Treasure Found: An Art Journey

by Cinthia James

Overview

Treasure Found is a practical guide that supports you in regularly creating art and improving your practice. Want to try something new? Need some ideas for where to look for inspiration? Keen to learn about how to manage your time and side-step imposter syndrome? The advice and activities discussed in this book can help you create consistently, improve your skills, and make new work to build up your portfolio.

This book maps out a course for planning and developing your own unique artistic process, guiding you through the rough seas of information overload that can easily overwhelm a newbie artist or the muddy waters where a seasoned artist might flounder with an old process that could use a refresh. Designed to be revisited often for a jolt of new inspiration or to refine a step in your established process, Treasure Found has over 90 images that illustrate the various activities described or act as decorative inspiration to fuel your creative journey.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783000744297
Publisher:	Cinthia James
Publication date:	03/01/2023
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.37(d)

Editorial Reviews

03/27/2023

This encouraging, marvelously illustrated guide to making one’s own art invites readers to embrace their creative impulse, to find confidence in the act of personal creation, to dig deeply into one’s personal inspirations and interests, and to apply some conceptual and technical rigor to what one makes. It’s all part, James writes, of a “treasure hunt,” one where artists unbury what they value most—and develop the discipline, through practice and planning, to do their visions justice. Writing with the engaging voice of a coach and practitioner, someone who has lessons to impart but still learns from them, too, James offers quick, clear-eyed chapters about finding inspiration, writing a creative “brief” at the start of a project, the process of sketching out ideas, and why it’s important to re-imagine your own work.

Treasure Found blends practical, hands-on advice—like why thinking in grids proves crucial for image- and pattern-makers—with sound guidance for facing anxieties like imposter syndrome or the fear of failure. “Allowing yourself to see that being creative is a lifelong journey might allow you to remove some of the pressure to be perfect,” James writes. That principle is demonstrated throughout the book as James shares the creation of a personal project, inspired by the K-pop band ATEEZ, from arriving at a concept to sketches to finished work. This transparency about process demystifies the creation of art, while James’s application of artistic discipline to celebrate a pop-culture favorite reminds readers that inspiration is inspiration, and that what you love should influence what you create.

James’s own patterns, paintings, and illustrations appear throughout the book, sometimes as polished final projects and sometimes as sketches or works-in-progress. Bold and arresting, they exemplify Treasure Found’s suggestions about composition, negative space, and creating in a series. In their diverse approaches and thematic unity, they offer what James’s text urges artists to find: inspiration.

Takeaway: An inspiring guidebook to the joys of creating art, with welcome tips on building confidence and skill

Great for fans of: Lisa Congdon’s Find Your Artistic Voice, Nita Leland’s The New Creative Artist.

Production grades Cover: A- Design and typography: A Illustrations: A Editing: A Marketing copy: A

BookLife Reviews