Publisher's Synopsis
WHO CAN ENJOY THIS BOOK?This coloring book serves as a place to create visual art and poetry and to record feelings and thoughts based upon life experience. It is a creative writing journal that can be used as a sharing tool in all healing, support, and wellness groups including those patterned upon the 12 steps such as AA, ACOA, CoDA, GA, FA, OA, NA, and many other self-help, and self-improvement groups. Trauma survivors will enjoy this book. It is a playground for the inner-child. EACH OF US HAS AN ARTIST WITHINToo many people have mistakenly learned that they have no artist within ---and no imagination--- because they lack drawing skills to represent a particular thing realistically. They do not know that such skills can be taught to anyone who wants to learn. Each of us has an artist within; we only need to access it and give it an avenue to express. Thousands of us have had negative experiences with our art being criticized by others in a way that feels bad. Fear and failure have become associated with making art. A million or more of us have wrongly concluded that we are not creative! These conclusions must be exposed as wrong! THIS BOOK CAN FREE YOUR CREATIVITYThirty-three half-finished sketches and more than seventy universal themes on these pages offer the reader some guidance to create personalized symbols, images, ideas, and representations of their inner world. This book challenges false conclusions about creativity through the provided exercises. It frees the artist from the inability to draw realistically in order to artistically express emotions resulting from life's difficulties. This self-development journal offers opportunities to explore-play-relax-increase mindfulness and experience a taste of the power of art therapy. Its non-judgmental approach affirms that any unique marks the art makers add to the sketches within are "good-enough," and that the skills of Rembrandt are not necessary. It is suitable for use with markers, colored pencil, crayon, pastel, and collage. It provides encouragement and valuable affirmations in artistic form.YOUR ART HAS VALUEYour purpose is worth consideration. Is it only to make a work of beauty? The exercises in this book encourage the user to create authentic artistic self-expression. Users can learn to see and draw realistically later if they are motivated. This coloring book is not intended to help the user make beautiful art objects that have a monetary value. Measuring art's value by its ability to "sell" is a mistake that causes many creative people to feel like a failure and deprives them of joyful self-nurturing experience and healthy coping skills in a troubled insecure world. THE GREATEST ARTISTS AGREE: ART MAKING IS THERAPEUTICArt makers can find ways to defuse painful feelings, change focus, make decisions, and/or go to a place of insight that can help transcend problems. It renames art makers as "Heart Warriors" because they explore the less accepted shadow side of themselves in order to change and grow. The making of art can increase awareness of life patterns and universal themes for each person's exploration using metaphors and symbols. It includes quotations by Georgia O'Keefe, Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh, and Carl Jung. The user is introduced to Oregon licensed art therapist Marsha Yates ATR-BC, and is invited to share artwork on a public internet platform with other users in a safe place.
