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Virtu Art Book

How-to Paint using Watercolours, Acrylics and Oils

The Zen of Creative Painting: An Elegant Design for Revealing Your Muse
Adopting an alternative approach to painting, this book shows how, through a combination of Eastern philosophy and Western techniques, artists may be empowered to produce more thoughtful and creative work. It demonstrates how this effect can be achieved by meditation and exercises

The Tao of Watercolour: A Revolutionary Approach to the Practice of Painting
This is a guide showing painters how to approach the act of painting in a fully conscious manner that can prepare the way for continued artistic growth without the usual stumbling blocks or tedium. Applying the principles presented in the "Tao Te Ching", the book shows painters how to unite spirit, mind and body to achieve inspired craftsmanship in their works

Watercolour: A New Beginning - A Holistic Approach to Painting
Aimed at newcomers to the medium, this book takes a free approach to watercolour painting, letting readers explore at their own pace. By not stressing the technical aspects of the medium, the author guides beginners in learning the language of colour and imagery in their own way

Zen Brushwork: Focusing the Mind with Calligraphy and Painting
With its bold strokes and mystic aura, Zen calligraphy has intrigued many Westerners since the 19060s, but has remained a little-understood art form. Here, master calligrapher and swordmaster Tanchu Terayama offers detailed lessons in Japanese techniques of the brush, as well as an in-depth appreciation of calligraphy's most subtle elements. Section one covers the basics (history, tools and posture) and presents a unique yoga-like warm-up to establish the proper mental attitude and release creative energies. Next, the power of the brushed line is diagnosed and practised. What makes a good line or a bad one, an expressive effort or an unfocused one? Then come lessons in penning symbolic Japanese characters, and finally Terayama teaches readers how to draw the elegant pictorial themes of this classic art: bamboo, plum blossoms, Mount Fuji, and the inspirational, if apocryphal, Zen patriarch Bodhidharma.

Sengai: Master Zen Painter
This concise, acute narrative of Sengai's life is followed by the book's centerpiece: seventy-four plates showing paintings, calligraphy, and tea utensils. Many of these pieces were impromptu creations, and perhaps for that reason reveal the character of their creator more faithfully than could any carefully planned work of art. Each is a visual representation of Sengai's inner life, and is accompanied by the author's lively commentary which highlights the wit and underlying profundity that is Sengai's real legacy to the world.

The Complete Oil Painter: The Essential Reference Source for Beginning to Professional Artists
After trying a range of reference books about oil painting for years, this book has been a breath of fresh air. It is not only clear, concise and comprehensive, it also takes you on a journey through art history. There is a fantastic range of images of well selected oil paintings. It was fascinating and inspiring to see such high quality examples of paintings from contemporary painters. Examples of techniques are beautifully illustrated with paintings by Brian Gorst photographed at several stages in development. The creative voice and commitment of the author comes through clearly in both images and text, makling this more than just a book of techniques. He maintains a vision and purpose in the reasons behind why it is so important for these skills to live on. Highly recommended to artists at all levels!

You Can Paint Acrylics: A Step-by-step Guide for Absolute Beginners (Collins You Can Paint S.)
Written by professional artist-teachers, the books in this series start with real basics and assume no knowledge or experience of painting whatsoever. Full of easy-to-follow exercises and demonstrations, the "Collins You Can Paint" series is designed to give even the most hesitant of beginners the enthusiasm and confidence necessary to start painting in acrylics. All the instruction is broken down into really easy step-by-step exercises to help you to practise and build up your knowledge and expertise of painting gradually. Melanie Cambridge takes the reader by the hand and shows, with simple staged exercises, exactly how to paint all the separate features of a picture one-by-one. This text focuses specifically on acrylic paints

Japanese Ink Painting: Beginner's Guide to Sumi-E
Paperback
Publisher:
Sterling Publishing

How to Paint: A Complete Step-by-step for Beginners Covering Watercolours, Acrylics and Oils
The unique approach of this book is so simple that the reader can start immediately on original and exciting projects. Each section has practical information on materials and equipment and includes a gallery of work by other artists to inspire the beginner. The projects cover all types of subjects, including landscapes, still life, people, flowers, animals and buildings. Within each section the demonstrations provide instruction in a whole range of different techniques from the basic brushstrokes to using resist and painting with a knife. Filled with stunning artworks and inspiring projects, this book will help beginners to achieve immediate and impressive results with a minimum of practice.

Pastels (Collins Learn to Paint S.)
This best-selling title will be relaunched in September 04 with a fresh new cover design. Written by the highly respected artist John Blockley, this book provides an ideal introduction to the popular and accessible medium of pastels. John Blockley gives advice on choosing materials and demonstrates all the basic techniques of painting in the colourful, modern medium of pastels. He shows how to make marks with pastels, which papers to use and how to work from pencil sketches. There are many interesting step-by-step demonstration paintings on a variety of subjects -- flowers, trees, still life, buildings and landscapes -- and the book includes a fine selection of John Blockley's beautiful pastel paintings.

You Can Paint Landscapes in Watercolour: A Step-by-step Guide for Absolute Beginners (Collins You Can Paint S.)
A new title in the Collins "You Can Paint" series of painting books for absolute beginners. Written by well-known artist-teachers, these start with real basics and assume no knowledge or experience of painting whatsoever. Full of easy-to-follow exercises and demonstrations, the book aims to give even the most hesitant of beginners the enthusiasm and confidence to start painting landscapes. All the instruction is broken down into easy step-by-step exercises to help you to practise and build up your knowledge and expertise of painting gradually. Alwyn Crawshaw takes the reader by the hand and shows, with simple staged exercises, exactly how to paint all the separate elements of a landscape one by one. For example, you learn how to paint trees, clouds, rocks, paths, mountains, lakes and rivers in watercolour and by the end of the book you should be able to produce a landscape in watercolour that you can be proud of.

