Welcome to Nita Leland's Exploring Color & Creativity Web Site Jenna will soon be five. Her Chistmas gift this year was a standing easel, which she puts to good use. She uses markers, crayons and chalk most of the time. Here's her first tempera painting, Jenna's "Rainbow Cave." She was so absorbed in her painting that I stayed out of her way and just took a few photos. She was very serious when she finished and told me what she had painted. I love it. Check out this mosaic of colorful artwork that my watercolor class did this week. We're exploring some of the concepts in my new book, Creative Color, coming out in August. Their response to this exercise was awesome. Read my brief article about alternate palettes at The Artist's Magazine online. This is an outtake from an article published in the magazine in August, 2003. See also pp. 78-79 of Exploring Color for more information on alternate palettes. My artist friends Rosemary Huart and Trish McKinney are presenting two opportunities for artists interested in spiritual growth, a Retreat Workshop in May and a travel/art workshop in Tuscany in the fall. Both workshops promise to be worthwhile and fun, as well. My new book is coming in August from North Light Books. Confident Color is 160 pages with 85 Try-it Activities in a spiral-bound hardcover format that stays flat for studio work. I've selected the work of 52 contemporary artists in a variety of media: acrylics, colored pencils, oils, pastels, watercolors and fibers to illustrate important color principles of harmony, contrast and unity through color schemes. Seven artists contributed detailed step-by-step demos of their color processes, including using a computer or a sketchbook for preliminary studies and mingling colors to select the right palette for a painting. Watch for my pre-publication offer of a signed copy and free shipping, coming soon on this Web site. My last book, The New Creative Artist: A Guide for Developing Your Creative Spirit, sold out the first printing in less than a year and will soon be going into a third printing. It's available from Amazon.com and from the North Light Book Club. Or if you want a signed copy, order from my Web site link above. A total of 105 artists contributed artwork in a great variety of media. A new chapter features fine art crafts such as papermaking, quilting and other fiber arts, origami, photography and more. Look for sidebars on breaking blocks, handling stress and other tips to develop your creative spirit. A Dutch edition was published in 2007. View a few pages from the book. It won't be long before the early spring flowers will start to bloom in my quarter-acre woods. I didn't have time to do any cleanup of fallen branches last year, so will have a busy spring. It will be a pleasure to work outside after all the computer time spent on a new book. If you haven't already visited my woodland project, start here. Please visit my art blog and let me hear from you. Subscribe to my Blog with Bloglines, a newsreader that shows when the blog is updated. Bookmark this page and come back to see what's new.

Art Quote If we keep right on something is bound to happen. Lawren Harris

Here & There on the Web How to Photograph Art from Dallas Arts Revue has good information on photographing flat and 3-D art. Pat Rayman organized a student art-exchange program called Art-to-Art in 1986. Art educators: Please visit this site and consider the benefits your students could realize from this program. It's a wonderful idea that has been successful in many schools. The program is currently in place at 150 schools in 36 states. Check out Art-to-Art Palette Online for listings of classes and workshops by Pat Rayman and other artists in the western Ohio and eastern Indiana region, particiularly the Greenville Art Guild, Arts Depot and Lima Area Watercolor Society. If you're venturing into the world of blogging like I am, you might want to know a bit more about the Legal Guide for Bloggers. Find out if anyone is plagiarizing your web site at Copyscape. Google a phrase from your site between quotation marks. Looking for a web site or article from the past? You might find it fast at Internet Archive if you remember the URL, or you can use a keyword search.

Browse my Shopping Mall for booksellers, art, craft and office supplies.

Art Product News Now that full-spectrum fluorescent lighting has become all the rage, there are many sources for the bulbs. I've been replacing my Vita-Lites with General Electric Sunshine F40. The bulbs are 5000K, not the 5500K of the Vitalites, but with a CRI of 90, they seem to do the job as well. The manufacturer claims 9 years of life for these bulbs. If you hate cutting mats, here's a source for pre-cut and custom mats: Matcutter.com. MAToMATic allows you to upload your photos or art images and select mat colors, mat liners and frames--even see how the finished picture will look on your colored walls. The home site for MAToMATic is Matshop.com. Great News! The Exploring Color Watercolor Brush is now in stock. I've been looking for years for an affordable one-stroke watercolor brush made of light oxhair. My EC-75 brush is available here on my web site. I love this brush and I think you will, too. Thanks to George Bussinger at McCallister's for implementing the manufacture of these great brushes.

Artists Read... A complete list of recommended books is on my Awesome Book List. I've read all of these books and have found something useful in all of them, some more than others. If a book isn't on the list, then I haven't read it or didn't think it very useful. Go to Books Online to download free books. LibraryThing is a neat site where you can catalog online to keep track of the books you read or own. What a useful tool! I hate it when I pick up a book to read and realize after the first few pages that I've already read it. New reviews of The New Creative Artist: A Guide for Developing Your Creative Spirit, are appearing here and there. Read these reviews to see how people are using the book for inspiration, motivation and just plain fun. I'm moving my art book reviews to my blog, where it will be easier to post them as I read them rather than setting up a section with several on my web site. Here's a blog entry with three reviews on books about pouring watercolors. Past reviews are archived at Mini Book Reviews. Best Book Buys compares prices on books throughout the Web. Here's my list of 25 favorite art books on Amazon.com's Listmania. Use Book Sale Finder to locate events in your area. Here's a great list of books on creativity. Thanks to George Bussinger, Jr. of McCallister's Art Store for the use of books for some of my reviews. Amazon Canada

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