Finger Painting Weekend Workshop: A Beginner’s Guide to Creating Brush-Free Works of Art by Iris Scott is a beautiful book with outstanding, colorful illustrations and step-by-step directions for those who have never painted before. The author, whose work is in galleries in many cities and has garnered worldwide attention, enthusiastically insists that finger painting has been claimed by kindergarteners long enough. Anybody can do it with incredible results.

Why skip brushes? They’re hard to clean and solvents and thinners are smelly. It’s less expensive to paint without them, although one should buy quality oil paints so work is vibrant. Feeling the paints with gloved fingers is therapeutic.

“It is easy to reconnect with your inner child when finger painting.”

Directions are given for five impressionistic paintings that can be done in any order. Scott discourages perfectionism. “Trust the thick paint.” The first painting is of clouds and flowers. The second is koi fish. The third and most popular with students, is entitled “Lady in Leaves,” and is on the inviting cover. Painting four, “Red floral,” is a vase of flowers, surreal, so might be poppies or roses. The final product is “Wet Road.” Who would imagine a wet road could be so colorful?

The reader might not be able to survey the entire book without wanting to get started, perhaps beginning a “finger-painting revolution.”

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