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Rating: 
Summary: No Experience Necessary!!
Review: Even if you are not entirely sure which end of a paintbrush goes into the paint, with this book you can learn to create a painting in an afternoon which will convince your friends you've got an M.F.A. If you've ever bought art supplies and books and not used them because you felt you could not create satisfactory representational images, give yourself a break and try these techniques of meaningful abstraction. Compared to the cost of a workshop, this book is inexpensive and well worth every penny. It's packed with worthwhile content. I truly believe every person who loves art has all they need inside them to make great art themselves. It's not about expensive materials or years of education--which are great if you happen to be fortunate enough to have them--all you really need is the passion for color and paint. You don't even need a brush. Start where you are and go for it! P.S. That piece of stiff cardboard that comes in the bottom of your Amazon box makes a great painting support with some canvas taped to it!
Rating: 
Summary: Get It!
Review: Everything in this book is fabulous: pictures, instructions, suggestions. . .It's like having a workshop in your home to attend when you have a few moments.
Rating:
Summary: Celebrating inventive techniques and explorations
Review: I almost didn't pick this one up because I thought it was a creativity self-help book, not that I have anything against such books but that just wasn't what I was looking for that day. I was delighted to find more of a fabulous, innovative mixed water-media guide and showcase.
The instructions are down to earth, inspiring, and exiciting. Beam's combinations of materials and bold exploratory sensibility led me to use elements I hadn't quite considered before or that I had thought were played out. She makes the old salt-in-the-watercolor-wash trick seem new. A mere spraybottle of water or roll of plastic wrap in this artist's hands is a completely fresh new tool.
The examples go far beyond traditional floral subject matter and stretch deep into the earth's crust for rock striations and cracked lava. Textures become chemical reactions, gesso and sand a potent force of nature. I've had this book for over a year and still keep it by my easy chair for frequent consultation and inspirational flipping. Beam made me love acrylic again, and I learned more about that medium from this book than I did in four years of art school.
Rating:
Summary: Help for climbing out of that rut
Review: I had a very great teacher who taught creativity from discoveries he'd made about that mysterious process. He once told me that artists break rules and then make new rules of their own. For example, look at Picasso. He broke rules about classical drawing and painting as he had done early in his career, and then created new rules for his style of Cubism.I paint, and have a very definite set of rules about what I do and what I do not do. My painting teacher years ago had a lot of rules about watercolor, such as never using black or white paint. Later in her own career, she started breaking those rules with techniques not unlike those in this book (for example, she uses crumpled plastic wrap and laundry starch to texturize.) Her paintings really took off. You may not like all the techniques presented here, but it's worth trying them out. One of them may turn out to get you out of a rut and onto new and great things. Even though "Celebrate Your Creative Self" sounds like books such as "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain", "Making Pearls" or "The Artist's Way", it is not about the inner artist. Those books have a very important place in freeing up the unconscious mind and the imagination. This book is about freeing up your technique and finding new methods of expression. Personally, I love it.
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Summary: Simply Inspiring!
Review: I've been a three dimensional artists for almost ten years, but have been intrigued by many other mediums of art for a long time. Mary Todd Beam's book is the best book I've seen to help you feel comfortable trying new techniques and inspire using these methods in your own unique way. The author is quite generous with her directions, giving a list of supplies needed for each project and descriptions and pictures on each step. When I got this book I couldn't put it down... it is now in my studio and I love the results from my experimentation. I highly recommend this book to both novice and accomplished artists alike.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Inspiring!
Review: I've been a three dimensional artists for almost ten years, but have been intrigued by many other mediums of art for a long time. Mary Todd Beam's book is the best book I've seen to help you feel comfortable trying new techniques and inspire using these methods in your own unique way. The author is quite generous with her directions, giving a list of supplies needed for each project and descriptions and pictures on each step. When I got this book I couldn't put it down... it is now in my studio and I love the results from my experimentation. I highly recommend this book to both novice and accomplished artists alike.
Rating: 
Summary: Great exercises, misleading title
Review: Like the other reviews state, this exercises in this book are great; in many ways, it IS a workshop in a book. However, I think the title, the subtitle in particular, is slightly misleading. There isn't much in this book to really "unleash the artist within." Instead, the exercises provide more of a "how to" achieve this or that effect. If you want a book to tell you how to create paintings using a less than "normal" technique, this is the book for you; if you want a book, to "unleash the artist within," I would keep looking.
Rating:
Summary: Great exercises, misleading title
Review: Like the other reviews state, this exercises in this book are great; in many ways, it IS a workshop in a book. However, I think the title, the subtitle in particular, is slightly misleading. There isn't much in this book to really "unleash the artist within." Instead, the exercises provide more of a "how to" achieve this or that effect. If you want a book to tell you how to create paintings using a less than "normal" technique, this is the book for you; if you want a book, to "unleash the artist within," I would keep looking.
Rating:
Summary: A Workshop in a Book!
Review: This book is a must for anyone wishing to explore different methods and ideas.The book is beautifully laid out and is a pleasure to look at.The artist presents her ideas in clear concise language with many good illustrations.I liked the small 'boxes' that contained suggestions or comments.There is also a helpfull list of materials used with each project.If you are unable to be at a workshop with Mary Todd Beame this is will help create one in your studio.It is a book that you will return to often for ideas and inspiration.
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