Showing posts with label art instruction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art instruction. Show all posts

The Encyclopedia of Water Color Techniques Review

The Encyclopedia of Water Color Techniques
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I was requested by my editors to write the introduction to the Brazilian edition of this book and immediately accepted, because, unlike o most books on art techniques, Hazel Harrison concentrates on demonstrating how to master all the resources and effects that watercolor offers, without implying that there is any preferable way in which to paint. The techniques are clearly explained and well illustrated and, in the second part of the book, she includes many examples of how different artists used the effects described in the first part to interpret various subjects. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to master the art of watercolor.

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Fast Sketching Techniques: Capture the Fundamental Essence of Elusive Subjects Review

Fast Sketching Techniques: Capture the Fundamental Essence of Elusive Subjects
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With the exception of the old courtroom sketch artists, rarely do you see someone standing or sitting with just a pad and a few pencils trying for a likeness of something. Most people reach in their pocket, pull out an autofocus 35mm camera and snap a picture. Anyone can sketch with some degree of success. David Rankin shows you his techniques which rely on speed, basic shapes and dramatic shading. Whether your subject is a landmark building, your seven year old neice, or a peacock at the local zoo, this book will show you easily how to capture the image in a few brief strokes. The rewards are endless. If you are an accomplished artist, the sketches will be invaluable to you back in the studio for reference in creating full blown art pieces. If you are just looking for a way to record scenes for your own edification, you will have some dramatic fast renderings that reflect a mood, something a camera simply can not do. I love this book.

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Though trained to draw in a more leisurely academic style, the author found that working in the field required a different set of tools and techniques, which he shares here, with numerous examples of his own work. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

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Portrait Painting Atelier: Old Master Techniques and Contemporary Applications Review

Portrait Painting Atelier: Old Master Techniques and Contemporary Applications
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This book contains some valuable information and tips on this difficult topic. The skin tone colour mixing part is especially helpful, and the illustrations are informative and high quality. I really like the way it goes into detail on different elements of the face, on application of paint and on toned grounds. Nevertheless, this book suffers from the same problem as all of them do. The step by step demonstrations are all made by the author/artist himself. This results in a lot of demonstrations basically using the same approach in different variations. I would really like to see a book of this kind with demonstrations by different artists, displaying different approaches and techniques! If you are very interested in glazing techniques, this should really satisfy you, since all the demonstrations involve a lot of glazing. That beeing said, the book actually includes a mini-demonstration by another artist with a different approach.
All in all a great book for the intermediate painter who wants to learn more about depicting the human form.

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The art of portraiture approached its apex during the sixteenth century in Europe with the discovery of oil painting when the old masters developed and refined techniques that remain unsurpassed to this day. The ascendance of nonrepresentational art in the middle of the twentieth century displaced these venerable skills, especially in academic art circles. Fortunately for aspiring artists today who wish to learn the methods that allowed the Old Masters to achieve the luminous color and subtle tonalities so characteristic of their work, this knowledge has been preserved in hundreds of small traditional painting ateliers that persevered in the old ways in this country and throughout the world.Coming out of this dedicated movement, Portrait Painting Atelier is an essential resource for an art community still recovering from a time when solid instruction in art technique was unavailable in our schools. Of particular value here is a demonstration of the Old Masters' technique of layering paint over a toned-ground surface, a process that builds from the transparent dark areas to the more densely painted lights. This method unifies the entire painting, creating a beautiful glow that illuminates skin tones and softly blends all the color tones. Readers will also find valuable instruction in paint mediums from classic oil-based to alkyd-based, the interactive principles of composition and photograph-based composition, and the anatomy of the human face and the key relationships among its features. Richly illustrated with the work of preeminent masters such as Millet, Géricault, and van Gogh, as well as some of today's leading portrait artists—and featuring seven detailed step-by-step portrait demonstrations—Portrait Painting Atelier is the first book in many years to so comprehensively cover the concepts and techniques of traditional portraiture.

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Acrylic Revolution: New Tricks and Techniques for Working with the World's Most Versatile Medium Review

Acrylic Revolution: New Tricks and Techniques for Working with the World's Most Versatile Medium
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As a watercolor painter for 20 years and now trying to learn to paint with acrylics, I'd read every book I could find but they often contradicted each other or had out of date information or demonstrated really ugly painting. This book is THE acrylic bible, written by a master artist and teacher. It's full of helpful tips and specific detailed information about how to achieve any technique that can be done with oil or watercolor in acrylic, along with things that you can only do with acrylics.
My goal is to be able to use acrylics more like oils and this book explains how it's done. Each technique includes "recipes" for how much of what mediums or additives to use to achieve the goals. The sample art work is superb and the writing is better and more clear than any art how to book I've read (and I have a huge library of them). I just can't say enough about how happy I am with this book and how much I appreciate the author's generous sharing of detailed, specific information.

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"Acrylic Revolution" will show readers everything they need to know to be successful in their acrylic painting projects. With over 101 of the most popular, interesting, and indispensable tricks for working with acrylic - each with its own step-by-step demonstration - there is literally page after age of acrylic instruction and inspiration for readers to discover. A gallery of finished art at the back of the book will show readers how to combine different tricks to use in their artwork offering them real-life applications for acrylic techniques.

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Print Workshop: Hand-Printing Techniques and Truly Original Projects Review

Print Workshop: Hand-Printing Techniques and Truly Original Projects
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My creative undertakings in the past have consisted in buying creative things made by o-t-h-e-r people - like one of my faves, Christine Schmidt at Yellow Owl Workshop. But her book is so clear and thoughtful AND easy that she has me succeeding in making really neat things myself! I have finished three projects from her book and my only problem is that no one who knows me believes that I made them. She knows what she is talking about and makes it doable - even for people with high hopes and limited artistic confidence. I have been a fan of her for work several years and am even more so now as she has managed to make me see myself as creative too! (I'll still be buying her cards and jewelry and ceramics, though.)

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This is a book for low budgets and high ambition. Read it and you will learn how to put images of things onto other things. You will start by rolling up your sleeves. Your shirt will be stained anyways. At some point, you will harness the power of the sun. Go ahead, look inside. You will see that you do not need a fancy studio to print a T-shirt or a picnic blanket. There is no specialized machine required to print anything you want in any room you want. A mural, a dartboard, a deck of cards, these are all possible. In a week or a month, you will wake up to find you know words like acetate and substrate. You will be comfortable talking about ink and shopping at military supply stores. Perhaps most important of all, you will be printing images of things onto other things.

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