Painting with Watercolor, Pen & Ink
Painting with Watercolor, Pen & Ink
Create worlds of incredible pen, ink and watercolor art with Claudia Nice!Let best-selling author and artist Claudia Nice show you how to create incredible art in pen, ink and watercolor. She makes it easy by covering all the drawing and painting basics–everything from materials and texture techniques to color theory and special effects. It’s a one-of-a-kind course in making extraordinary art, from mastering value, contrast and definition to getting your surface techniques just right.You’ll nev
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The Creative Edge: Exercises to Celebrate Your Creative Self
Get ready for an amazing exploration of your artistic potential! Building on basic creative processes, Mary invites you to go deeper into your observations and experiences to take your work in exciting new directions. With over 25 techniques and demos, plus insightful instruction, you’ll heighten your awareness of color, texture and design. Each exercise is designed to expose you to a new medium, style or technique while advancing your painting skills. At the end of each exercise, you’ll experie
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Emphasis on detail and texture,
This is a great book if your looking for ways to add texture and details to your watercolors. It includes subjects such as polished silver, water, wood, glass, fur, feathers, rocks, flowers and aquatic life. Techniques include masking, pen & ink, dry-brush, wet-on-wet, blotting, impression, salt, alcohol, spatter and stamping. The artwork is lovely but tends to look more like illustration than fine art. Most of the content is a repeat of 2 previous books on the subject (Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor, and Painting Nature) so be forewarned if you already own either book.
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|Not two Nice…,
Having purchased ‘Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor’ by this same author (and being very impressed!), I ordered this ‘new’ title. Well, not so new!! More than half of this book’s 221 pages are identical repeats of the’Textures’ book. I love her artwork and techniques, but not enough to buy the same book over and over.
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|Very NICE book,
I admit that i bought this book primarily for the attractive illustrations fillings its pages…these inspired me a lot. Before reading this book i used to think watercolour as a boring medium -unable to achieve the strong effects I always for in my paintings. However now I have changed my mind and really am keen to try my hand in this medium -following Ms Nice illustrations one can get a very clear idea of what one can achieve using watercolour, pen and ink. However it does not really give you step by step instructions on how to achieve certain effects – i feel that one needs to be already a bit good in watercolour to try these exercises.However it is useful for those who would like to try innovative ways to achieve effective watercolour images. The pen and ink illustrations with watercolour washes are delightful. This book covers textures, transparency, wood grain, skies, trees, flowers, still life and more. Anyone who would like to add to their visual encyclopedia of fine illustraions should buy this book just for them alone! Highly recommeneded!!
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|Extending creative repertoire,
Mary Todd Beam’s follow-up to her first book expands both creative repertoire and creative experience. I have seen books on creativity that, while fun to explore, have little application for serious works of art. “The Creative Edge” does both. Many of the techniques are new, not just a rehash of all the old ones. Each technique can be used as the focus of a single art work, but the same technique can be combined with others in the book, or with techniques learned elsewhere. For example, it is possible to use her “sparkling ice” technique to create a fascinating abstract, or use it as part of a larger, more representational work.
The section titled “Have a Look: Observe” opens our eyes to looking at familiar objects in a different way, for example the interior of a derelict car, to create interpretive abstracts. I particularly like the section “Finding Figures in a Foil Print” as it not only shows a unique way of using black gesso and foil (the result looks almost like a lithograph) it could also be developed in so many ways – as an abstract, like the examples, or to add texture to a landscape or even a still life. Examples of other artists’ use of the techniques provide inspiration as well as additional ideas.
Most of the artwork is done on illustration board. If this is difficult to obtain, or if you do not like the shiny surface, it is possible to use matt board, although this is a little lighter. It does need to be gessoed on both sides and the edges sealed with wax. For a more matte working surface, I find a thin coat of fibre paste on top of the gesso works nicely. (Golden produces an excellent one)
As usual, Mary Todd Beam uses her famed palette of only three colours with amazing success: Quinacridone Crimson, Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and Turquoise (Pthalo) These create wonderful secondaries, as well as interesting tints and shades when mixed with black or white. It is worthwhile setting aside the old pallette you are comfortable with, and trying something entirely different. The results can be quite exciting.
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|Creative inspiration,
I have many shelves full of art books, mostly “how to” sorts of books on various painting techniques. Never have I read one cover to cover as I did with this book. Not only did I read it once, but I bought many of the recommended supplies and I read parts again as I experimented with the many techniques described. It’s been great fun to have Mary as my guide through several experiments so far (more to come). Some I’d call successful; others beg to be covered up and tried again. I’d recommend this book for anyone stuck in a not-so-creative rut.
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|Jump-starting Creativity,
The Creative Edge: Exercises to Celebrate Your Creative Self
In this book Mary Todd Beam picks up where she left off in her first book “Celebrate Your Creative Self.”
At one time or another every artist runs into a block or comes to a standstill in their creativity. Using this new book you can become “unstuck” and at the same time explore new approaches to once again becoming the artist you are and have been and want to be.
The new exercises presented in this book give you more opportunities to explore your artist within and have fun doing it.
Beginning and experienced artists will find a lot of exercises that will be springboards to new creativity. I’d recommend the book to all artists who want to become the artist they’d like to be. Mary Todd Beam shows the way with the exercises in this book
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