But what about the elements that make up a picture? Using the tale of Little Red Riding Hood as an example, Molly Bang uses boldly graphic artwork to explain how images -- and their individual components -- work to tell a story that engages the emotions: Why are diagonals dramatic? Why are curves calming? Why does red feel hot and blue feel cold?

    It's used widely among artists of many types with both fine and bold lines, creating different variations. Botanical Line Drawing teaches you how to start with the simplest doodles, building into more elaborate, delicate illustrations. This book focuses on the extremely popular subject matter of the natural world and includes flowers, leaves, succulents, houseplants, trees, branches, mushrooms, and more. These simple line drawings will allow you to branch out and have fun with your own personal style, as well as inspire you to add flourishes to other projects.

    Artists will begin with some warm-up exercises and basic drawing instruction. From there, they'll embark on creating projects with doodles that get progressively more advanced through the book, starting with a gift tag and ending with elaborate doodling projects on wood and fabric. Sprinkled between projects are fun prompts and exercises designed to spark creativity, as well as beautifully designed practice pages to hone drawing and doodling skills. From cover to cover, this whimsical book is packed to the brim with ideas, while an elastic band keeps the book securly closed when not in use.

    With specific how-to techniques and creative prompts on using an artist's sketchbook in a new way, these pages provide a gentle push to help you discover and integrate your creative passions through sketchbooks, workspaces, and mixed media. Through beautiful full-color imagery, you’ll learn in each chapter how your collections, scraps, ideas, and doodles can lead directly to, and fuel ideas for, creating individual works of art.Using her own materials and methods as a source of motivation, Sarah Ahearn Bellemare provides an inside look at her personal creative processes, sharing her use of her favorite resources alongside tips and tricks for making art – all the while encouraging you to explore, play, and make mistakes as part of the journey. At the end of each chapter, Sarah takes you to visit the studios and sketchbooks of some of her fellow artists – including Shanna Murray, Christine Chitnis, Stephanie Levy, and others – for behind-the-scenes glances into their creative work.Become inspired to build upon your own artistic style and discover the beauty in everyday life with Painted Pages!

    Work with an arsenal of creative tools, from markers, pencils and pens to stamps, stencils, inks and paints, to find unique, intuitive ways to make your mark.Inside Doodles Unleashed, you'll learn how to:Doodle spontaneous marks, repetitive patterns, stylistic scrawls and moreCreate textured and doodled backgrounds for your mixed-media artUse photographs, vintage fabric and typography as inspirations for doodlingWork with unusual tools--skewers, toothpicks, sequin waste and more--to create surprising and unique marksDevelop a doodling style that's all your ownAnd if that isn't enough, you'll find links for additional downloads and video tutorials sprinkled throughout the pages, for even more doodle insight.With over 60 doodling techniques and exercises, you'll find plenty of ways to unleash your creative spirit and make your mark!

    It does all this through just four very simple mending techniques: exterior patches, interior patches, slow stitches, darning, and weaving. In addition, the book addresses the way mending leads to a more mindful relationship to fashion and to overall well-being. In essays that accompany each how-to chapter, Katrina Rodabaugh explores mending as a metaphor for appreciating our own naturally flawed selves, and she examines the ways in which mending teaches us new skills, self-reliance, and confidence, all gained from making things with our own hands.

    Peterson stresses the importance of metering the subject for a starting exposure, and then explains how to use various exposure meters and different kinds of lighting. The book contains lessons on each element of the exposure-aperature, shutter speed, iso-and how it relates to the other two in terms of depth of field, freezing and blurring action, and shooting in low light or at night. A section on special techniques explores such options as deliberate under- and overexposures, how to produce double exposures, bracketing, shooting the moon, and the use of filters. Understanding Exposure demonstrates that there are always creative choices about how to expose a picture-and that the decision is up to the photographer, not the camera.

    Find your "authentic" design voice and get carving today!

    . . Keep it right next to your desk where you can find it at a moment’s notice."—Tim O’Neil, PopMatters.comThe best cartooning is efficient visual storytelling—it is as much a matter of writing as it is of drawing. In this book, noted cartoonist and illustrator Ivan Brunetti presents fifteen distinct lessons on the art of cartooning, guiding his readers through wittily written passages on cartooning terminology, techniques, tools, and theory. Supplemented by Brunetti's own illustrations, prepared specially for this book, these lessons move the reader from spontaneous drawings to single-panel strips and complicated multipage stories.Through simple, creative exercises and assignments, Brunetti offers an unintimidating approach to a complex art form. He looks at the rhythms of storytelling, the challenges of character design, and the formal elements of comics while composing pages in his own iconic style and experimenting with a variety of tools, media, and approaches. By following the author's sophisticated and engaging perspective on the art of cartooning, aspiring cartoonists of all ages will hone their craft, create their personal style, and discover their own visual language.

