The Bottom Line
If you doubt if you could be creative but wish you were, or you believe in your heart you are a creative person but just don't know how to start expressing it, The Creative License will provide motivation and support to get started. If you feel blocked by something or had your confidence destroyed by something someone said, The Creative License will provide ideas, examples, and enthusiasm to re-motivate you.
As the book's subtitle says, it's all about "giving yourself permission to be the artist you truly are". Its pages are full of ways to explore and express yourself creatively, you just have to jump in and start.
Pros
- Jam-packed with creative ideas, projects, pep talks, aimed at getting you to express your creativity
- Can be dipped into at random; you don't have to work through it from beginning to end
- Printed with a "hand-writing" font, so it looks like a journal rather than a book
Cons
- Page designs or layouts may be a bit hectic or chaotic for some people
- The "hand-writing" font, in all capitals, can get hard on the eyes if you read too much at once
- If you think you can't "draw, substitute the word "paint" each time it occurs.
Description
- Medium format paperback book. 208 pages, full color throughout. ISBN 978-1-4013-0792-9.
- Divided into nine sections: Drawing, Journaling, Shock, Sensitization, Resistance, Judgment, Identity, Expanding, and Next.
- Pages are crammed with text (in a "handwriting" font) and artwork (pen, watercolor, sketchbook/ journal pages).
- View sample pages from inside the book.
- Author Danny Gregory is an illustrator and advertising creative director. He writes the Everyday Matters blog.
Guide Review - The Creative License by Danny Gregory
The Creative License is not a book to be read from cover to cover lying on the sofa, nor to help relax your brain before you go to sleep. Rather it's a book to be read with a sketchbook, waterproof pen, waterbrush, and watercolor set to hand. It'll make your fingers itch to be doing art yourself, not just reading about it. It's a motivational book for being creative, and with page after page after page of ideas and examples, it's hard not to be motivated.
That said, if you're someone who delves on the dark side of life, the continually upbeat tone and humor may begin to grate if you read too much at one go. Same if you're someone who requires perfectionism and photorealism, rather than regarding art as a way of expression, valid however it's executed. You may find the "wild celebration of amateurism" (to quote the book's back cover) annoying if you regard art as something only for professionals.
If I sound overly enthusiastic about this book, well it's because it's the kind of book I really enjoy. Quirky and showing the personality of the author, full of information (words/illustrations), not dumbed down, nicely printed (on matt paper)... But take a look at the sample pages and get a feel for it yourself.
For me The Creative License celebrates the excitement of being creative, the possibilities of being creative, the thrill that comes with experimenting way of expressing yourself, doing art, and art journaling. It's not a how to paint or draw book, it's a how to be creative with art materials and words book.
