Painting, drawing and art manuals Books

Book SynopsisYour artistic ability to bring wondrous backdrops to life is just a brushstroke away with Sarah Mckendry’s Oil Painting Landscapes. Now you can create breath-taking scenery—even if you’ve never held a brush—with Sarah’s easy-to-follow instructions and guided photography that take you carefully through each step. Sarah makes the process easier than ever by providing helpful tips for blending colour and adjusting artistic blunders, as well as information on oil painting techniques and material recommendations. To lower the cost of art supplies, each project uses only a handful of colours and keeps the number of necessary tools to a minimum— reducing stress for the aspiring artist. Inside you will find 12 stunning projects, all in Sarah’s unique, atmospheric style, including enchanting forests, tranquil sunsets, peaceful meadows and magnificent ocean waves. So pick up your brush and open your mind to a new creative journey: painting the world around you with soft, beautiful colour.

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Book SynopsisA guided sketchbook with templates for telling stories like a graphic novelist, with tips and tricks from ten comic artists. This guided journal is both template and mini-course in graphic storytelling. The notebook includes 160 pages of comic templates and is filled with exercises and insider tips from ten established comic artists. With differing styles and backgrounds, the artists offer illuminating and insightful ideas to expand anyone's drawing and storytelling skills. The book includes funny & engaging exercises for how to convey emotion, time, and perspective through drawing, sequencing and storytelling.

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Book SynopsisOver the past 15 years, and since the publication of her first book, A Rocky Mountain Sketchbook, well-known art instructor Donna Jo Massie has been developing her creative experiences in outdoor landscapes by traveling and painting in famously stunning locations in American mountain parks, from a monastery in the Chama Wilderness in northern New Mexico to the Alaska Marine Ferry on the Inside Passage.Throughout this fun and practical book, the reader is presented with illustrated pages from Donna Jo?s own sketchbooks, featuring step-by-step instructions; notes on watercolor palette selection and important techniques; pages devoted to clouds, rocks, trees, water and color schemes; a map with locations where the sketches were painted; location information that includes websites should you feel inspired to visit and paint these same landscapes; a supplies and tools page; and separate sketching pages, because, let?s face it, you can?t have too many sketchbooks!

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Book SynopsisAs a highly experienced community midwife and teacher, Bridget Sheeran knows that pregnancy should be a time for vital physical and mental preparation. The body and mind do much of this automatically but there are many ways to support this process, and to resist the day-to-day stresses that can hinder it. Through detailed images for colouring-in, Bridget invites pregnant women to allow their natural curiosity to rise up and lead them to discover how they can help themselves through the process of birth. As women relate to their interpretation of the illustrations, this book can powerfully: Allow them in their own time to focus on their needs in pregnancy, birth and becoming a mother; Motivate them to prepare for birth and the responsibility of caring for a newborn; Enable personal well-being through relieving stress via the 'right brain' activity of colouring-in; Motivate women to evaluate their personal resources and find the support structures they will need to do the most important job in the world: give birth and nurture their baby.Table of ContentsIntroduction - how this book can help in preparation for childbirth; 30 detailed, double-page line drawings for colouring-in, related to the theme of preparing for childbirth; Key to the images in the book - why Bridget has chosen these and what colouring them in may help mothers-to-be to achieve

