Art from the Garden

Bring the beauty of your surroundings into your home through 25 tasteful art projects featured in the gorgeous creative guide.​

Art from the Garden is your guide to creating works of art with materials from nature and your own backyard. Learn how to transform natural materials—flowers, leaves, stones, twigs—into artful pieces that bring warmth and character to your home. Through 25 beautifully photographed, fully illustrated, step-by-step projects, artist and photographer Kerry Michaels shows how to create works that capture the textures and colors of the garden. Follow her clear and engaging instructions to create visually stunning frozen floral luminarias, flowing sun printed silk scarves, striking vases using twigs, a playful arrangement of gilded weeds, and so much more.

Offering inspiration, practical techniques, and design ideas, this book celebrates individual style and creativity. For beginners and experienced artists and craftspeople, Art from the Garden is perfect for those wishing to blend creativity with nature’s beauty and bounty in sophisticated and highly personalized ways.

• “Michaels invites readers to turn the garden into a creative studio, showing how everyday natural materials can become art…. she leaves readers encouraged to explore playful new ways of making art with nature.”
  Booklist
• "In an age when screens capture our attention, every opportunity to connect hands and earth with art and imagination can refresh the human spirit. Art from the Garden offers dozens of ephemeral art projects and heirloom keepsakes that will inspire any gardener, parent, grandparent, or child to find connection in their own backyard."
  John Forti, author of The Heirloom Gardener
• “An inspiring read full of engaging, accessible activities. A work of art in its own right!”
  Dr. Daisy Fancourt, Author of Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives
• “A stellar guide to creating artworks with materials from nature… All projects include easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions and photos of the elegant finished products. Crafters will be inspired by the possibilities nature has to offer.”
  Publishers Weekly
• "This excellent resource combines gardening with various art forms for crafts that the average person can do easily."
  Library Journal, starred review
• "This is a beautiful book. The instructions were precise and easy to follow. I can see this being on the book shelves and craft rooms of many who want to explore ALL the possibilities of crafting from the garden. What an undertaking to engage others to challenge creating beyond the vase!" 
  Teri Speight, author of Black Flora
• “Joy rings from the pages of this book! Perusing it, my mind travels to the importance of Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium to her poetry and to the collected plant samples from which Margaret Stones generated her remarkable botanical paintings. At its core, Art from the Garden is an homage to nature as a source of inspiration for creative expression. The book’s exquisite imagery and thoughtful text demonstrate ways to interpret nature’s ephemeral materials and inert objects into enduring expressive works. There’s a powerful and promising message here: nature’s medium lies latent all around us; we have access to it when we cultivate our powers of observation; what we discover releases our imagination and compels us to represent some essential quality of what we have found.”
  Douglas Reed, landscape architect
• “For the reader who would rather make something than sit still, this gorgeous book is the perfect companion to usher in the warmer months…Beautifully photographed and practically organized, it is the kind of book you prop open and actually use.”
  Haven Magazine