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Fresh Paint: Discover Your Unique Creative Style Through 100 Small Mixed-Media Paintings Paperback – August 17, 2021
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In Fresh Paint, creative influencer, workshop leader, and author of Brave Intuitive Painting and Creative Revolution, Flora Bowley, and her collaborator and fellow artist, Lynzee Lynx, offer transformational, accessible, and lasting ways to infuse more meaning and authenticity into your artwork.
For years, Flora and Lynzee have witnessed their students struggling to find their own voices. The desire is there, but coming up with innovative and unique ways to express yourself can feel daunting. In response to this persistent challenge and fueled by their passion for authenticity, they spent years cultivating and distilling a potent curriculum to support creative seekers looking for more integrity, depth, and originality in their work. Their online course Fresh Paint was the result, and now with this book, you too can explore how finding your creative voice translates into a more courageous, inspired, empowered, nourishing, and world-changing way of living and making art.
Fresh Paint uses mixed-media art projects along with prompts for movement, meditation, and writing to explore personal experience, individual preference, ancestry, intuition, and body wisdom. Through the process of creating 100 small mixed-media paintings based on these inquiries, your style will reveal itself to you, and your artmaking will be more satisfying and fun.
If you’re ready to infuse more meaning, personal story, and satisfaction into your work, while truly setting yourself apart from the rest and avoiding the common pitfall of making work that looks and feels derivative of other artists’, this book is for you.
Welcome to Fresh Paint, an inspiring adventure all about discovering and developing a unique creative style!
- Print length128 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherQuarry Books
- Publication dateAugust 17, 2021
- Dimensions8.6 x 0.65 x 11 inches
- ISBN-100760370680
- ISBN-13978-0760370681
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From the Publisher
Discover and deepen your creative style through the process of creating 100 small mixed-media paintings!
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INTRODUCTIONWE’RE SO GLAD YOU DECIDED to join us for this potent adventure of discovering and developing your unique creative style. We believe that cultivating an authentic creative voice translates into a more courageous, inspired, and world-changing way of living. We also believe this is a vital time for each of us to offer our personal and heartfelt stories and visions to the world. |
OUR PHILOSOPHYAS YOU TAKE THE FIRST STEPS on your style-finding adventure, we want to begin by sharing a few big-picture concepts that will help lay the foundation for your journey ahead. While the invitations within these pages are certainly not presented as a step-by-step manual, understanding how you will be spending your time and how you can most effectively move through the material is always helpful! We can’t wait to get started... |
SETTING THE STAGE TO CREATEPREPARING YOUR SPACE and gathering your materials can be a fun and exciting time to set the stage for your art-making adventures. The exercises presented in this book do not require a large or fancy studio space or expensive materials. In fact, we believe necessity is the mother of invention, so working with limited space and the supplies you have on hand can actually invite even more unique-to-you discoveries along the way. |
GATHERING INSPIRATION FROM YOUR INTERNAL LANDSCAPEYOUR INTERNAL LANDSCAPE is a vast and limitless space where your personal and familial histories mix with your current passions and interests, along with the many preferences and personal tastes you have developed and honed over time. |
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GATHERING INSPIRATION FROM YOUR EXTERNAL LANDSCAPEIN THE LAST CHAPTER, we invited you to soulfully explore your internal landscape as a way to remember where you’ve come from, what has always been true for you, and what is stirring in your heart and imagination right now. This chapter invites you to turn your lens of noticing outward as you find unique ways to synthesize the world around you. |
EXPANSION WITH NEW MATERIALSYOU MAY RECALL FROM the beginning of the book that the eighth “ingredient” for finding your own style is Expansion: Continually growing your knowledge of new materials. With that in mind, we’re excited to introduce you to an array of some of our favorite art materials we affectionately call the Art Salad Bar—an inspiring buffet to satisfy your creative cravings! |
FOR THE LOVE OF COLORWE’RE VERY EXCITED TO SHARE this chapter with you because it’s all about one of our greatest loves—color! For years, we’ve jokingly called ourselves chromasapiens because we find color to be one of the most endlessly fascinating parts of life and art. We love how color brings art to life, and we also love the many ways we can infuse our lives with color. |
INCORPORATING INSPIRATION FROM OTHER ARTISTSWE BELIEVE THAT GENUINE CURIOSITY, honest self-inquiry, and the ability to metabolize personal life experiences create the foundation for developing a unique creative style. That belief informed our decision to begin this book with an emphasis on inner work, while saving this chapter for last. |
Fresh Paint uses mixed-media art projects along with prompts for movement, meditation, and writing to explore personal experience, individual preference, ancestry, intuition, and body wisdom.