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Book SynopsisGiving an insight into how this inspiring and talented artist works, The Addictive Sketcher passes on Adebanji Alade's infectious enthusiasm and will have the reader reaching for a pencil or pen to have a go. Adebanji has a skill and a passion for speaking and motivating his audience in a fun and engaging way, and this is reflected in his writing style. Lively, stimulating and instructive, it is packed with numerous examples of the author’s sketches as well as examples of his vibrant finished paintings. Covering pencils, coloured pencils, charcoal and graphite, along with finished oil paintings, this book provides a fascinating insight into the author’s techniques. Adebanji’s work covers a broad range of subjects, including landscapes, portraits, crowd scenes, urban scenes and seascapes. He’s particularly well known for his portraits and working outdoors capturing the life of London where he lives. This book includes examples from a range of subject areas.Trade ReviewAdebanji Alade is caught up in the joys of a creative adventure, and he wants you to join him on his drawing escapades. A little dramatic perhaps, but as the title suggests, sketching for Adebanji is a way of life rather than just a way to while away an hour or two with paper and pencil. Following an opening chapter in which the Nigerian-born artist talks about his upbringing and the time at college when his passion for sketching was born, Adebanji describes his mindset and goals to the reader. He writes about appreciating and embracing your work, the pitfalls, and challenges, how to maintain momentum, and more. It’s advice that comes across as genuine and from experience, delivered in an enthusiastic tone. No surprise really seeing that Adebanji teaches at London’s Art Academy and runs workshops in schools and colleges. Adebanji maintains his conversational tone as he covers the sketching basics, starting with the equipment he uses, before going on to mark-making techniques such as contours, angles, and ghosting. It’s accompanied by unfussy photography, short walkthroughs, WIPs and finished art. The artist spends longer covering core art concepts including composition and perspective, and provides a range of finished examples, annotated art and a simplified explanation of technical terms. The heart of the book is given over to specific sketching scenarios, including public transport, buskers, statues, and markets. All are within reach of the average artist and Adebanji provides practical tips on how to approach each topic. He maintains the personal touch, giving anecdotes on what and who he encountered on the day, and lessons learned from the session. Extended walkthroughs show art theory in practice, as the artist takes his rough line art to a degree of finish on a variety of scenes and styles. * Imagine FX *This is a book about why to sketch as well as how to sketch. You'll discover the importance of finding the hidden diamonds - corners, figures, unconsidered trifles the rest of the world passes by. Adebanji is an author of enormous warmth and it's impossible not to want to go out with him on a sketching trip. * The SAA *Adebanji Alade - who featured in the January '19 issue of Paint - is an enthusiast, even a bit of an evangelist, That could be a fatal combination - there's nothing worse than being hectored by a street-corner soap-boxer - but thanks to a large helping of love, it's really rather delightful. You'll like Adebanji before you've even finished the introduction. He loves God (that's the first thing he tells us, but that's also all he tells us about it), and he also loves books and sketching. He discovered that by borrowing a copy of Alwyn Crawshaw's Learn to Sketch and devouring it until it practically fell apart. That's where the enthusiasm comes in - if he loved books more than sketching, he'd have preserved it in a handmade cover. I said you'll like Adebanji and I'll go further, you'll love him. His addiction isn't demanding (at least not of the reader) and his enthusiasm doesn't make him a preacher. He just wants you to get as much pleasure from sketching - anything and everything - as he does. He achieves this by showing countless examples and by offering a torrent of practical advice. I particularly like what he says about the etiquette of sketching, Not for him the head-down, get-on-with-it-regardless approach; rather it's a matter of respect: "Always be grateful to those who take the time to come over to where you are sketching and pass a comment about your work." Also: "if the person you are sketching frowns or asks you to stop, be polite and respect their wishes." See, I told you he's a nice guy. But perhaps the best thing about Adebanji is that he understands his own working methods and this makes him one of the best teachers around. Books on sketching can easily be - erm - sketchy (boom, boom!) when it comes to instruction, but this is one of the best drawing manuals there is. Adebanji understands form, structure and perspective and his explanations of everything from faces to buildings, interiors, landscapes and figures, both individual and in groups, are second to none. This is a joyous book that will teach you much more than you'll ever believe in the company of a warm and generous teacher. -- Henry Malt * Paint magazine *Sketching is the artist’s secret weapon. Often less intrusive than a camera, it also allows a degree of interpretation and note-taking that isn’t available to the photographer. Sometimes a quick image can be an end in itself, at others it’s the basis for a more considered work completed in the studio. The trick is to learn to see and to look, to be completely at home with your materials and to know exactly which details are important. All that comes with practice, so practise you must. Adebanji Alade is, as the title suggests, a compulsive sketcher. In the introduction, he tells us how he learnt sketching from a battered copy of Alwyn Crawshaw’s Learn to Sketch, a slim volume that, while an excellent introduction, was hardly a full course in drawing. To learn this way requires not a little inherent skill, but Adebanji is too modest to say that. What he does tell us, though, is that, having discovered sketching, he fell in love with it. He also tells us that he loves God. This isn’t an essential part of the narrative, and he doesn’t pursue it, but what is important about it is that it tells us about him. He loves sketching and he loves God, so should we be surprised that he clearly loves his audience too? This isn’t a book that preaches, but rather one that explains. What leaps from every page is the sense of joy Adebanji feels when he out with paper and pencils. It’s infectious and I defy anyone not to want to get out there with him (probably in person, too). This wouldn’t be an instructional book without instruction and that’s here in plenty, but it all comes from example. There are people, buildings, interiors and open spaces as well as seasons, light and weather. A huge variety of techniques are covered, but always in context and always leading to a worthwhile result – never a series of marks made for their own sake. There’s also handy advice on the etiquette of sketching – ask permission if necessary, thank people who comment on your work, be polite and, above all, stop if asked. If this is a book filled with love, it’s also one lacking in any kind of disrespect. Adebanji immerses himself in sketching and this is a book that’s itself immersive. It’s also a joy, both tho read and to look at. “Once you catch the vision, you will never remain the same; you will spread the gospel of addictive sketching wherever you go, for the rest of your creative journey.” Couldn’t have put it better myself. * Artbookreview.net *This is a book born of love. Adebanji Alade loves books and he loves drawing. If you're going to write one, it's a good place to start. In other hands, this could easily be a street-corner evangelistic rant, but Adebanji is too smart for that. He's also an excellent teacher, having learnt his craft from a copy of Alwyn Crawshaw's Learn to Sketch and understanding not just the processes of drawing, but how to acquire them. It's impossible not to be carried along by his enthusiasm and the sheer dynamism of his work. Although this is carried out for the most part in the field, it's remarkably polished and a lot more than just quick notes. There's an element of improvisation - a jazz-like tone - and Adebanji certainly has a natural ability. If you share his love of drawing, this is a book to embrace as well as learn from. * The Artist *There's nothing like going back to basics with just a sketchbook, a pen or pencil and a great teacher to guide you through the basics to harness your own unique style. Adebanji Alade is renowned for his passionate and engaging style, which is carried through to his writing in this lively and instructive book covering pencils, charcoal and graphite as well as oil painting techniques to use in land and seascapes, portraits and crowd scenes. * Simply Cards and Papercraft *Table of ContentsIntroduction 6 Motivation & inspiration 12 What you need 16 Sketching techniques 20 Composition 34 Value & Colour 40 People indoors 44 Pub scene 54 People Outdoors 62 Busker 74 Places Outdoors 80 Statue 94 Places indoors 100 Gallery 108 Discover 114 Painting 122 Index 128

