Creative Exercises eBook among the top 1% most viewed on SlideShare in 2013

This was a nice email to receive at the start of 2014. My free eBook Creative Exercises for Artists and Everyone Else has been viewed by 30,556 people in 2013. And it has been viewed by 85,166 people since its publication.

Thank you to everyone who read it and passed the link to their friends. Here is the direct link to the Creative Exercise for Artists eBook on SlideShare.

I have been working on a expanded version of this book with many more creative exercises... but more on this later.

Creative exercise: Inspired by nature’s marks

I described this exercise in my post Fire-up your imagination. Our bathroom is tiled with stones, which bear a few interesting marks. I took a picture of these marks and worked with the first one.

And this is the cartoon monster that the first mark inspired me to draw.

The pink monster in our bathroom - by Benoit Philippe.

(Copyright 2012 - Benoit Philippe)

I worked with tracing paper. After that, I scanned the image and added colours and textures with Photoshop Elements.

The interest of the exercise is the randomness of the initial shape triggering a design that is different to one I would have created without any constraint. It is an interesting thought that nature can help us to be creative in many ways.


Related resources

Fire-up your imagination is one of the the 17 exercises in my free eBook “Creative Exercises for Artists and Everyone Else”. Check it out on this page if you haven’t read it yet.

10,000 views and counting

Less than a year after its publication, my free eBook Creative exercises for artists has been read by more than 10,000 people and downloaded almost 600 times.

Do you know a good creative exercise for visual artists? share it with other readers by leaving a comment.

eBook review on Making a Mark

Artist and author Katherine Tyrrell from Making a Mark has reviewed my eBook “Creative Exercises for artists and everyone else” on her blog.

I am sure Katherine’s article “Does your artistic creativity need a stimulus?” will help to spread the word and it’s a real privilege to read that this book “has all the makings of a 'standard' for those wishing to develop their artistic skills and creativity.”

Make sure you subscribe to Making a Mark. It is still the most complete source of information on art on the web.

At the time of publication of this post, 625 people have viewed the eBook and the number is still growing.

Creative Exercises for artists Creativity Free eBook Making a Mark Katherine Tyrrell

Free eBook: Creative Exercises for Artists and everyone else

It's here, it's published and it's FREE!

This 36 pages free eBook is a collection of 17 practical exercises for artists. I have learnt some of them over the years and designed some to fulfil my own needs. I am a painter, so most of these exercises are visual ones. However, many of them do not require specific artistic skills and are suitable for anyone regardless of their age or level of artistic ability.

These exercises are varied and you probably already own most of the required materials. You can use them as warm-up before you start a new project or as a way to explore new avenues.

I also hope teachers will use these exercises in their classes as they are great fun.

Go to this page to read it or download your PDF copy now.

Coming eBook on creative exercises

I am working at the moment on finishing an eBook titled “CREATIVE EXERCISES - for artists, painters and everyone else”

There are excellent books on creativity, but they are mostly aimed at words and ideas rather than visual expression. This is about to change.

This eBook will be 36 pages long and will offer 17 creative exercises with the visual artist in mind. Some of these exercises were taught to me years ago and I created others to fulfill my own needs.

I already described a few of the exercises on the blog, but others are unpublished.

The target date for publication is Friday 5th March 2010.

And… I almost forgot: It will be FREE.

Call to action

• Pencil in the 5th of March to get your free eBook


• Keep an eye on the blog


• Pass the word around and let your friends know

Creative exercises Creativity Exercise for artists eBook Free eBook