Learn how to use watercolor to soothe your soul with this beginner's guide to painting for relaxation. This fresh approach looks first at the process of painting as a means to de-stress and unwind. Many people love the idea of painting but hold themselves back from starting because they are worried about not being good enough or not feeling as though as are creative. In this guide for the absolute beginner, artist and teacher Sharone Stevens shows you that watercolor can be accessible to everyone and that just painting very simple lines, patterns and shapes in calming colors, concentrating on each brush stroke, can have a powerful meditative effect, while at the same time allowing you to create beautiful art you can be proud of. She also encourages you to connect more with the world around you, finding inspiration in your every-day life and discovering the beautiful textures found in nature, from tree trunks to fruit and butterflies! The aim of the techniques and projects in this book is to create art that relaxes both the artist and the viewer of the finished piece. Projects range from simple gift tags, bookmarks, cards and small wall pieces to larger art pieces that you never thought possible ; all done with a focus on relaxation ; which is so important in today's fast-paced, increasingly digital world. Learn how to mix a calming color palette, try simple painting exercises to get into a relaxed flow, and create beautiful artworks that will lift the spirits both during the painting process and beyond, as finished pieces of art. Author Sharone Stevens is an established art teacher and talented artist who is passionate about using art for relaxation and encouraging others to build a regular creative practice. Her gentle lessons and nurturing reassurance will guide even total beginners through the process of making soothing, soulful modern watercolor art. Read more

Make your portraits and character drawings even more realistic with these step-by-step instructions and tips. Grab your sketchbook, pens, and pencils, and follow along as this instructional drawing guide teaches you everything you need to know about creating true-to-life human faces. With more than 150 easy-to-follow illustrations, Drawing Faces is the perfect guide for aspiring artists looking to develop their portrait skills. Start off simple with learning how to draw basic facial features. By the end of the book, you will have gained the knowledge you need to make your characters’ faces as realistic as possible, including learning to draw: *Various facial expressions *Side profiles *Lifelike portraits *and much more! Whether you’re a beginner or a drawing pro, Drawing Faces is the perfect book to hone your technical drawing skills and take your illustrations to the next level. Read more

A fun, modern, and practical approach with instructions on how to paint simple motifs, create elegant lettering, and embellish projects beautifully.Popular watercolor artist and workshop instructor Ana Victoria Calderón shares her step-by-step techniques for painting modern designs in this classic medium. All the fundamentals needed to get started in watercolor are here, allowing you to quickly learn how to create beautiful watercolor paintings. Through a series of easy tutorials and projects, you will:Discover basic materials and tools, plus options for embellishing your paintingsMaster essential techniques, starting with easy warm-up activities. Then, learn to layer, and get into the flow with watercolorGet an introduction to scanning and digital editing for making multiplesPaint a variety of simple, beautiful designs: flowers and leaves, butterflies and critters, fruits and vegetables, and delightful letteringUse what you’ve learned to create unique, stylish stationery, including beautiful invitations, place cards, menus, monograms, recipe gift cards, thank you notes—any project you can imagine, for any kind of event you can think of!There’s never been a better time to dive into the world of watercolor, so why wait? Grab a brush and get painting!Perfect for all skill levels, the books in the Art for Modern Makers series take a fun, practical approach to learning about and working with paints and other art mediums to create beautiful DIY projects and crafts. Read more

Overcome your creative blocks and fears and start painting with confidence with Your Year in Art: Watercolor! Filled with weekly art challenges, step-by-step watercolor lessons, helpful tips and techniques, and gorgeous artwork, this follow-up to the drawing-focused Your Year in Art is a must-have for any watercolor artist. Written and illustrated by Kristin Van Leuven, owner of the popular online art shop Hello Lovely People and author of Modern Watercolor (Walter Foster Publishing), Your Year in Art: Watercolor seeks to motivate and inspire. The book is divided into weekly art challenges and prompts that cover appealing themes like florals, birds, and portraits, as well as inspirational ideas for painting patterns, holiday decorations, scenery, and so much more. Lessons and prompts are guided but invite personalization so you can build your skills while celebrating your own unique style. If you're a beginning artist, you might feel intimidated by watercolor, a medium that doesn't allow for many errors. However, Kristin Van Leuven makes watercolor fun and approachable with her easy-to-follow tips and free-flowing, expressive style. With her guidance, you'll learn to embrace imperfection and use the lessons as inspiration, rather than something to imitate exactly. With Your Year in Art: Watercolor, develop your own painting style and express yourself using watercolor! Read more

