I love to read. These are my top recommendations. If you have any recommendations for me, please send them along or put them in the comments!!
Creativity
Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art by Stephen Nachmanovitch
This book is my bible.
Writers, poets, painters… we all can use the same advice.
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
Super inspiring and a brilliant way to think about the creative process.
Think about things differently.
Ann Patchett: The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life
Unfortunately, this short story is only available within a collection of short stories called “The Story of a Happy Marriage”
Art
The Art Spirit by Robert Henri
A somewhat random book but easy to pick up and flip to a page from some good adive.
Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light
FASCINATING read.
Oil Painting Painting Techniques and Materials by Harold Speed
Good reference info, best if you have already started some atelier training or structured approach to indirect painting.
Still Life: A History by Sybille Ebert-Schifferer
Informative.
The Art of Still life by Todd Casey
Great comprehensive overview of approaching still life and painting in general.
Oil Painters Color Handbook by Todd Casey
Great comprehensive overview of color and painting in general.
Fiction
Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
This guy can write!
Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
Collection of short stories that reads as an interconnected larger stoty.
Fun read!
Non-Fiction
- Dreams from my Father – Obama
- The Lost Painting About the lost painting of Caravaggio
- An Odyssey Not THE Odyssey, but very very related
- Say Nothing About the Troubles in Ireland
Please note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Catherine Steiner-Adair
Making Art:
Art and Fear
The War of Art
Still Life with Oyster
Fiction:
My Brilliant Friend ( all 4)
Rules of Civility
Any poetry by Mary Oliver
Catherine Cervas
Color and Light by James Gurney