Paint, Play, Explore

Perfect for beginners but with exciting new ideas for long-time mixed-media artists, this book allows you to explore a variety of materials and techniques to find what speaks to you, all while creating colorful and exciting abstract art. In this bright and colorful book, you will be introduced to 25+ techniques for making marks in your art. Using more than 35 popular tools such as pens, acrylic markers, the Gelli Plate, stencils and much more, you will discover that all along you has had your own unique way of creating pattern, using color and drawing a line. Mark making is different from sketching a still life or painting a landscape. Here's how Rae talks about mark making in the opening of the book.

"To be a mark maker is to declare your love of all things that leave a visible imprint or outline on something. To be a mark maker is be a collector of tools, both traditional and non-conventional, tools that will become an extension of who you are as a marker of art marks. As a mark maker you will become a tinkerer. You will inspect, explore and study your tools and what they can do for you. To be a mark maker you will reinvent the way your art is created, adding and subtracting along the way, remaking something ordinary into something extraordinary. As a maker of marks you will seek to discover your own representations in art, forming and shaping your individual style of imprints along the way. You will find yourself selecting and sorting a unique set of tools that will speak to who you are as a maker of art marks."

Combining techniques, try your hand at fun projects including Pint-Sized Art, Hybrid Hoop Art and prompts for art journaling. The act of repetition or making a pattern is a meditative process approachable by anyone.