Learn to create your own gorgeous watercolor artwork—in just 30 minutes at a time!Master watercolor basics while creating your own frame-worthy art following the fun and simple lessons in this watercolor book for adults. Beautifully presented instructions and illustrations show you the fundamentals of watercolor for beginners, so you can develop your skills in a series of projects, from a dramatic landscape to an abstract art piece. Best of all, each lesson is designed to take 30 minutes or less, so it's easy to make time for art and learning a new skill!No experience required—Learn how to choose and assemble your supplies, and how to paint using color theory and composition techniques.Practice watercolor techniques—Mix colors and try various brushstrokes and washes over the course of 5 different lessons.Paint! —Produce your own artwork with 15 painting projects with step-by-step instructions on how to watercolor flowers, animals, and more.Start painting today with 30-Minute Watercolor Painting for Beginners! Read more

Make your artwork sparkle!Immerse yourself in the enchanting realm of metallic watercolor painting! As metallic watercolors become more and more popular and more of these incredible paints become available, artists of all skill levels are discovering the amazing potential they have to enhance their watercolor paintings. This comprehensive guide unlocks the shimmering potential of this captivating medium. Whether you’re new to painting with watercolors or want to expand your repertoire to metallic watercolors, you will grow as an artist through: 20 mesmerizing projects featuring popular painting motifs, including flowers, animals, feathers, insects, and moreStep-by-step instruction on techniques for both traditional and metallic watercolors, including blending, washes, and lineworkStunning photography that inspires creativity and clearly demonstrates techniquesDownloadable trace-and-paint designs to give you a head startCreate paintings that dazzle with the visually inspiring and easy-to-follow tutorials in Metallic Watercolor. Read more

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Your Comprehensive Guide to Painting FoodLevel up your watercolor game by learning the art of food illustration with Thanh Huynh, a professional artist renowned for her food watercolors and recipe card artwork. From depicting the delicate custard of Flan & Vanilla Ice Cream to the gleaming bread texture of a New York Bagel, this all-encompassing guide allows you to learn new skills and take your watercolor journey to new heights!This book will show you step by step how to master sketching and painting a variety of culinary subjects. Begin by deepening your understanding of key techniques and concepts like optimal angles for food placements and Thanh’s ultimate guide to food color palettes. Before you know it, you’ll be conjuring dazzling lifelike images of Shakshuka, Fish & Chips, Cheesecake and so much more. Thanh also includes tutorials for her popular recipe cards, which can be used as keepsakes for treasured family recipes and given as gifts.Whether stepping into the food illustration world for the first time, or attempting to master the different shapes and textures of different cuisines, Thanh is here to ensure you make standout artwork. Read more

Breathe life into your portraiture with this inclusive guide to drawing the full range of human emotions, from fear to rage, grief to joy. An accurate depiction of a subject or character’s facial expression is the key to conveying their individuality as well as authentic emotion or mood. Written and illustrated by Oliver Sin, celebrated portrait artist, veteran instructor, and author of Drawing the Head for Artists, Facial Expressions for Artists: Shows how the skull and facial musculature translate into the planes of the faceCovers subtle emotions like anxiety and irritation as well as unrestrained ones like exuberance and despairFeatures models of all ages and a variety of facial types and ethnic and racial backgroundsWhatever your skill level, and whether you’re drawing or painting an individual’s portrait or developing a character-driven story, Facial Expressions for Artists will inspire and inform you on how to successfully portray authentically expressive and distinctive emotions in your drawings.The For Artists series expertly guides and instructs artists at all skill levels who want to develop their classical drawing and painting skills and create realistic and representational art.Also available from the series: Drawing the Head for Artists, Essential Human Anatomy for Artists, Figure Drawing for Artists, Life Drawing for Artists, Drawing and Painting Botanicals for Artists, Dynamic Still Life for Artists, Landscape Painter’s Workbook, Plein Air Techniques for Artists, and Sketching Techniques for Artists. Read more

