Painting Can Save Your Life: How and Why We Paint

Artist and founder of The Painting School Sara Woster invites readers into the vibrant world of painting as a creative practice powerful enough to transform our lives.

Sara Woster is a painter, teacher, and art evangelist. She believes in art as a form of mindfulness, a ritual for healing, and an outlet for self-expression. In Painting Can Save Your Life, Woster welcomes readers into this transformative art form, inviting them to pick up a brush and discover how painting can help you see the world in a whole new way.

Weaving soup-to-nuts instruction on how to paint—from choosing the right materials to painting the human body—with her own story of discovering a passion for painting, this book includes:
 

simple and easy techniques for painters of all skill levels

playful and challenging painting exercises

tips on how to build a creative community using art

insights on how to use painting to cultivate a sense of calm in a stressful world

 
Part how-to-paint, part sheer inspiration, Painting Can Save Your Life is a wise and inspiring guide to the power of painting.

Painter and art teacher Sara Woster founded The Painting School in an effort to share her passion for painting with her community. Woster shows her work in the United States and internationally, in solo shows and group exhibits. She illustrated several children’s books, and her animations, multimedia, and collaborative performances have been shown at numerous art venues including the Hammer Museum, UCLA, and Franklin Art Works in Minneapolis. She has been granted a Jerome Foundation Emerging Artist Fellowship, a Franconia Sculpture Park residency, and a Brooklyn Arts Council SU-CASA residency. Woster also has a creative writing degree from The New School. She has contributed personal essays to several anthologies and has written two middle-grade books. Woster and her husband, Rob Fischer, established artist residencies in northern Minnesota and the Bleakley House in New York. She lives with her family in Brooklyn.