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LIGHT ON DARK MANDALAIn this book, we respectfully borrow the word mandala to invoke the creation of a symmetrical circular image, while inviting a spontaneous way of creating and honoring our own place within the cosmos. In this exercise, we’ll also explore the use of light colors on a dark surface as a way to explore contrast. To begin, use gesso or black paint to cover at least one of your painting papers. When it’s dry, use a light-colored oil pastel, pencil, gel ink pen, and/or paint pen and write the four words you live by from the Writing Inquiry on the four edges of your paper—one on each edge. Let these words be the guardians of the four edges of this piece. |
STAMPING WITH VEGGIESSome of our favorite unusual mark makers are vegetables, and we especially love working with potatoes because they’re inexpensive, easy to carve, and offer an infinite number of options when it comes to creating shapes for stamping. We also love that potatoes are temporary, and no two potato stamps will ever be quite the same. Feel free to use these same guidelines to experiment with other veggies (or fruits). Some of our favorites are the bottom of a celery bunch, a corn cob, the inside of a pepper, the rind of a melon, and a slice of eggplant. The organic stamp-making possibilities are truly endless! |
INTEGRATE AND CREATEIf you haven’t already spent time looking at and considering what you love about a few pieces of art, this is a great time to do that. Remember, this is not about replication or taking too much from one source. It’s about choosing specific things about the artwork that really speak to you and allowing that specific information to serve as a guidepost in your creations. As you create using this inspiration, continue to weave in your inner explorations, outer explorations, new materials, and the magic of the moment. |
WRITING INQUIRY: What You Love and Why
Before we dive into new materials, take some time to reflect on your past, current, and future relationships to different creative materials and processes through this Writing Inquiry:
I have always loved creating with _______________ . Lately, I have been curious to explore creating with _______________ . One art medium I have been afraid of is _______________ because I think _______________ . An art medium I enjoyed working with as a child is _______________ . I wonder what would emerge if I were to combine _______________ with _______________ and perhaps even a little bit of _______________ .
I once tried working with _______________ but never picked it up again because _______________ . If I could work with ANY new material in my one hundred paintings, I would be most excited to work with _______________ . I find _______________ (art material) so frustrating! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE _______________ (art medium) because when I work with it, _______________ happens.
PAINTING CHALLENGE: Using Art as Inspiration without Copying
Spend some time with one of your favorite paintings mentioned in the Writing Inquiry. Notice specifically what you love about it and create a painting or group of paintings inspired by what you love.
Remember, this is about choosing specific things about the artwork that really speak to you and allowing that specific information to mix with other sources of inspiration and serve as a guidepost in your own creations. This is not about replication or taking too much from one source.
As you create using specific inspiration, continue to weave in your inner explorations, outer explorations, new materials, and the magic of the moment. When you’re done, consider drawing upon more than one artist for inspiration and combining those elements to create another set of paintings. What happens when you draw from three or four different artists? The possibilities are truly endless.
Here are some more examples of what might feel inspiring about a painting:
- A type of brush mark
- The energetic quality of a line
- The spaciousness of the composition
- The thickness of the paint
- The size or scale
- Text elements
- The color palette
- A specific shape
Editorial Reviews
Review
―Midwest Book Review
About the Author
The author of Brave Intuitive Painting, Creative Revolution, and Fresh Paint, Flora Bowley is an internationally celebrated painter, workshop facilitator, author, visionary, and inspirationalist. Her soulful and transformational approach to painting has inspired thousands of people across the globe to "let go, be bold, and unfold" as they move through fear and welcome joyful, spontaneous expression back into the creative process. Combining twenty years of professional painting experience with her background as a yoga instructor, massage therapist, and lifelong truth seeker, Flora infuses her teaching and painting style with a deep connection to body, mind, and spirit. This unique fusion offers up a truly transformational experience—one that honors intuition, self-discovery, and the perfect, ever-changing present moment. Flora's vibrant original paintings are sold in several galleries throughout the United States and her licensed product lines and prints are available worldwide. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Lynzee Lynx enjoys creating in many mediums, including paint, beads, metal, and fabric. She’s passionate about ecological preservation, personal style, embodiment, cultural art practices, and mindful consumption. She lives in Portland, Oregon.Product details
- Publisher : Quarry Books (August 17, 2021)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 128 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0760370680
- ISBN-13 : 978-0760370681
- Item Weight : 1.15 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.6 x 0.65 x 11 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #93,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #39 in Mixed Media (Books)
- #219 in Painting (Books)
- #354 in Creativity (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Flora Bowley (pronounced bowl-ee) is an artist, retreat facilitator, creative catalyst, and author of five books: The Art of Aliveness, Brave Intuitive Painting, Creative Revolution, Fresh Paint, and Earth is Holding You. Her colorful and layered paintings are also used to design calendars, cards, planners, journals, fabric, and unique product lines sold around the world.
