5 great ART BOOKS to kickstart your inspiration in 2021

It’s almost Christmas! Time to slow down, make something nice to drink, and take a break from social media with some really good books. Whether you’re an artist or an art enthusiast, these books are bound to get you excited for the coming year!

If you’re looking for abstract inspiration

This gorgeous book serves up a visual feast that will to stimulate your creative appetite! What I love especially is that each artist answers a series of questions offering insight into their own inspiration, techniques, and creative process.

Art Journey - Abstract Painting: A Celebration of Contemporary Art, edited by Jamie Markle

This book is a stunning volume of more than 100 award-winning abstract works showcasing the colorful and expressive nature of contemporary abstract art. Pieces have been hand-selected from the Pastel Journal's Pastel 100 competitions and The Artist's Magazine's annual competitions, hard-bound to provide years of beauty and enjoyment.

If you want to find contemporary women artists

You’ll be inspired by 45 fabulously and diversely creative women from all over the world in this fun to read book! As a bonus, each of the 15 chapters invites you to tackle a creative project of your own.

A Big Important Art Book - Now With Women! Profiles of Unstoppable Female Artists, by Danielle Krysa

Walk into any museum, or open any art book, and you'll probably be left wondering: where are all the women artists? Krysa offers an exciting alternative to this male-dominated art world, showcasing the work of dozens of contemporary women artists alongside creative prompts that will bring out the artist in anyone.

Danielle Krysa is the founder of The Jealous Curator: http://www.thejealouscurator.com/blog/

If you want to be inspired by historically important women artists…

Mary Gabriel will lead you deep into the lives of five remarkable women artists who pioneered abstract expressionism, within the cultural and social history of post-war America.

Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement that Changed Modern Art, by Mary Gabriel

You may need to pace yourself to get the most from 900+ pages of meticulously researched and beautifully written material. Ninth Street Women is the impassioned, wild, sometimes tragic, always exhilarating chronicle of five women who dared to enter the male-dominated world of twentieth-century abstract painting -- not as muses but as artists. From their cold-water lofts, where they worked, drank, fought, and loved, these pioneers burst open the door to the art world for themselves and countless others to come.

Are you inspired by vibrant colour? Does colour invoke strong emotions in you?

You will love this book. I go to it when I want to see colours zinging, jostling, cohabiting a small space uncomfortably, singing duets sublimely, tugging your emotions in every direction.

Rothko: The Color Field Paintings, by Christopher Rothko / Janet Bishop

While Rothko did not set out to explore how colours interact against each other (he was more interested in using colour to express the range of human emotion), that is exactly how I love to use this book.

Mark Rothko pioneered new forms of painting, forever changing the landscape of Abstract Expressionism and modern art. This collection of 50 paintings from his colour-field period are presented with essays by his son, Christopher Rothko, and SFMOMA’s curator Janet Bishop.

If you want inspiration to put your best work out in the world

"Creativity is a skill, not a talent," says Godin, "It can be learned. If we trust ourselves, we can do more than we ever imagined."

The Practice: Shipping Creative Work, by Seth Godin

This book is intended to inspire artists, writers, and other creatives to find the courage to make and share their work.

Written in 219 small, digestible entries, read it at one go or read a few pages daily with your morning coffee. Want to read more from Seth? Check out his award-winning blog: https://seths.blog

That’s it for 2020! Enjoy some well-deserved book time over the holidays - and see you in 2021!