Welcome to the Shivoo! Creatives Mimicking the Creator by Laura Bartnick is a colorful and engaging book that helps creative people understand themselves, become confident, and get help from Him in projecting their creativity. Writer Laura Bartnick helps the reader understand how we creatives are just trying to project our own beliefs in the words or the colors that we want to paint with. There are many artists that create just to connect with God and become one with Him, but they somehow feel distant and not as “at one” with the Creator as they would like to be. This book helps the reader in understanding their own art, how they can be close to the Creator with just creating, and how they can gain confidence in their own art. This book does not teach you to draw or create art; it talks about how a creative person can become closer to God, enhance their faith, and become true to themselves as an artist and as a Christian.

What I really loved about this book is that it is focused on bringing fulfillment to the artist, regardless of the art or the creativity he or she pursues. Welcome to Shivoo! is fun, light, and witty, and has humorous elements that take the content to the next level and truly connect with the reader. The writing and the content are enlightening and eye opening. It helped me embrace my own brand of creativity, understand where my creativity ignites from, and how much I can explore it. This is a brilliant book and I loved it, especially how cleverly the author used the word "Shivoo" and made the content live up to it.

Are you intrigued by or interested in finding out why you were created and the reason for your existence on earth? Welcome to the Shivoo! Creatives Mimicking the Creator by Laura Bartnick could have the answers. This book will take you on a journey of discovery and into those ah-ha moments. Laura nudges you into shifting your thoughts to a more Christian living perspective. Create your own Shivoo, a boisterous party or celebration, according to Australian culture. God created each of us with a purpose in mind. Our talents, gifts, and passions are not for us alone, but for the betterment of the world that we live in. Walk through the pages with Laura and experience the exercises, questions, and eleven chapters of important, life altering lessons. Pick up this book and tap into who you were meant to be.

Begin. Create. Innovate. Tap. Discover all that you are. This book is a great way to start looking at yourself through an introspective lens. I enjoyed how Laura took the various scriptures, passages and verses to show the reader the essence of their existence for living, their essence for being on this earth. We all experience challenges and life may not be as you choose it to be, but if everyone looks around them they will see a need outside of their own. This is what God is seeking within us, for us to see the need and fulfill it because He gave us the tools and resources to do just that. Just performing this action alone creates a strong level of appreciation of the life that we live. He wants us to get creative, have fun, and go share what He has given us.

The desire to create and be creative can be intimidating, and finally accepting a calling as a creative forges a conflicting world of tension and glory. The joy of creating something and the line between sin and glory. Creativity is something to be embraced, after all in "the beginning God created", and yet often creatives will put other needs before their intrinsic desire simply because they don't know how to express it to another. Welcome to the Shivoo! Creatives Mimicking the Creator by Laura Bartnick delves into Christian and biblical insights that are key to pursuing a creative path and understanding your place in His plan.

Within Welcome to the Shivoo! are suggestions for creativity, including guidelines and how to portray a message in Christian literature that will inspire but not lecture or scold. You can feel the author's passion and enthusiasm woven into every page. Nicely presented, a final summary is included at the end of each chapter, with the takeaway key points, The Shivoo can help people on a better path if they are struggling to understand their place as a creator in the eyes of the Creator. I think Bartnick asks a lot of relevant questions, encouraging the reader to think while giving them information and tools to guide them towards an answer.

This is a very philosophical read and, whilst I didn't agree with everything, I found the information to be well presented and discussed, often supported by relevant passages, quotes, or references. This is a great read for Christians looking to embrace their creativity, but who need help and support in understanding how to successfully achieve this role. I have to say I loved this author's passion, and it is this passion that sees them succeed in writing an inspirational, supportive, and thought-provoking book.

Welcome to the Shivoo! Creatives Mimicking the Creator by Laura Bartnick is a wonderful blend of spirituality and creativity, a book that explores the idea of meaning and one of the questions that should move the soul of the creative person. The author states that: “A Christian creative desperately needs to understand a basis for why he or she exists as well as simply needing some practical guidelines for navigating this life.” So, Laura Bartnick moves on to identify the purpose of the creative life by looking at its very source, the God of creation, the one who creates and who, in an instant, decides to create one “like us.” The author invites readers to rediscover the source of creativity and to reconnect intimately with God, for all creative work comes from Him. This is a book that will help readers align their gifts with a higher purpose — God’s purpose for their lives.

Laura Bartnick’s writing will make anyone change the way they look at their talents, no matter what they are. She demonstrates, and with compelling biblical references, how our artistic soul is a breath of God, a medium in which we encounter God and bring more life into the world. I enjoyed the simplicity of style and the depth of thought. One feels that they are reading from an expert, and the biblical commentaries are spot on, relevant, and very inspiring. Welcome to the Shivoo! Creatives Mimicking the Creator is written in a down-to-earth, friendly style that delivers the core message with force. This book will help you understand why you have the gifts you have and how to use them. It’s a book about being connected to God as a creative and finding meaning in the work one does as a creative. This is a very inspiring read.