Blending over twenty-five years of professional painting experience with her background as a yoga instructor, healer, and life-long truth seeker, Flora's soulful and unique approach to the creative process has inspired thousands of people to reconnect with their innate creative wisdom and to use that connection as fuel for more aliveness.
Flora has shared her signature blend of art, movement, and creative living practices for over a decade via online courses and in-person retreats in places Bali, Australia, Mexico, Portugal, Morocco, Italy, Ireland, Canada, the UK, and all across the US.
Flora's art and words have been featured in publications such as:
BOOKS: Art Inc., Creative Pilgrimage, Painting in Acrylics, The Empowered Artist, The Handmade Marketplace, Art Abandonment, Paint Lab for Kids, Painted Blossoms, Spirit Almanac, and Wiser and Wilder.
MAGAZINES: Spirituality and Health, Where Women Create, In her Studio, Cloth Paper Scissors, Somerset Life, Business Heroine, Happiness and Wellbeing, dpi, and Professional Artist.
BLOGS + EVENTS: The Chopra Center, The Shift Network, The Gathering of the Creatives with Julia Cameron, SARK’s Succulent Wild World, Creative Bug, The Brave Girl Symposium, Squam Art Workshops, Do What You Love Retreats, The Abundant Artist, Uplift, Creative Living with Jamie Ridler, Raise Your Hand and Say Yes, Unclassified Woman, Highlight Real, Creative Superhero, The Left-Brained Artist, and many more.
Flora lives and works in Portland, OR.
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I loved the example paintings throughout, and found the exercises insightful and brimming with possibilities. My excitement grew with each chapter and new idea. I also really loved the tip of cutting up large watercolor paper to paint on. First, because that would never have occurred to me, and second because I actually have giant watercolor paper and I've been wondering what I would do with it.
I have been making a mental list of the supplies I will need to start. I have a lot of them already -- embroidery floss, glitter, various paints, pens, markers, colored pencils, etc... But what I don't have are acrylic paints (I sold mine from school when making room for my baby several years ago). I DO however have a better understanding of the colors I like than I had in art school, and a lead on the colors I will need to get started.
I'm so excited. I have been wanting to get back into acrylic painting, but I was laboring under the impression that I needed to have canvases or panels, an easel, and the room to store those things (which I don't have). But. Paper I can definitely do.
I also love to browse my local independent art supply store and the idea to purchase one color or pen or other small thing to add to the paintings with each trip is brilliant. A whole list of supplies? Expensive and intimidating. But I always come out with a few things anyway.
Another tip I found brilliant is the idea of working on several paintings at once, and pulling them out and adding more layers and details as inspiration strikes. I've never tried that, but I really want to try.
If you're at all interested in mixed media painting, this book is a must and I would definitely recommend it - especially if you're trying to develop your own style and color palette. I will be purchasing a hard copy to refer back to as I work on my paintings.
I received a reivew copy of this book.
THE CORE
" In a time when information and imagery from other people’s art is so readily available at our fingertips, we believe mindfully sourcing inspiration from within our own hearts and authentic lived experience is a crucial part of finding a unique voice" (p. 42).
The authors depart from this premise. Having skills or knowing techniques isn't enough to have an authentic voice. The authors believe that there are eight key ingredients needed to discover and develop a personal creative style: 1/ Desire, 2/ Self-Inquiry to bring your life experience, cultural background, and passions into your art. 3/ Trust your intuition. 4/ Awareness of your surrounding world and of the present moment. 5/ Expansion through learning new things, exploring new materials and learning from new teachers. 6/ Exploration via giving you the time to learn by making 100 studies. 7/ Gentleness, by disregarding negative self-talk. 8/ Dedication and persistence in a life-long art journey. The book is then structured following all of these elements and philosophy with three major sections,:
> Internal Exploration,where we’ll also explore our cultural roots, families of origin, and our chosen families as a way to deepen our connection to our personal history.
> External Exploration, where we explore how the external world inspires us. There are exercises to learn to tune our senses to the world and actively engage with it for artistic purposes.
> and hands-On Art-Making Practice. Each chapter is organised in subsections that require a hands-on approach: the writing enquiries, the creative exercises, which are complemented with jumping-off points (prompts).
THINGS I LIKED
--- Most of their philosophy and the emphasis on sourcing our inspiration from the internal, the external and other people, the three of them, to create our unique voice.
