Coping with life's stresses is difficult for everybody, but can be especially challenging for teenagers, who often feel isolated and misunderstood. Creative expression through art, craft, and writing is a natural and effective way of helping young people to explore and communicate personal identity. This book is bursting with art and journal activities, creative challenges, and miniature projects for bedrooms and other personal spaces, all of which help teenagers to understand and express who they are and what is important to them. These fun ideas can be tailored to suit the individual, and require minimal equipment and even less artistic know-how, so can be enjoyed by all. The book concludes with a useful section for counselors and other professionals who work with young people, which explains how these activities can be incorporated into treatment goals. This imaginative and insightful book is a useful resource for all therapists, social workers, and counselors who wish to encourage self-expression in teenagers.

Transformative learning is a theory of adult education that focuses on the profound changes - or transformations - that can occur in the lives of adults. This book explores the role of creative expression in this transformational process. It provides a practical and accessible approach to using creative expression with adult learners

The Crosswords Club Collection returns with more of the puzzles enjoyed by the subscribers of the exclusive mail-order service that provides original Sunday-size crosswords. In addition to these special puzzles, there is a unique Answers section, which provides interesting tidbits about each crossword.

This accessible book explores the therapeutic possibilities of poetry and stories, providing techniques for facilitating personally relevant and growth-enhancing sessions. The author provides ideas for writing activities that emerge from this discussion, and explains how participants can create their own poetic and narrative pieces.

Botticelli’s Muse peels back layers of history to tell a fictionalized version of the life of Sandro Botticelli, his conflicts with the Medici family of Florence, and the woman at the heart of his paintings. In 1477, Botticelli is suddenly fired by his prestigious patron and friend Lorenzo de’ Medici. In the villa of his irritating new patron, the artist’s creative well runs dry—until the day he sees Floriana, a Jewish weaver imprisoned in his sister’s convent. But events threaten to keep his unlikely muse out of reach. So begins a tale of one of the art world’s most beloved paintings, La Primavera, as Sandro, a confirmed bachelor, and Floriana, a headstrong artist in her own right, enter into a turbulent relationship.

A guide to the theory and practice of creativity, with proven techniques for jump-starting the creative process—from an esteemed art educator and therapist There are art teachers—and then there’s Shaun McNiff. An accomplished painter himself, he has spent a career helping people access their creative potential through expressive arts therapy. Now, he is sharing the secrets he’s learned from observing his own creative process as well as that of others—both those who identify as artists and those who don’t. The result is nothing less than a master class in creativity by one of the great creative theorists and practitioners of our time. “This is intended as a practical text,” Shaun says, “a creativity primer, striving to capture the essential things that have been of use to me and others.” The wealth of instruction he provides here in these essential things will be indispensable to artists of all stripes, as well as to all who strive to express themselves with honesty and authenticity using any of the media life makes available.

The first book to integrate meditation, therapy, and color into one meaningful whole • The follow-up toSpirit of Drawing • Practical exercises to free self-expression • Ideal for educators as well as artists • Features inspired artwork by the author, students, and masters of color Spirit of Colorbrings exciting new ideas to the creation of art and the use of color—ideas that combine meditation, art therapy, and hands-on exploration of the creative experience. Sensory awareness, the technique used here and in the companion volume,Spirit of Drawing, is similar to Buddhist meditation. Author Connie Smith Siegel takes readers through a series of visual experiments that teach the relationships between touching, seeing, and moving. Soon artists are able to find the movements, shapes, and colors that express what they are experiencing in the moment. Exercises build to help artists create more complex color visuals—visuals that express our lives through color; explore the elements of air, earth, fire, and water; celebrate the expressive freedom of collage; reveal the union of drawing and color; and use color as a healing language. Part art instruction, part art therapy,Spirit of Colorcaptures the true spirit of artistic self-expression.

Artistic expression, spirituality, and meditation combine to capture the Spirit of Drawing Spirit of Drawingengages readers in an intriguing series of illustrated visual experiments that combine meditation, expressive therapy, and hands-on exploration with drawing media. AuthorConnie Smith Siegel's ideas, developed over many years of research and learning, build on the meditation practice of sensory awareness, a blending of Buddhist meditation and simple physical activities. Applied to creative expression, sensory awareness distills drawing and painting to their simplest components: touching, seeing, and moving. In this unusual and freeing book, artists learn to use these new sensations to guide their hand toward the movements, shapes, and colors that express what they are feeling. Not only do the artists produce a work of art, they express their own emotions and inner wisdom. Techniques gradually build to more complex visual expressions such as representational drawing, color theory, composition, and to the use of art in healing. Part art instruction, part art therapy,Spirit of Drawingoffers a rich spiritual pathway to self-expression. • Presents Siegel’s unique ideas, honed over forty years of work in art and in spirituality • An entirely new approach to art education • Innovative ideas for therapists and everyone in the healing professions

Life isn’t about “finding” fulfillment and success – it’s about creating it. Why then has creativity been given a back seat in our culture? No longer. ** A Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and Publishers Weekly Bestseller ** Creativity is a force inside every person that, when unleashed, transforms our lives and delivers vitality to everything we do. Establishing a creative practice is therefore our most valuable and urgent task - as important to our well-being as exercise or nutrition. The good news? Renowned artist, author, and CreativeLive founder, Chase Jarvis, reminds us that creativity isn't a skill—it's a habit available to everyone: beginners and lifelong creators, entrepreneurs to executives, astronauts to zookeepers, and everyone in between. Through small, daily actions we can supercharge our innate creativity and rediscover our personal power in life. Whether your ambition is a creative career, completing a creative project, or simply cultivating a creative mindset, Creative Calling will unlock your potential via Jarvis’s memorable “IDEA” system: · Imagine your big dream, whatever you want to create—or become—in this world. · Design a daily practice that supports that dream—and a life of expression and transformation. · Execute on your ambitious plans and make your vision real. · Amplify your impact through a supportive community you’ll learn to grow and nurture.