    An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today—or perhaps even more so—than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work. In a new introduction to the book, Julia Cameron reflects upon the impact of The Artist’s Way and describes the work she has done during the last decade and the new insights into the creative process that she has gained. Updated and expanded, this anniversary edition reframes The Artist’s Way for a new century.

    This hands-on book is organized into 52 units, which may, but don't need to be explored on a weekly basis. The labs can be worked on in any order, so that you can flip around to learn a new mixed-media technique or be inspired by a particular painting theme or application. The underlying message of this book is that, as an artist, you should learn and gain expertise through experimentation and play. There is no right or wrong result, rather you will find new forms of expression in your work and gain confidence in your skills. Designed to inform and inspire new artists and rekindle passion for painting in experienced artists, this book offers a range of exercises broken down by theme: Who (artist-inspired), What (tools and materials), When (a time-based concept), Where (a sense of place), and How (inspired by a technique or method).   Paint Lab is illustrated with brilliant full-color images and multiple examples of each exercise. This book offers you a visual, non-linear approach to learning painting techniques, and reinforces a fun and fearless approach to creating art.

    In this book, Sunshine Cobb covers all the foundational skills, with lessons for constructing both simple and complex forms from clay. Ceramic artists will also find a variety of next-level techniques and tips: designing templates and replicating pieces, lidded vessels, using molds, a variety of decorative techniques, and other avenues of exploration are all inside.Artist features and inspirational galleries include work from today's top working artists, such as Bryan Hopkins, Lindsay Oesterritter, Liz Zlot Summerfield, Bandana Pottery, Shoko Teruyama, Courtney Martin, Sam Chung, Deborah Schwartzkopf, and many more.  Take your hand building skills—and your artwork—to the next level with Mastering Hand Building. The Mastering Ceramics series is for artists who never stop learning. With compelling projects, expert insight, step-by-step photos, and galleries of work from today’s top artists, these books are the perfect studio companions. Also available from the series: Mastering the Potter's Wheel and Mastering Kilns and Firing.

    Now, in an even more forward-thinking and necessary book, he shows how to take that critical next step on a creative journey—getting known. Show Your Work! is about why generosity trumps genius. It’s about getting findable, about using the network instead of wasting time “networking.” It’s not self-promotion, it’s self-discovery—let others into your process, then let them steal from you. Filled with illustrations, quotes, stories, and examples, Show Your Work! offers ten transformative rules for being open, generous, brave, productive. In chapters such as You Don’t Have to Be a Genius; Share Something Small Every Day; and Stick Around, Kleon creates a user’s manual for embracing the communal nature of creativity— what he calls the “ecology of talent.” From broader life lessons about work (you can’t find your voice if you don’t use it) to the etiquette of sharing—and the dangers of oversharing—to the practicalities of Internet life (build a good domain name; give credit when credit is due), it’s an inspiring manifesto for succeeding as any kind of artist or entrepreneur in the digital age.

    Inside Inner Excavation, author Liz Lamoreux will be your guide, along with eleven inspiring artists, as you discover more about who you are, how you got here and where you wish to go. Prompts and exercises will show you how to express who you are through the photos you take, the words you write and the art you create.Find encouragement and fresh ideas in these pages as you:Uncover prompts to use your senses for exploring and capturing where you are in any particular moment.Tap into the poet's voice that's whispering inside of you, even if you've never written poetry before.Be given permission to spend time "Delving into the Quiet," being still and listening to the mindful voice inside of you through meditation to create a balance in your daily moments.Bring words and art together in self-portrait expression that is as layered as you are.Take a fresh look inside today; become inspired, through Inner Excavation, to see more than the smiling reflection in the mirror.

    They offer viewers rich, visual inspiration. There is a fascination with these revealing and often beautiful pages of self-exploration and personal expression. Journals offer a tantalizing, voyeuristic view of an interior life. Journaling has seeped into popular culture in a big way and this collection provides a wide array of ideas, techniques and themes to inspire and inform mixed media and journaling enthusiasts.This is the first book to offer examples of over 1000 journal pages in one eye-catching, visual format. Artists can embrace and experiment with this medium and will benefit from this rich collection.