For artists looking to grow beyond the studio, En Plein Air: Watercolor is the definitive resource for experiencing the rewards and invigoration of watercolor painting on location.En Plein Air: Watercolor introduces beginning artists and fine-art enthusiasts to the core concepts of painting on location. This guide will have you fully prepared for a day of painting outdoors. Inside, you'll find:A comprehensive list of what to pack to maximize your timeHow to choose a subject and interpret it for a compositionHow to deal with the challenges of shadows and shifting natural lightA review of color theory and color mixingTips and techniques for honing your watercolor skills and developing your artistic voiceThe collection of step-by-step examples will help you gain new artistic skills as you create unique, dynamic artwork outside the studio. Perfect for artists looking to break outside the norm, En Plein Air: Watercolor is your complete guide to experiencing the unique rewards of painting on location with the invigorating medium of watercolor. Painting outdoors is a rewarding, peaceful experience full of joy, adventure, and persistence. Let the En Plein Air series guide you in your artistic travels as you explore this daring and expressive method of painting, wherever you may be.Also available from the series:En Plein Air: Acrylic and En Plein Air: Light & Color. Read more

Transform lines and simple shapes into strikingly textured pencil illustrations of a wide variety of flowers.In this comprehensive guide, acclaimed artist William F. Powell invites you into his artistic world as he shows you how to render a variety of beautiful flowers in pencil. After sharing helpful tips for choosing materials, shading with pencil, and creating floral arrangements, he explores drawing techniques with step-by-step demonstrations that feature his own personal method for developing a drawing to its fullest potential. And the lessons feature a variety of beautiful flower drawings you can both copy and admire, making this book a welcome reference for any artist. Read more

Create beautiful botanical artworks, engage with the natural world around you, and take pleasure in the changing seasons with A Year of Watercolour. Award-winning and bestselling artist and tutor Harriet de Winton takes you through more than 30 step-by-step botanical paintings that span the seasons. Learn to paint cherry blossoms and lambs in the spring, honeybees and wildflowers for summer, oak leaves and harvest mice in autumn, and pine trees and snowdrops in winter. Plus, enjoy charming bonus features like a recipe for wild garlic pesto in springtime, or guidance on how to paint a festive wreath with winter berries and foliage. The perfect primer for creating seasonal cards, personalized stationery and stunning artworks to decorate your home or give to friends and family. Read more

The Landscape Painter’s Workbook is the definitive hands-on guide to the time-honored techniques and essential elements of landscape painting. Written by celebrated landscape artist, instructor, and author Mitchell Albala, this richly informative and beautifully illustrated volume leads you step by step through his approach to the genre, from establishing a composition using basic shapes to applying time-tested color strategies, with all-new lessons, practical exercises, and special topics, including: The Complete Color Strategy. What are the three aspects of color contrast that guide a painting’s strategy? Notan. Explore this special type of compositional study, which identifies the underlying shapes and patterns of a composition. Picture Formats. How does the picture format—horizontal, vertical, or square—affect the composition? What are the pros and cons of each? Color Grouping. A full chapter details this special practice, which helps maintain harmony by organizing colors into a limited number of groups. Composition. An in-depth review of variation, movement, and active negative space, with illustrations that diagram the action in each example. Workshop Exercises. Instead of demonstrations that show how the author paints, The Landscape Painter’s Workbook includes 10 skill-building workshop exercises to help you work through essential lessons on your own. With examples of work by 45 contemporary landscape painters—more than 80 paintings in all—​in oil, acrylic, pastel, and watercolor, the lessons are suitable for all mediums. Each painting is thoroughly analyzed in terms of shape, composition, or color, with supporting diagrams, thumbnails, and photographs. The Landscape Painter’s Workbook inspires and informs all artists, from aspiring to accomplished, on how to successfully portray the majesty and subtlety of the natural world. The For Artists series expertly guides and instructs artists at all skill levels who want to develop their classical drawing and painting skills and create realistic and representational art. Read more

