This book was an Amazon recommendation and I went in blind since there was no "look inside" feature; I decided to invest because I researched the author and found that I enjoyed her style, artwork, and energy. That said, this book certainly won't be everyone's flavour.
It focuses on aligning mind, body, and spirit more than on painting pictures. And the pictures you're asked to produce aren't necessarily photorealistic (or even illustrative), more ambiguous--almost abstract.
The book begins with a basic introduction and offers some advice on treating yourself gently, then it gets into a list of supplies:
* Painting surface*
* Acrylic paint
* Palette (not to be confused with 'colour palette')
* Foam brushes
* Small bristle brushes
* Fingers :)
* Rags
* Etchers (anything that can scratch or make marks on the painting surface)
* Stampers (anything that can be pressed onto the painting surface)
* Spray bottles
(And a personal suggestion: a
basic colour wheel if you don't already own one.)
Each section which discusses the individual supplies offers some prompts on how to use it, such as (taken from the section under "Small Bristle Brushes"):
*Play with creating thick and thin marks in one continous line
*Skip the brush across the canvas to make smaller hash marks
*Write the first word that comes to mind
However, from section to section, some of these prompts overlap. I also noticed some repetition throughout, especially when it came to (literal) movement.
Since the style is also about painting big (*she recommends at least 30"x30" surface to start, and doing two+ paintings at a time) and going bigger (she recommends a 36"x36" glass palette), it would be helpful to have either a dedicated art studio or enough space in your room to fully express the suggestions offered in the book.
While the *essence* of the book (i.e. paint from intuition) may be adapted for other mediums such as oil or watercolour or pastel, this book is all about acrylics because of how easy layering acrylic is--and the style is all about layering.
There isn't much advice on paint selection other than "experiment". This is both good and bad--if you already have some experience with acrylics, you probably already know which paints you like best; if you're brand new, then you can be overwhelmed by the choices (some of which are truly expensive).
The brief section on colour/theory/mixing is nothing new if you've taken an art class or two, but definitely a great refresher and broken down into easily understood terms. I loved how she broke down the "colours that don't make mud" and "colours that make mud" sections.
Aside from that, she offers exercises to help you connect with your inner self to include stepping away from the work and literally moving your body, or dance while you paint, or paint blind-folded. However, she doesn't offer much by "how-to"--it's basically a go-with-your-gut thing.
At the end she offers a series of stills of her painting a picture from beginning to end. When I reached this section I was a bit disheartened. Sure it was nice to look at, but I wish it was granted its own chapter with larger photos and maybe some commentary on her in-the-moment process.
If you go in expecting a workshop or a step-by-step painting guide, you'll be disappointed. Mostly, this is an inspirational art book that offers a new way to approach painting. It won't teach you how to paint pictures like Flora Bowley, but it may help you better paint pictures like *you*, or, at very least, shed a few painting inhibitions.
I hope this review was helpful to you, but if I've overlooked something or you have a question about my experience with this book, please leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer.
