A complete guide to the perfect medium for first-time painters and for artists looking for a new medium. Step-by-step sequences show you how to master the techniques and develop your own style. 9 demonstration projects....

Rather than believe that drawing is a special gift, this book is based on the principle that learning to draw well and accurately is a skill that anyone can achieve, provided the motivation is there. Art School: Drawing is a complete guide to all the materials, techniques and methods that any beginner will need, and contains inspirational practical projects to follow, and expert ideas and advice on all the latest approaches....

The book outlines basic setting up and preparation, taking the reader step-by-step through all the techniques, with practical projects to follow at home. Once the basics have been mastered, the book then details more specialized methods, explaining clearly and simply how to achieve increasingly advanced effects. Throughout, works by contemporary artists illustrate the skills in action, while special focus features look at popular subjects such as figures and portraits, animals and buildings. At-a-glance step-by-step photographs, clear instructions and examples throughout provide visual guidance. With tried and tested techniques and expert advice, this book provides an invaluable practical reference source in an easy-to-use format....

Teaches total beginners how to paint a complete picture in just one weekend

This fun guide's `weekend' formula allows eager beginners to build skills gradually and produce an attractive, frameable painting in only a weekend. The materials and basic technique sections provide a fast grounding in the skills required for painting watercolor landscapes, allowing budding artists to quickly move on to nine short landscape-painting courses that take them through practice exercises on Saturday, all the way to a finished painting on Sunday....

A camera can instantly capture a fleeting moment in time--that shifting quality of light, the shape of a moving figure, or a flash of emotion across a face--and preserve it for artists to paint at their leisure. Make your photographs an invaluable inspiration for great paintings. A technical discussion covers cameras, lenses, viewpoints, and depth of field. Themed mini-galleries place source photographs and the paintings they motivated side by side--including a photo of Paris by night that, in the artist's hands, becomes a glittering, romantic pastel of the city. Eight in-depth profiles of painters feature a selection of their art, conversations about their working methods, and a "tutorial" that follows the progression from photograph to painting...