' and 'Stargazers'.
Or fascinating animals like 'Succulent hummingbird' or 'Owl you need is love'.
And lots of portraits. Some are from famous people like Frida Kahlo or Einstein. Others aren't famous, but nevertheless breathtaking like 'Sophie'.
The portraits that reflect most of my own personality are 'Free spirit' and 'Wild heart' which is probably why those really spoke to me.

And then there's a portrait that says it all: 'Be someone's sunshine'.
Vicki Rawlins, you sure let the sun shine in the lives of many admirers.
Keep up the good work!

Signed by your new fan from Belgium,
Tau


*Thanks to NetGalley and Rock Point (imprint of the Quarto Publishing Group) for providing a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Even if you didn’t read a single word in this book, the joy from the author and all the pictures included. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

This was such a pleasure to scroll through. A unique concept and book I didn’t see coming. The amount of creativity compiled in to this book is amazing.

I received an ARC of this ebook by the publisher via Netgalley in an exchange for an honest review.

The Power of Flowers is a coffee table book that features photographs of Vicki Rawlins' artwork. She forages and uses plants, flowers, leaves, twigs, grasses, etc. in order to create impermanent images, in a similar vein to Tibetan sand mandalas. The artwork is meant to be temporary, but the journey is what matters. There are tidbits in the book written by Rawlins, describing her methods and how she discovered this medium.

As is the case with most artists, there are pieces that are more to my taste than others. But I generally enjoyed going through the book and seeing what Rawlins could achieve with things a lot of people dismiss as the mundane. It's interesting, this book reminds me of another ARC book I received about a year ago called Hello Rainbow.

Hello Rainbow is all about color therapy and giving tips on how to be more present in your everyday life through actively looking and taking note of the different colors you encounter throughout the day. I'd say The Power of Flowers provides another method of being present on a day-to-day basis, by encouraging you to look at the flora around you and really taking note of the colors, textures, etc. of the leaves in your driveway or the flowers blooming in a bush next to a restaurant that you visited.

I give The Power of Flowers 3.5 stars rounded up.

The perfect book for getting ideas on what to do with all those dried flowers, leaves, and other nature bits you've collected on your walks. This book is full of inspiring and colorful art.

Beautiful coffee table book! I’ve seen Vicks Dawkins artwork on social media before and thought “how cool”, but had no idea how many pieces she had created and the diversity. It’s a gorgeous book to flip through.
Thanks to Quarto Publishing Group and NetGalley for the ebook ARC!

A charming book! Flowers are also my passion, and this author understands the attraction and the creation of beautiful dry flower projects. My favorite is the Frida Kahlo section, so many different looks for her! Well worth taking a look at!

This book was an absolute joy to look through!

It is a collection of art works created using only natural components eg flowers and twigs.

The talent of Vicky Rawlins is immense and very inspiring.

There is no guidance in how to create similar works which is perhaps a missed opportunity but I really enjoyed the book anyway.

Stunningly beautiful art created with bits of leaves and flowers and other nature ephemera. Very inspiring and it makes you want to create some beautiful art yourself.