--- There is a good deal of painting and mixed-media techniques offered in the book. Most exercises are presented as suggestions to contribute to our art skills and inspiration toolkit.
--- The insistence on experimentation and playfulness.
--- The use of Eastern-religions practices to calm our mind, anchor intuition, and source imagery and ideas from it. So it's a kind of artistic meditation.
--- The beautiful playful photos from the authors and their students' artwork.
--- The book structure and the fact that is not a directional book, but it gives us freedom to explore what they propose, still giving us some structure.
--- The project of 100 paintings, and approaching them as studies so that we don't feel the pressure of producing a masterpiece every time we paint.
--- The importance of organisation in your work area.
--- The writing inquiries are great as self-knowledge tools whether we are artists or not. It force us to dig into our personal stories, experiences and surroundings and then use this information for creative purposes.
--- The jumping off point (prompts).
--- Chapter seven is especially good. We live in a mega-visual era, constantly bombarded and/or immersed on imagery. I particularly like Pinterest and Instagram and the number of art images I process a day is embarrassing. It's difficult not to get threatened and inspired by these images, and not copy them either. The issue is how to incorporate the inspiration into our work without copying someone's style or being overly derivative. The tools suggested to help us do that are great.
--- Some of the exercises and ideas recommended are great. For example, mark making with veggies (which reminded me of my primary school days crafts), carving rubber stamps and making stencils, the use of textiles and jewellery elements in artwork, the colour pairing exercise, using our family memorabilia and ephemera in our art, the intuitive wandering, the scavenger hunts, and many more.
--- Great hyperlinked index.
SO-SO
> Some of the exercises aren't original or new. I've found them on books that were published before this book. Exercises like blind contour drawing, shadow drawing, drawing with the non-dominant hand, mark making with different brushes and materials, transferring images with graphite or carbon paper.
> Although the book aim is to have you do 100 small paintings, the focus wasn't perhaps on the creation of them, on the practical making of them.
I DIDN'T LIKE
> Having the artistic meditation just written. It would be great having a link to an audio-recording (on the authors' website for example). I cannot meditate when reading a written instruction. I could record it myself, but it doesn't work as well as when someone else recites the meditation for me.
> The preaching about cultural appropriation. It's well intentioned, but the authors seem to be lost in their own boho babble, and end mixing apples with bananas. Then, they say that they borrow the word (and not just that) mandalas... If we follow what they say about appropriation, what they do is also cultural appropriation. Somebody could tell the authors that they're appropriating Eastern Philosophy with their Buddhist practices, or that they're appropriating the Brit's language. Most cultures, except for indigenous ones, and not all of them, are the result of culture creole. Western Civilization is just a mash of cultures, that also are varied within each country and each region in the same country. Let me put it in plain language, if you plagiarize, you appropriate. If you are overly derivative you appropriate. But, if you borrow from here and there and create something yours, you're just creating. That's what creation is.
Copying dot Aboriginal style and selling it as an Aboriginal painting is not only illegal but also appropriation. Yet, I could use Aboriginal paintings as a source of inspiration, and make a dotty painting because nobody on this planet owns dots.
Let's use another analogy. If you aren't Spaniard and cook a Spanish paella, are you appropriating the dish? No!, unless you do something that is not Spanish and sell it as such, or make a paella and then tell the world that this is a new dish that you've created. The same goes for painting.
> Some of the recommended artists' insta have totally uninspired art to me.
KINDLE EDITION
The Kindle edition is very good overall. The only issue is, perhaps, the way the students' art is displayed, the photos grouped together within a page without breathing space. I can easy double tap and zoom-in on them, but this isn't the most user friendly way of displaying images.
I only noticed a typo, in page 33 (Now, let’s talk about the vibe in "yourart"). Ssome of the links of the recommended artists' Instagram profiles aren't public or existent.
Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2023
THE CORE
" In a time when information and imagery from other people’s art is so readily available at our fingertips, we believe mindfully sourcing inspiration from within our own hearts and authentic lived experience is a crucial part of finding a unique voice" (p. 42).
The authors depart from this premise. Having skills or knowing techniques isn't enough to have an authentic voice. The authors believe that there are eight key ingredients needed to discover and develop a personal creative style: 1/ Desire, 2/ Self-Inquiry to bring your life experience, cultural background, and passions into your art. 3/ Trust your intuition. 4/ Awareness of your surrounding world and of the present moment. 5/ Expansion through learning new things, exploring new materials and learning from new teachers. 6/ Exploration via giving you the time to learn by making 100 studies. 7/ Gentleness, by disregarding negative self-talk. 8/ Dedication and persistence in a life-long art journey. The book is then structured following all of these elements and philosophy with three major sections,:
> Internal Exploration,where we’ll also explore our cultural roots, families of origin, and our chosen families as a way to deepen our connection to our personal history.