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Book SynopsisJeremy Ford is a master-artist who will show you how to paint beautiful watercolour pictures, starting from initial sketches, through simple techniques to completed pictures, ready for display. A reissue of the best-selling How to Paint Water Colour, this book includes three comprehensive step-by-step demonstrations and covers a range of subjects from flower portraits to landscapes. Jeremy examines and breaks down the various essential materials needed, from selecting paper, paints and brushes through to other painting equipment. A simple colour theory section eliminates any mysteries about watercolour paint. Trade ReviewThis book is a very encouraging and personal account by artist, Jeremy Ford, of how to paint watercolours. It’s great for beginners and provides tips for the seasoned watercolorist. It covers materials, basic techniques and colour theory. It then uses an example painting to demonstrate the colours and techniques explained on the previous pages. Ford then takes the reader through three demonstrations with a step by step guide taking you through a clear ‘process’ of how to use the techniques previously explained to make three beautiful paintings. This makes it very easy to follow. Each demonstration builds on the one before and I found it best working through each of the demonstrations in order. You use techniques you learned previously and build on these as you go along. By the end of the book you will have completed three very accomplished watercolour paintings, two landscapes and a life painting of a bouquet of flowers which you can be very proud of. Each painting project to not at all overwhelming being fairly swift to complete and in fact very enjoyable indeed! It is beautifully illustrated throughout and includes lots of pictures to help provide further guidance on specific techniques and advice from the artist. -- Alex ScottTable of ContentsIntroduction Materials Basic Techniques Colour Lakeland Sunset Demonstrations: Blustery Day at Hope Cover, Floral Bouquet, Riverbank at Early Morning Index

