Books like Creative block by Danielle Krysa

A curated collection of the daily habits and routines that powered some of history’s most influential artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers.

Presents a set of basic exercises designed to release creative potential and tap into the special abilities of the brain's right hemisphere.

New Dimensions radio-host Michael Toms explores the subject of creativity with six specialists: Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way), Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones), Deena Metzger (Writing for Your Life), composer-musician Keith Jarrett, author Isabel Allende, and psychologist Mihály Csikszentmihályi. If you are already familiar with the work of Toms's subjects, there is not a lot new here to be gleaned: Cameron recommends writing three pages first thing in the morning to get past fear and procrastination; Goldberg talks about the need to record the thoughts that come before your inner censor kicks in; Metzger emphasizes writing about what you don't already know ("It's very boring to write what you do know"); Jarrett talks about the need to push one's limits; Allende discusses the "particles of truth" that are found in the "bunch of lies" we call fiction; and Csikszsetmihályi talks about how "our education is based on convergence thinking," while creativity arises out of divergent thinking. But Michael Toms asks all the right questions, which makes this a fine introduction to the interviewees' thoughts on the matter of creativity and a good way to determine where to direct your reading next. --Jane Steinberg

Blocks are a timeless toy. They never stop challenging, stimulating, and engaging young children. Open ended and play based, blocks are essential to every child's creative, social-emotional, cognitive, and physical development. In addition, they nurture in young children important 21st-century skills such as initiative, persistence, critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration. Creative Block Play covers everything you need to encourage a child's development in a variety of domains through block play. This book is full of photos that illustrate block play in real classrooms and stories from teachers who have successfully used block play to encourage children's development.

"The theory and practice of creativity--culled from the lifetime of experiences of an esteemed art educator/therapist. With proven techniques he's discovered for jump-starting the creative process. There are art teachers--and then there's Shaun McNiff. An accomplished painter himself, with a fascination for the creative process, he's been teaching art for something like forty years, both to people who identify themselves as artists, and to those who carry no such identity--most notably to the many clients and mental health patients with whom he's worked to use art making as a therapeutic method. Having observed and worked with such a broad spectrum of art makers has caused him to observe the creative process--in others as well as in himself--in depth over a long period. In this book, he will offer his observations about creativity, what it is and how it works, along with practical advice on how to jump-start the process in oneself. His history and experience give his observations on this topic a good deal of heft"--

A conversational collection of insights from contemporary musicians, visual artists, digital creators, poets, writers, activists, and scholars on what it means to be an artist today.