Flora Bowley - Fresh Paint: Discover Your Unique Creative Style Through 100 Small Mixed-Media Paintings

WERE 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.

Your interest in being here is so important, and we want to acknowledge you for that. In fact, youll see that Desire is at the top of our list of Eight Ingredients that go into developing a unique artistic style, so youre right on track!

You may have noticed that there are two of us writing this book: Flora Bowley and Lynzee Lynx... thats us! Were both lifelong creatives, and weve been weaving our creative visions for the past ten years through collaborative painting, facilitating online and in-person workshops, and now coauthoring this book. We are also dear friendsthe kind that feels more like chosen family.

After years of guiding hundreds of new and experienced painters through online courses and in-person workshops, we noticed a collective readiness from our students to create work that was more personal, unique, and true to thema natural progression for most artists and makers.

However, we also noticed how difficult it seemed to actually develop this kind of distinct style, even though the desire for it was heartfelt and sincere. Perhaps you feel this way too?

Many of our students find themselves feeling overly influenced by other artists and not quite sure how to develop their own recognizable style within a sea of outside influences. They want to feel joyful, confident, and strong in their visual language, use of color, and applied techniques. Most importantly, they want to bring more of themselves to the working surface.

But, how exactly do you to get there?

This conundrum, along with our shared passion for authentic expression, provided the spark needed to create a radically new and potent curriculum for painters looking to find more integrity, depth, and originality in their work.

We presented the first iteration of this philosophy and practice in the Fresh Paint E-Course. Seeing our curriculum come to life and expressed through thousands of unique paintings and hearing about the breakthroughs our students experienced along the way demonstrated that this approach of developing a painting style really does work.

Inspired to see even more original style surfacing throughout our creative communities, were so honored to be able to offer this body of work to you in book form. We truly hope what you find within these pages sets your artistic spirit free while setting you apart from the crowd. We know you have what it takes to infuse more meaning, integrity, and personality into everything you touch, and were here to help you make that happen!

We also want you to know that were personally dedicated to pushing our own boundaries as we continue to evolve as artists, and we look forward to walking this path right along with you.

Thank you so much for being here with us.

Love,

Flora & Lynx

AS 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 cant wait to get started...

We believe there are eight key ingredients needed in order to discover and develop a personal creative style. These ingredients are: Desire, Self-Inquiry, Trust, Awareness, Expansion, Exploration, Gentleness, and Dedication. Below, weve expanded upon why each of these ingredients is so vital to this process.

1. Desire

Having a clear desire to explore or make a change is often the first step on any journey. This kind of sincere motivation serves as potent fuel for the quest, and it also helps you stay the course. We imagine if youre reading this book, you already have the desire to find your unique style, so youre off to a great start!

2. Self-Inquiry

If you want to invite more of you into your creative process, your life experiences, cultural lineage, relationships, passions, and memories create a fertile ground where your personal style has already been developing and growing throughout your entire life.

3. Trust

Fostering the courage to listen to your intuition is a foundational practice when it comes to seeking your own artistic style. From there, learning to trust what you see, hear, and feel in order to bring this information to life in new and meaningful ways is the next step.