Painting Happiness: Creativity with Watercolors

Painting Happiness: Creativity with Watercolors

by Terry Runyan

Blurb:

Combat stress and anxiety and release your own inner creative with this beautiful mindful watercolor book.

In this simple and vibrant guide, hugely popular Instagram muse @TerryRunyan explores the art of watercolor through the lens of mindfulness, presenting activities and projects which you can paint along with as you allow your creative side to flourish.

This watercolor guide is easy and accessible for beginners, as Runyan gently delves into the basics of the artform, starting with simple techniques which you can follow along with, as well as presenting some fun projects ideas for painters to explore.

Alongside beautiful examples of the techniques and styles explored in the book, Runyan also encourages readers to practice mindfulness as they paint, and explores the ways in which art can be used to help improve mental health. Exploring the idea of 'perfectly imperfect watercolors', Runyan places emphasis on self-expression and allowing yourself to make mistakes.

Painting Happiness  also includes fun projects for readers to try at home, From technical skills and notes on materials to insight into the creative process, this book has everything you need to start flourishing in watercolor.

My Reaction:

I wanted to use up some points I had accumulated on Amazon and was interested in spending more time getting familiar with watercolor.  When I came across this book, I thought the style was cute and "do-able" for a beginner like myself.  To summarize the review to follow, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to people who are more interested in encouragement and enjoying the experience of painting than in highly detailed tutorials of specific techniques.  The book does include exercises and introduces basic techniques, but it's more about the experience and letting go of preconceptions—accepting and even embracing imperfections instead of feeling you must strive for an unobtainable ideal.  My takeaway was this:  Let go of perfectionism and overthinking.  Live in the moment—and just let yourself have fun painting!

I didn’t realize it until I started reading, but I’ve actually seen this artist’s work before, in fabric.  She has a very specific “mid-century” illustration style that reminds me of children’s books from the 1960s, like many of the books I loved so much as a child.  It’s a simple, happy, playful style that is less likely to be intimidating to a beginner.  And while the book isn’t really a step-by-step guide to learning or mimicking her unique style, looking at the illustrations is fun and inspires me to try to take some of her ideas (and that retro look) and put my own spin on them.

The book is mostly about letting go of self-critiques and just enjoying the process—releasing your own innate creativity—with suggestions for exercises to help you get more out of the experience.  It’s about exploring the joy of creative self-expression with less judgement and worry, approaching art as a journey rather than a destination.

To be honest, some of the language is a little more reminiscent of a self-help book than I was expecting.  One phrase in particular—”you are made of well-being”—is particularly befuddling to me, and I’ve never felt I completely understood the whole “mindfulness” thing.  But I do value activities that are supposedly conducive to “being present”, etc., and maybe this language makes more sense to others and helps them silence their overbearing inner critic.  It’s definitely an encouraging book and one I’d recommend to anyone who struggles with self-doubt in their creative endeavors.  

The first suggested activity involves simply painting for at least five minutes every day for 30 days in a row.  It goes into a little more detail than that, and there is a list of prompts, if you’re in need of inspiration.  I decided to give it a try, and I found it beneficial.  It can take time to really let go of worrying about whether what you're making is good enough, whether you're wasting materials, etc., but if you stick with it, it does get easier over time.  

I see now that the author has just published another book about painting cats, titled... Painting Cats.  While cats are cute, I'm really more of a dog person—but I'm adding it to my wish list anyway! (I'd assume that many of the ideas can be applied to any animal you prefer, and I'm sure there's plenty of inspiration to be had.)

(I originally posted most of this review in this post on my craft blog, back when I first read the book.)

Home Before Dark

Home Before Dark

by Riley Sager

Blurb:

What was it like? Living in that house.

Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a nonfiction book called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity—and skepticism.

Today, Maggie is a restorer of old homes and too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father's book. But she also doesn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father's death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the past, chronicled in House of Horrors, lurk in the shadows. And locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous thanks to Maggie’s father. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself—a place filled with relics from another era that hint at a history of dark deeds. As Maggie experiences strange occurrences straight out of her father’s book, she starts to believe that what he wrote was more fact than fiction.

My Reaction:

I believe this is my second time "reading" (listening to an audiobook version) anything written by this author.  The previous one, The House Across the Lake, was more to my liking, though the major plot twist comes out of the blue and feels odd and out of place.  Home Before Dark, on the other hand, had essentially the opposite twist—a comparison that will make no sense unless you've read both books...

I found it more entertaining before it became obvious that... Well, without going into spoilers, before that twist I referred to before.  

The atmosphere through much of the book reminded me of the recent(ish) miniseries adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House.  But unfortunately, part of that similarity was a pervasive feeling of sadness.  It feels less frightening than depressing.  So much wasted potential, in so many lives!  

Another problem was that I couldn't warm to the main character, or feel much of anything for her, one way or the other.  Her father, who speaks through his "book within a book", is more engaging, but there are issues with him, as well.  (For one thing, you never know—until the end—how much of what he's saying is true.)  

Ultimately, it's fine, but not something I'll revisit.  I'd happily read or listen to more by the author, though.  This type of book doesn't need to be amazing and unforgettable to be a perfectly decent read, in my opinion.  I'm just looking for something fictional to think about while I quilt, and this did the trick!

Nitpicky Specifics:

• The title doesn't make much sense.  I like it as a title, but it doesn't fit with the story.  
• I really don't understand the need for a father to discuss any aspect of his sex life with his daughter.  Gross.  Should have been left out, as it was completely unnecessary. 
• The regional accents adopted by the two narrators are strange and distracting.  Every time the male narrator voiced the teenage girl I cringed, and all the "locals" voiced by the female narrator sound like a version of Rhoda Morgenstern from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which I very much doubt was intentional.  
• The female protagonist keeps making unforced errors, putting herself into stupid situations for no apparent reason.  Not uncommon in fiction, but always annoying!

3.5 stars, but not rounding up this time. 

No Exit

No Exit

by Taylor Adams

Blurb:

On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.

Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate.

Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?

There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?

Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child’s life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape.

But who can she trust?

My Reaction:

The blurb sounded like something I'd like, but it didn't work out that way.  Based on the information in the blurb, I knew there was probably going to be some medical content, but when the specifics unfolded... and it just kept coming up... that was a problem for me.  I've mentioned on here before that I really dislike books to focus what I consider to be too much on certain medical problems/diseases.  I'm reading for pleasure, and that is the exact opposite of pleasurable reading, for me.  

So, there were frequent references to a horrible disease that I don't want to think about, and then there was the fact that it felt like I was making slow progress (and constantly in the back of my mind dreading the next gotcha moment with the disease).  Oh, and I'd just read far enough (not that far, really) to see that a villain was identified.  So... What?  Was that it?  No more mystery?  That was disappointing and essentially finished off my interest in reading the book.  

There's a movie adaptation of the book available, so I decided to just watch that instead.  The adaptation was okay (though somewhat more depressing that I expected), but at least now I don't "have" to finish the book to know what happens.  Phew.  

(It was interesting to note that someone saw fit to change the nature of Darby's mother's medical problem.)