Airbrush:
Learning to Paint (Barron's Art Guide)
Covers the materials, basic techniques, and problem causes and solutions of airbrush painting, and provides exercises to paint basic shapes, skies, landscapes, metal, skin, and still lifes.

How to Paint Like the Impressionists
This superbly illustrated, practical book assesses the techniques and styles of the great masters of Impressionism and shows how their methods can be used and adapted by modern artists. Impressionism has captured the imagination of people the world over since the first exhibition in Paris in 1874, and nowadays Impressionist exhibitions are always massively over-subscribed. Artists have long sought to understand how and why the Impressionists created their paintings and how their techniques might be replicated today. This book aims to reveal the answers to these questions. There are sections on the main techniques -- pointillism, two-dimensional brushwork, using slabs of colour and palette knife application -- and on how the Impressionists used colour so effectively. Numerous practical step-by-step demonstrations and fascinating deconstructions of major Impressionist paintings are included, to enable the modern painter to re-create the style of the following artists: Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Cassatt, Degas, Cezanne, Seurat and Van Gogh

Problem Solving for Oil Painters:
Recognizing What's Gone Wrong and How to Make It Right
Nine common trouble-spots in oil painting are identified in this book, and readers are helped to locate their own problem areas and avoid them in future

Acrylic Painting Techniques: How to Master the Medium of Our Age
Acrylic paint is the preferred choice of many artists. This sourcebook demonstrates how artists can exploit this medium to open up a range of creative possibilities. Step-by-step lessons show artists how to use acrylic paint transparently, translucently, or opaquely; apply watercolour and oil painting techniques with acrylics; extend the versatility of acrylic paints and gels, gouaches, metallics and gessos; and more. It features colour reproductions of finished paintings

How to Paint Like the Old Masters
Explains in detailed, full-color demonstrations the oil-painting techniques perfected by sixteenthand seventeenth-century masters, studying portraits by Titian, Caravaggio, Reubens, and Rembrandt

The Encyclopedia of Pastel Techniques:
A Unique A-Z Directory of Pastel Painting Techniques Plus Guidance on How Best to Use Them
Papreback
Publisher:
Search Press Ltd

Portraits in Pastels (How to Draw & Paint S.)
Paperback
Publisher:
Walter Foster Publishing

100 Ways to Paint Still Life and Florals (How Did You Paint That? S.)
From the best artists working in the world today comes an instructive and inspirational new series - How Did You Paint That? Covering a spectrum of popular topics, this series provides beginning and advanced artist of all mediums with detailed examples of the myriad ways in which to portray the featured subject. Each title includes 100 different interpretations of the topic, and each interpretation is accompanied by valuable firsthand feedback from the artist, including the colours and brushes used, along with the artist's methodology, challenges, and motivation. Readers will also find suggestions and exercises from the painters, allowing them to apply the lessons of masters to their own masterpieces

Big Book of Watercolour Basics:
A Complete Guide to Knowing How Watercolour Works
How to create watercolours through fun and easy exercises, for beginner to intermediate level, with step by step instructions.

Colour and Light for the Watercolour Painter: How to Get the Effect You Want Every Time
Review: My watercolor instructor brought a copy of this book to class and I fell in love with it. If you want to achieve glowing, luminous color, and aren't getting the effect you're looking for in your watercolor paintings--you need this book. Mr Schink illustrates why leaving white in your painting won't give you a luminous effect, and also shows you how to use color and value to achieve that "glow" which is so characteristic of his work and Skip Lawrence's. If you're a colorist, you will find a lot to like about this book.

Color Theory Made Easy: A New Approach To Color Theory and How to Apply It to Mix Paints
This work covers all the fundamentals for achieving pure, shaded, or tinted colour. It also contains proof that artists' primary colours are cyan, yellow and magenta - which form the basis of the 12-unit colour wheel that is the foundation of all colour.

Encaustic Art: How to Paint with Wax
Knowledge of how to draw is not necessary for the craft of encaustic art - painting with wax. All that is required is a few wax colours, some card and a small electric iron. A whole range of cards, gifts and paintings can be easily made. Step-by-step photographs illustrate how to create abstract designs and landscapes. Pictures take on a glow with the warm wax colours, and texture and detail can be added to enhance images. The wax can also be applied to fabric which can then be decorated with surface embroidery and beadwork

How to Create Light in Your Paintings: The Artist's Guide to Using Tone Effectively
Much of the emotion in a painting is achieved from the sensitive use of light in the subject. Without its effects paintings often look flat and bland yet it is something that many artists find quite daunting. Following on from his book How to Mix and Use Colour, Tony Paul presents this structured course on the understanding and practice of tonal control. The book is divided into eight parts, culminating in a series of step-by-step demonstrations in seven different media. Subjects covered include colour and tone, how to use and control light, different kinds of light and tonal keys. Paintings by Tony and other artists are used to bring the information and the teaching to life, functioning as examples of the points being made.

Oil Painting for the Serious Beginner:
Basic Lessons in Becoming a Good Painter
Paperback
Publisher:
Watson-Guptill Publications

Painting Beautiful Skin Tones with Color & Light:
In Oil, Pastel and Watercolor
Hardcover
Publisher:
North Light Books

Oil Portraits Step By Step
Paperback
Publisher:
Dover Publications

Painting Expressive Portraits in Oil
A guide to painting realistic and expressive portraits in oils. The author creates seven life like portraits of a variety of people, using a step by step programme, and deals with topics such as the painting, proportion, and placement of features, as well as how to mix perfect skin tones