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Book SynopsisIn this reissue of his popular book, Vic Bearcroft shares his love of drawing and painting wild animals, showing how to capture the personality and distinctive features of a variety of creatures. Using simple steps and plenty of detail, this guide shows you how to create beautiful artworks, from drawing the basic shapes through to realising your favourite animals in your preferred medium. Trade ReviewPopular artist and tutor, Vic Bearcroft, shares his love of drawing and painting wild animals in his new book, Painting and Drawing Wild Animals, published by Search Press. Encouraging you to paint from life, Vic suggests visiting wildlife parks, zoos and sanctuaries to study animals and their behaviour yourself to build up an understanding of their habits and movements in more natural environments. He also describes how you can use photography or wildlife documentaries on television if you are unable to see the animals in person. With clear step-by-step examples, Vic shares his tried and tested techniques for capturing animal features-such as eyes, fur and noses-in watercolour, pastels, charcoal and acrylics. There are chapters on materials, colour, and reference material as well as sections on individual animals, such as big cats, ungulates, bears, elephants, apes and dogs, with six full step-by-step projects for you to work through. * Leisure Painter *Loved the detail and instruction of how to draw animals.I can’t wait to try and draw as instructed. Thank you for your review. * Amazon *Table of ContentsIntroduction 6 Materials 8 Impact: tone and colour 20 Getting started 24 Big cats 32 Step-by-step: Tiger 42 Ungulates 48 Step-by-step: Zebra 58 Bears 64 Step-by-step: Panda 74 Pachyderms 82 Step-by-step: Asian Elephant 90 Great apes 94 Step-by-step: Chimpanzee 102 Canids 108 Step-by-step: Wolf 120 Index 128

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Book SynopsisThis new edition of a popular title breathes fresh fire into the fantastical world of dragons. It features five step-by-step projects - including a storm-heralding monster, a fire-breathing salamander and an ancient ice dragon - all with full-size outlines, plus one bonus outline for you to experiment with. With a brief introduction to using acrylic paints and transferring the outlines, this book will quickly immerse you in this fearsome fantasy world. The A3 (11.7 x 16.5in/ 297 x 420mm) outlines are provided on gatefold paper at the back of the book. This book was originally published as Ready to Paint Dragons (9781844486328), 2011.Table of ContentsIntroduction 4 Materials 6 Transferring the image 9 The projects 1. Stormbringer 10 2. Salamander 22 3. The Nursery 30 4. Firestorm 42 5. Glacier 54 Index 64 The outlines - five project outlines, plus one bonus outline

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Book Synopsis'Wombat' is a cartoon strip from Vancouver artist Rod Filbrandt and the precursor to his long-lived and much loved strip, 'Dry Shave'. In 'Wombat: The Collected Comic Strip' the reader witnesses the development of a cartoon strip and the characters that fill its frames, from its nascent, raw stages, when it first ran in Discorder-a UBC Campus paper- in the late 1980s, on through numerous growth spurts, to the amazingly polished strides of the early 1990s, and finally to its sad and noirish end in 1994. One can easily see where the artist is going with his extensive cast of louts, drunkards, grifters, drifters, and wannabes of every stripe. You can almost smell the cast of 'Dry Shave' through the blue smoke and beer mist. "In the mid-'90s underground, there was a hard-drinking, heavy-smoking private eye who went on seedy, hallucinatory journeys in black-and-white - navigating hellish terrains and nastier people. It was written and drawn by Vancouver cartoonist Rod Filbrandt, and the character was named Wombat. An incredibly stylish and unique series ..." - Fast Forward Weekly (Calgary) "Running from the mid '80s until 1994, 'Wombat' showcased Rod Filbrandt's wry and jaded views on modern society and his incredible growth and progression as a cartoonist. ... a great representation of the formative years of one of the best cartoonists this country has produced." - Broken Pencil

