Art & Fear is about the way art gets made, the reasons it often doesn't get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way. Drawing on the authors' own experiences as two working artists, the book delves into the internal and external challenges to making art in the real world, and shows how they can be overcome every day. First published in 1994, Art & Fear quickly became an underground classic, and word-of-mouth has placed it among the best-selling books on artmaking and creativity. Written by artists for artists, it offers generous and wise insight into what it feels like to sit down at your easel or keyboard, in your studio or performance space, trying to do the work you need to do. Every artist, whether a beginner or a prizewinner, a student or a teacher, faces the same fears - and this book illuminates the way through them.

Getting messy is the best part of creating! Get Messy Art gives you the freedom, inspiration, and ideas to experiment and play with art techniques and projects to create perfectly imperfect art. We're always told that play and experimentation is the foundation of growing as an artist. But where do you start? Where to find new techniques to try? How do you bring them all together? Get Messy Art has all the guidance, instruction, and inspiration you need. Based on the popular online class and community website Get Messy Art, this book brings together tons of creative art techniques and projects, including painting with watercolor and acrylic, mark-making, drawing with markers and pen and ink, sketching faces, and much more. The fun doesn't stop there. You'll also learn how to make your own art journals and trendy junk journals-easy handmade books to work in that are personalized and one of a kind. In Get Messy Art you'll discover: A welcoming environment that encourages play and experimentation, to help you become the artist you always wanted to be. How to use no-rules, no-stress art techniques as a creative outlet to express feelings. Actionable inspiration that will keep you going, even when motivation is scarce. Fresh techniques that will show you innovative ways to use low-cost supplies such as paint and mediums, stencils, pens, and paper. Easy background techniques that will get you started and banish fear of the blank page. The satisfaction of making your own unique journals using simple methods. Ultimately, art is all about creating for the sake of creating. It's powerful, it's cathartic, it's messy-and it's all yours. It's time to get messy!

Tales of life, death and lettuce in a French garden. Two men, both advancing in years, converse deep in the French countryside. One is an artist, the other his gardener. On finishing his work, the gardener enters the studio and looks over the artist's shoulder. As the artist draws, the gardener talks: about his youth, his family, his travels, his health, and, of course, the pleasures of gardening. Sometimes the artist responds, sometimes he just listens; but, all the while the bond between these two very different men is deepening. Their growing friendship produces many moments of dry humour: when the gardener visits the artist in Paris, he brings an anvil along in his luggage; the pair go to the forest on a mission to steal a twenty- foot fir tree; they marvel at the curious habits of local characters, and ponder whether a modern-day Jesus would take a job on the railway. There are moments of profundity, too, when the two friends reflect on their own mortality, and the equally taxing question of whether a lettuce can be as beautiful as a painting.