Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes - Softcover

Praise for Mess

"Mess is incredible and offers a fun and safe form of stress relief through destruction. It's damn liberating." --Wanders in Whim

"Keri Smith's books encourage freehand art exploration and teach artists that accidents and experimentation can yield amazing and unexpected results." --The Carle Museum

"Two things I love about Keri and her approach: 1) Keri is permission: to break away from my usual linear self and send it on vacation. 2) Keri is encouragement: to create what she calls a 'habit of experimentation' which can be so beneficial in living a full, creative life (and in learning new ways to tell our stories with words and photos)." --Ali Edwards, author of Life Artist

"Once you get going, the book really becomes a source of liberation; it frees you to make a mess, stop thinking about the outcome and just enjoy the process. Let go. See what happens. And enjoy your complete disregard for the outcome. A great family activity." --Family First

Praise for Keri Smith

"Keri Smith may well be the self-help guru this DIY generation deserves." --The Believer

"A conceptual artist and author luring kids into questioning the world and appreciating every smell, texture and mystery in it." --TIME Magazine

From the internationally bestselling creator of Wreck This Journal, a book that celebrates mistake- and mess-making like never before...

Your whole life, you’ve been taught to avoid making a mess: try to keep everything under control, color inside the lines, make it perfect, and at all costs, avoid contact with things that stain.

This book asks you to do the opposite of what you have been taught. Think of it as your own personal rumpus room. A place to let loose, to trash, to spew, to do the things you are not allowed to do in the “real world.”

There are only three rules you will find in this book:
1. Do not try to make something beautiful.
2. Do not think too much. (There is no “wrong.”)
3. Continue under all circumstances.

It's time to make a mess.