> External Exploration, where we explore how the external world inspires us. There are exercises to learn to tune our senses to the world and actively engage with it for artistic purposes.
> and hands-On Art-Making Practice. Each chapter is organised in subsections that require a hands-on approach: the writing enquiries, the creative exercises, which are complemented with jumping-off points (prompts).
THINGS I LIKED
--- Most of their philosophy and the emphasis on sourcing our inspiration from the internal, the external and other people, the three of them, to create our unique voice.
--- There is a good deal of painting and mixed-media techniques offered in the book. Most exercises are presented as suggestions to contribute to our art skills and inspiration toolkit.
--- The insistence on experimentation and playfulness.
--- The use of Eastern-religions practices to calm our mind, anchor intuition, and source imagery and ideas from it. So it's a kind of artistic meditation.
--- The beautiful playful photos from the authors and their students' artwork.
--- The book structure and the fact that is not a directional book, but it gives us freedom to explore what they propose, still giving us some structure.
--- The project of 100 paintings, and approaching them as studies so that we don't feel the pressure of producing a masterpiece every time we paint.
--- The importance of organisation in your work area.
--- The writing inquiries are great as self-knowledge tools whether we are artists or not. It force us to dig into our personal stories, experiences and surroundings and then use this information for creative purposes.
--- The jumping off point (prompts).
--- Chapter seven is especially good. We live in a mega-visual era, constantly bombarded and/or immersed on imagery. I particularly like Pinterest and Instagram and the number of art images I process a day is embarrassing. It's difficult not to get threatened and inspired by these images, and not copy them either. The issue is how to incorporate the inspiration into our work without copying someone's style or being overly derivative. The tools suggested to help us do that are great.
--- Some of the exercises and ideas recommended are great. For example, mark making with veggies (which reminded me of my primary school days crafts), carving rubber stamps and making stencils, the use of textiles and jewellery elements in artwork, the colour pairing exercise, using our family memorabilia and ephemera in our art, the intuitive wandering, the scavenger hunts, and many more.
--- Great hyperlinked index.
SO-SO
> Some of the exercises aren't original or new. I've found them on books that were published before this book. Exercises like blind contour drawing, shadow drawing, drawing with the non-dominant hand, mark making with different brushes and materials, transferring images with graphite or carbon paper.
> Although the book aim is to have you do 100 small paintings, the focus wasn't perhaps on the creation of them, on the practical making of them.
I DIDN'T LIKE
> Having the artistic meditation just written. It would be great having a link to an audio-recording (on the authors' website for example). I cannot meditate when reading a written instruction. I could record it myself, but it doesn't work as well as when someone else recites the meditation for me.
> The preaching about cultural appropriation. It's well intentioned, but the authors seem to be lost in their own boho babble, and end mixing apples with bananas. Then, they say that they borrow the word (and not just that) mandalas... If we follow what they say about appropriation, what they do is also cultural appropriation. Somebody could tell the authors that they're appropriating Eastern Philosophy with their Buddhist practices, or that they're appropriating the Brit's language. Most cultures, except for indigenous ones, and not all of them, are the result of culture creole. Western Civilization is just a mash of cultures, that also are varied within each country and each region in the same country. Let me put it in plain language, if you plagiarize, you appropriate. If you are overly derivative you appropriate. But, if you borrow from here and there and create something yours, you're just creating. That's what creation is.
Copying dot Aboriginal style and selling it as an Aboriginal painting is not only illegal but also appropriation. Yet, I could use Aboriginal paintings as a source of inspiration, and make a dotty painting because nobody on this planet owns dots.
Let's use another analogy. If you aren't Spaniard and cook a Spanish paella, are you appropriating the dish? No!, unless you do something that is not Spanish and sell it as such, or make a paella and then tell the world that this is a new dish that you've created. The same goes for painting.
> Some of the recommended artists' insta have totally uninspired art to me.
KINDLE EDITION
The Kindle edition is very good overall. The only issue is, perhaps, the way the students' art is displayed, the photos grouped together within a page without breathing space. I can easy double tap and zoom-in on them, but this isn't the most user friendly way of displaying images.
I only noticed a typo, in page 33 (Now, let’s talk about the vibe in "yourart"). Ssome of the links of the recommended artists' Instagram profiles aren't public or existent.