Bold Exciting Powerful A new level of artistic expression! Every artist strives to achieve the kind of painting that commands attention from across the room and delights the eye up close. In this book, artist and workshop teacher Patti Mollica walks you through surprisingly simple and efficient strategies for achieving that kind of powerful composition, whatever your subject. Complete with timed exercises and start-to-finish painting demonstrations, this book is for any artist who feels overwhelmed by where to start or daunted by the urge to paint everything in sight. Patti Mollica's mindful approach will lead you to better, bolder results, as well as greater confidence and joy in the process. So load your palette with ample paint, grab some fat brushes and get ready to paint fast, paint loose, paint bold.   • Start with a strong, simple value statement   • Get expressive with color   • Be brave with your brushwork   • 5 technique exercises   • 5 start-to-finish painting demonstrationsPaint fearlessly! Read more

Because nature is so expansive and complex, so varied in its range of light, landscape painters often have to look further and more deeply to find form and structure, value patterns, and an organized arrangement of shapes. In Landscape Painting, Mitchell Albala shares his concepts and practices for translating nature's grandeur, complexity, and color dynamics into convincing representations of space and light.  Concise, practical, and inspirational, Landscape Painting focuses on the greatest challenges for the landscape artist, such as: •  Simplification and Massing: Learn to reduce nature's complexity by looking beneath the surface of a subject to discover the form's basic masses and shapes.•  Color and Light: Explore color theory as it specifically applies to the landscape, and learn the various strategies painters use to capture the illusion of natural light.•  Selection and Composition: Learn to select wisely from nature's vast panorama. Albala shows you the essential cues to look for and how to find the most promising subject from a world of possibilities. The lessons in Landscape Painting—based on observation rather than imitation and applicable to both plein air and studio practice—are accompanied by painting examples, demonstrations, photographs, and diagrams. Illustrations draw from the work of more than 40 contemporary artists and such masters of landscape painting as John Constable, Sanford Gifford, and Claude Monet.  Based on Albala's 25 years of experience and the proven methods taught at his successful plein air workshops, this in-depth guide to all aspects of landscape painting is a must-have for anyone getting started in the genre, as well as more experienced practitioners who want to hone their skills or learn new perspectives. Read more

A comprehensive, accessible course in landscape painting with acrylics from a seasoned artist and teacher.   Author Charles Evans’s no-nonsense techniques and engaging writing style bring acrylic painting within the grasp of anyone keen to dive into this versatile and popular medium. The book begins with excellent advice for the beginner, including easy drawing for painting, composition, easy perspective, light and shade, color, and how to use acrylics with different painting styles. There are six full step-by-step painting projects ranging from simple skies to snowy landscapes with horses, each of which is supported by additional exercises and techniques.   The step-by-step projects allow aspiring artists to put into practice their new-found skills, and produce six stunning paintings of their own, in a range of styles. A pull-out outline drawing is provided for every project, and Charles shows how to transfer these onto the painting surface. Charles’s irreverent style makes learning to paint with acrylics easy and fun. Read more

