As I have shared many times before, I love making crafts with my kids. I find most of my craft supplies at the dollar store or hobby store. I also incorporate other items from around the house including items from nature. My daughter absolutely loves rocks. Whenever we go on walks around town, she tries to pick up each and every rock that she sees. Thus, when recently offered the chance to review The Art of Stone Painting: 30 Designs to Spark Your Creativity by F. Sehnaz Bac in exchange for my honest opinion, I eagerly accepted the opportunity to add a new title to my home library. The 96-paperback book from Dover Publications currently costs $13.23 on Amazon with a list price of $19.95.
Author
Currently residing in a small city on the Adriatic coast in Italy, author F. Sehnaz Bac studies archaeology at Ege University in İzmir, Turkey and then earned a master’s degree in restoration and conservation at the Faculty of Architecture. She worked at many different archeological excavations as an archeologist and draftsman in Turkey with Turkish and foreign excavation teams for almost two decades during which time she improved her skill of observing small details while creating technical drawings of small finds such as fragments of pottery and ceramics. She began to paint sea stones after her completely recovery from lymphoma in 2009. She loves to use bright and bold colors, very fine line drawings, and stylized designs inspired from nature and rendered in watercolor, acrylic, ink, and marker pens. She currently displays her stones on her Facebook page and sells her work as Sassi dell’ Adriatico (Stones of the Adriatic) on Etsy.
Synopsis
Published in January 2017 by Dover Publications, The Art of Stone Painting: 30 Designs to Spark Your Creativity combines the art of crafting with the beauty of nature and the serenity of mindfulness. The book allows you to transform ordinary stones into colorful works of art through full-color photographs and accompanying step-by-step directions. Themes range from trees, flowers, and animals to mandalas, geometric patterns, and holiday motifs, and projects range in complexity from simple to advanced and include suggestions for indoor and outdoor display. The guide also offers a variety of techniques including painting stones with colors or inks, painting on natural stone, and sealing the finished work.
Evaluation
I have always enjoyed looking at works of art and fondly remember the many times that my parents took me to art museums as a child. I also liked looking through the art books that my parents owned, so I firstly simply love flipping through the pages of The Art of Stone Painting to look at all the beautiful stone paintings. Both of my kids — both of whom love rocks and paint — also enjoy looking through the pages of the book with me. My toddler son especially likes pointing out familiar objects like the fish, birds, and owls. My daughter, of course, loves the cat rock near the end of the book.
I consider myself quite crafty, and I used to paint a lot when I was younger and did not have two young children running around. The step-by-step instructions in The Art of Stone Painting are quite easy to follow. The full-color pictures that accompany the directions are especially helpful. I could definitely paint any of the designs outlined in the book on my own. My kindergartener daughter also loves looking at the designs for ideas. She is at the copying stage and likes to copy the pictures in her own artwork. The other tips at the beginning of the book on selecting the best stones, what materials to use, how to drill stones to make jewelry, and more are also super helpful for the budding stone artist.
Final Verdict
Overall I am quite impressed with The Art of Stone Painting: 30 Designs to Spark Your Creativity by F. Sehnaz Bac from Dover Publications. With full-color photographs and accompanying step-by-step directions, the book allows you to transform ordinary stones into colorful works with projects that range in complexity from simple to advanced. My kids and I love flipping through the pages of the book to look at all the beautiful stone paintings. With the full-color pictures that accompany the directions, I could definitely paint any of the designs outlined in the book on my own. If you are a painter or a fan of painted rocks, I highly recommend checking out The Art of Stone Painting!
Purchase The Art of Stone Painting: 30 Designs to Spark Your Creativity on Amazon via my affiliate link.
Image Credits
Getting Crafty with ‘The Art of Stone Painting: 30 Designs to Spark Your Creativity’ © 2017 Heather Johnson
Cover of ‘The Art of Stone Painting: 30 Designs to Spark Your Creativity’ © 2017 Heather Johnson
Inside Pages of ‘The Art of Stone Painting: 30 Designs to Spark Your Creativity’ 1 © 2017 Heather Johnson
Inside Pages of ‘The Art of Stone Painting: 30 Designs to Spark Your Creativity’ 2 © 2017 Heather Johnson
Inside Pages of ‘The Art of Stone Painting: 30 Designs to Spark Your Creativity’ 3 © 2017 Heather Johnson