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisReady to play? Whether you think of yourself as an artist, a doodler, a dreamer, or none of the above, this book will jump-start your creativity. Popular art instructor Carla Sonheim offers fun, engaging ideas on every page, from drawing upside down to imagining new worlds (down to their silly hats and strange animal species). All you need is a pencil or pen and your imagination.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisFor artists and educators alike, Drawing Dimension - Shading Techniques unveils the secrets of realistic shading, making it a must-have guide for transforming simple sketches into lifelike art.Shading is one of the easiest ways of adding depth, contrast, character, and movement to your drawings. By controlling pencil pressure and stroke, understanding light and having knowledge of blending techniques, an artist can enhance their work and offer the ?wow? factor needed to produce realistic artworks. Drawing Dimension offers a series of shading tutorials that are easy to understand and simple to follow. It goes beyond the standard step by step instruction to offer readers an in-depth look at a variety of shading techniques and their applications. Inside this book is a series of lessons designed to teach you how to add dimension to your own drawings, how to analyze real life objects and shade, create highlights, blend tones, and produce realistic drawings with ease. We will explore hatching, cross hatching, and stippling techniques and learn how to use contrast to set a mood and create a focal point. At last - we?ll put all of these skills to the test and work together to produce a beautiful piece of art. Drawing Dimension includes many resources to help you along the way through examples, tips on what you should aim for, and pitfalls to avoid. Each lesson is tailored to help you refine your shading techniques so you can add more depth and realism to your work. The book is perfectly suitable for beginners and moderates of all ages, students and teachers, professionals and novices; anyone can learn how to shade like a pro!

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Book SynopsisThis is a unique guide from well-known artist Charles Evans that will show beginners how to paint a complete watercolour in just one weekend. Each course starts with practice exercises to be completed on the Saturday - readers are then ready to complete the full watercolour painting on the Sunday. After introducing essential materials and the workspace, Charles guides you through eight popular watercolour subjects with step-by-step illustrations. Written in a clear and approachable no-nonsense style, the reader will learn how to create vibrant finished paintings in the quickest possible time.Table of ContentsIntroduction; How to Use This Book; Material and the Workspace; THE PROJECTS; Theme 1: Sky and Land; Theme 2: Mountains and Lakes; Theme 3: The Sea; Theme 4: Trees and Foliage; Theme 5: Buildings; Theme 6: Flowers; Theme 7: Still Life; Theme 8: Figures; Index.

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Book SynopsisA guide to drawing and painting abstract art. It explains the techniques needed for creative expressionism through to fully abstract paintings. It reveals unusual colour and texture techniques to create with watercolours, acrylics and oil paints. It presents ten projects that highlight the progression from initial inspiration to a finished work.Table of ContentsIntroduction; Adventurous Painting Techniques; Developing Paintings; 1 Um and Peacock; 2 Water Lilies; 3 Lavender Fields; 4 Quayside; 5 Birchwood; 6 Hunstanton Cliffs; 7 Southern Ocean; 8 Hope and Despair II; 9 Descending into the Blues; Acknowledgements; Index.

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Book SynopsisDot-drawing is also known as "stippling" and is a similar stylistic technique to pointillism. With 250+ photos, this guide covers the basics of this technique; over 40 projects range from lettering to tattoo style.

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Book SynopsisFantasy Mapping: Drawing Worlds teaches you the art of fantasy map-making and shows you how to draw your own eye-catching masterpiece. Fantasy maps are illustrations of fantastical and imaginary lands. Nothing pulls a reader into an enchanting world more than a fantasy map. Whether you want to make a map for a role-playing game, a book, or you just want to learn how to draw one, this is the guide for you. Full of simple, step-by-step tutorials, this book is great for beginners. Its straightforward approach is also perfect for the advanced artist wanting to discover new tips and tricks. Quickly master innovative skills and create unique, one-of-a-kind maps. In this book you will learn:World buildingGeographyDrawing techniquesMap construction The book showcases a treasure trove of original, never-before-seen maps that are sure to inspire. Jump start your mapping journey and maximize your drawing skills. Make the maps you have always wanted! Written and illustrated by Wesley Jones, an artist, author, and an award-winning map-maker.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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