“From beach scenes to ponds, rivers to seas, puddles and streams, Terry shows how to paint water in all its beautiful painterly effects.” —Karen Platt, yarnsandfabrics.co.ukAll watercolour landscape artists need to know how to paint water, and in this book Terry Harrison excels in demystifying the painting process. Here he shares his expert advice and no-nonsense tips and techniques for producing quick, effective paintings of water. There are two or three-step exercises for painting water in all its varied moods and situations, including ripples, reflections, puddles, streams, breaking waves, choppy water, surf, bridges, riverbeds, boats, and much more. There are then ten step-by-step demonstrations that can be produced in half an hour: a misty lake, track with puddles, ford, waterfall, lazy river, stormy sea, cliffs, fisherman, sunset estuary and fishing boat.Essential painting skills conveyed through quick, lively studiesExpert art tuition from a renowned artist, for beginners, the busy artist, or those wanting to loosen up their painting styleNumerous quick exercises and ten step-by-step demonstrations in a handy, affordable ebook format“Terry demonstrates twenty-three basic exercises to build your confidence with the subject from rippled reflections to crashing waves, fast-flowing streams to sun setting on the sea.” —The Leisure Painter Read more

Make vibrant abstract art with ink! Includes over twenty step-by-step tutorials on this colorful creative technique.   Alcohol inks have exploded onto the art scene with the rise of fluid art techniques such as paint pouring. These accessible inks can be used to create stunning abstract art, even if you’re a total beginner. Through the step-by-step tutorials and exercises in this book, you’ll learn everything you need to know to get started with alcohol ink and how to combine techniques into bold, colorful artworks.    In addition to paintings on paper, you’ll discover inspiration and advice on using the techniques to decorate a wide range of surfaces, including ceramics, plastic, glass, wood, and more, to make fashion and home accessories and striking handmade gifts. Read more

Watercolour painting is an absorbing, meditative art-from that many people would like to enjoy but don't attempt to because they believe they can't paint or simply don t know where to begin. An encouraging voice and a clear, easy-to-follow approach is often all that s needed to give people the confidence to get started and keep going. That s exactly what this book provides. Paul Clark, an enthusiastic and accomplished painter who runs his own art school, explains the fundamentals in a friendly and accessible way. He shows readers what they really need in terms of tools and materials starting with a limited colour palette that can be mixed to create the vast majority of colours required. He then explains and illustrates the basic techniques, before presenting ten of his paintings that put those techniques into action. Each painting is broken down into stages, with clear instructions and photographs for readers to follow, plus plenty of helpful tips. In addition, there are three feature spreads that focus on particular areas of interest for beginners, including special effects, painting trees and painting skies. Read more

Tattoo for Beginners: The Complete Guide to Tattooing with Confidence, Skill, and ProfessionalismBy Jonathan B. CharlesUnlock the world of tattooing with Tattoo for Beginners—your ultimate guide to mastering the art, tools, and techniques of one of humanity’s oldest and most powerful forms of self-expression.Whether you're an aspiring tattoo artist or a curious enthusiast, this comprehensive handbook walks you through every essential step of the tattooing journey. From the origins of ancient ink to the buzzing machines of modern studios, you’ll discover the fascinating history, cultural significance, and professional evolution of tattooing.Inside, you’ll learn:The must-have tools and machines (Coil vs. Rotary)Needle types, ink safety, and color theory basicsProper hygiene, sterilization, and professional studio setupTechniques for outlining, shading, blending, and color packingHow to design your first tattoo, work with stencils, and use practice skinsSkin anatomy and how ink interacts with the bodyAftercare instructions, healing stages, and client supportLegal and ethical responsibilities for professional artistsCommon mistakes beginners should avoidHow to grow, improve, and build a standout tattoo portfolioWritten with clarity, heart, and a deep respect for the craft, Tattoo for Beginners is more than just a technical manual—it’s a motivational companion for anyone stepping into the vibrant world of tattooing. With practical guidance and real-world insights, this book equips you with the knowledge and confidence to begin your tattooing journey the right way.Whether you dream of opening your own studio or want to learn how to safely and artistically ink your first design, this guide has everything you need to start strong and grow with purpose. so click the Buy Now Button to start your journey! Read more