Create art that's more attractive, interesting and eye-catching!Even if your perspective is accurate, your subject realistic and colors vibrant, a weak composition - predictable, repetitious or monotonous - means a weak painting.The Simple Secret to Better Painting ensures that your compositions work every time. It's an insightful artistic philosophy that boils down the many technical principles of composition into a single master rule that's easy ...

• How to mix every color you need from a basic palette• Pages of detailed at-a-glance color charts• Mixing with both dry and water-soluble pencils• Ideas for mixing a wide range of greens• The best mixture for deep, rich colors• Useful techniques for blending and overlaying• Technical information on pigments

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 focu...

Learn great lessons about how you can incorporate great design elements into your composition, including five easy formulas that will ensure a strong image every single time. But don't let your great design be ruined by muddy colors! These lessons go beyond color wheel instruction to teach how to achieve tones from skin color to sky and foliage, all of which sets up the final section, where you'll learn great approaches to popular subjects ranging from animals and nature to man-made object...

Banish boring watercolors forever! This guide gives you the "power tools" you need to transform dull, flat landscapes into robust, colorful expressions of your artistic vision. Each chapter focuses on a specific strategy for tackling tough challenges, complete with inspiring examples, hands-on demonstrations and instructional diagrams to make these strategies easy and fun to learn. Following this guide's masterful visual instruction, you'll learn how to:• See beyond "what you see" ...

Through 46 daily exercises which make up a complete 6-week course, you will keep your artistic skills sharp and your imaginations fertile by doing One Drawing A Day. Each spread in the book features a beautiful drawing by one of 8 professional illustrators, with a description and comments by the illustrator as well as a companion exercise. Each exercise includes suggestions for various mediums or mixed-media solutions, advice on how to approach and execute the drawing, as well as professio...

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 strate...

Harness the power of negative space!Breathe new life into your art through negative painting. Linda Kemp shares her techniques for using the strength of negative space - the areas not occupied by subject matter - to create alluring works of art.Watercolor Painting Outside the Lines is a comprehensive guide to evoking more passion in your paintings. You'll learn how to take hold of the often-overlooked areas of a painting through interactive, easy t...

Love to paint? Want to learn? Then grab your paints and brushes and get started!Learn all the tricks and techniques you need to perform "magic" with paint! In Painting Magic, the third volume of his popular painting series, Jerry Yarnell helps you move beyond the basics and begin tackling more involved paintings.You'll find ten beautiful step-by-step projects, each designed to provide a new set of artistic challenges that help you ...

Come enjoy the art of pastel painting with beloved workshop instructor Maggie Price. In this step-by-step guide, she teaches you everything you need to know to make the most of this accessible art form. From selecting the right materials to learning the fundamentals of composition, Maggie starts with the basics and progresses to 21 complete pastel demonstrations that detail specific painting techniques and effects.You'll learn how to:• Create depth and movement with color

Transform your paintings from ordinary to extraordinary - with light!Want to paint light-filled watercolors that reach out and draw viewers in? In this book, award-winning watercolorist and teacher Susan Bourdet shows you how. Through simple concepts and detailed step-by-step demonstrations, Susan demystifies the process of successfully depicting light in watercolor. You'll learn how to:• Create convincing light effects and rich shadows• Depict diffe...

This beginner's guide to drawing in graphite pencil uses step-by-step exercises to teach fundamental methods for rendering all aspects of the natural landscape, with additional lessons on using charcoal, colored pencil, pastel, and other media.Following in the footsteps of author, artist, and art instructor Suzanne Brooker's previous title The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting, this book pairs the most universally-pursued topic for artists (drawing) with ...