. . 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.

    The definitive monograph of artist Charley Harpers work, lovingly edited by Todd Oldham.

    Featuring 200 of the best works of young, modern watercolor painters, paired with bite-sized painting tips and art instruction, Just Add Watercolor gives aspiring artists access to information about-and examples of-top work in the medium. Artist and instructor Helen Birch breaks down each painting by techniques, subject matter, and tools, providing art enthusiasts and painters with a one-stop resource and gallery of the best that modern watercolor has to offer. Its small trim size with one painting per spread provides a bold, but user-friendly alternative to traditional, process-heavy painting instruction texts. Just Add Watercolor shines the spotlight on featured paintings, while still giving readers all the insights needed to get started painting in this popular medium.

    Tete a Tete is a remarkable arrangement of his most memorable portraits, including Pablo Picasso, Truman Capote, Marilyn Monroe, Lucien Freud, William Faulkner, Robert Kennedy, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King Jr., Coco Chanel, and the Dalai Lama. Beyond these famous names there are also anonymous portraits, chosen for their striking and unusual features, and a selection of pencil drawings, including a self-portrait. Cartier-Bresson supervised the design of the book and the juxtaposition of all the photographs. The result is a distinguished collection of his work, diverse in its range of extraordinary and ordinary personalities from the 1930s to the 1990s. Tete a Tete reveals Cartier-Bresson as a photographer who is as skillful in recording the subtleties of the individual portrait as he is renowned for his masterful ability to capture the decisive moment.

    Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a seminal examination of comics art: its rich history, surprising technical components, and major cultural significance. Explore the secret world between the panels, through the lines, and within the hidden symbols of a powerful but misunderstood art form.

    Her method begins with action-filled exercises that demonstrate how to play with paint, following no rules. Subsequent step-by-step projects add planning to the mix, demonstrating how to turn loose washes into light-filled watercolors with textural effects achieved by spraying, sprinkling, pouring, squirting, or stamping paint. Engle's approach, and her results, are dramatic and dynamic; now watercolor artists can create their own exciting paintings with help from How to Make a Watercolor Paint Itself.

    Illustrated with the author's own work, it is designed to encourage artists of all levels of ability, including cartoonists and graphic artists.

    heroes to confront... elegant elves, shrewd sorcerers and dreaded demons to battle. Following on the wings of the ferociously popular DragonArt, this book shows you how to conjure up your own fantasy realms by drawing inspiration from fairy tales, legends and (if you dare) things that go bump in the night.Breathe the life into your beings by basing them upon fundamental human anatomy--proportions, facial expressions and gender-specific characteristics.Color-coded, step-by-step demonstrations (simple enough that even the dullest of dwarves could follow along!) show you how to create a sordid cast of creatures, including goblins, orcs, sprites, angels, mermaids, centaurs, vampires, werewolves, banshees and more.Accessorize each being by tailoring them with tusks, wings, hooves, daggers, armor and various apparel, from the fine garb of nobles to peasant rags.Copy each being as-is. Or, better yet, follow your own twisted imaginings to conjure up creatures from fantastic lands.

    He addresses the scope of Modern Art, from its founding days as Abstract Expressionism through its transformations to Pop, Op, Minimal, and Conceptual. This is Tom Wolfe "at his most clever, amusing, and irreverent" (San Francisco Chronicle).

    "I believe that you must be able to draw things as you see them--realistically," wrote Rudy de Reyna in his introduction.Today, generations of artists have learned to draw what they see, to truly capture the world around them, using de Reyna's methods. How to Draw What You See shows artists how to recognize the basic shape of an object--cube, cylinder, cone, or sphere--and use that shape to draw the object, no matter how much detail it contains.

    A story book tells a story with words. Although the pictures amplify it, the story can be understood without them. The pictures have an auxiliary role, because the words themselves contain images. In contrast, a true picture book tells a story mainly or entirely with pictures.

    A practical easy-to-follow guide, which shows how to observe and draw portraits of children and adults - and how to capture a likeness.

    Imagine a supportive community of artists sharing the innermost pages of their sketchbooks and offering you tips and techniques for overcoming creative blocks. That's what The Sketchbook Challenge is all about, and the popular blog of the same name has already inspired thousands. Inside this book, you'll find:   · Themes that will motivate you to start your sketchbook—and, more important, keep at it · Tutorials spotlighting such mixed-media techniques as thread sketching, painted papers for collage, digital printing, and much more · Strategies to get off the sketchbook page and start creating inspired art—whether you're into painting, collage, fiber art, or beyond. · In-depth profiles of artists who have taken the Sketchbook Challenge and used it as a launching pad for their own meaningful artwork

    It gives detailed explanations of game art techniques and their importance, while also highlighting their dependence on artistic aspects of game design and programming.” — John Romero, co-founder of id Software and CEO of Loot Drop, Inc."Solarski’s methodology here is to show us the artistic techniques that every artist should know, and then he transposes them to the realm of video games to show how they should be used to create a far more artful gaming experience ... if I were an artist planning to do video game work, I’d have a copy of this on my shelf."— Marc Mason, Comics Waiting RoomVideo games are not a revolution in art history, but an evolution. Whether the medium is paper or canvas—or a computer screen—the artist’s challenge is to make something without depth seem like a window into a living, breathing world. Video game art is no different.  Drawing Basics and Video Game Art is first to examine the connections between classical art and video games, enabling developers to create more expressive and varied emotional experiences in games. Artist game designer Chris Solarski gives readers a comprehensive introduction to basic and advanced drawing and design skills—light, value, color, anatomy, concept development—as well as detailed instruction for using these methods to design complex characters, worlds, and gameplay experiences. Artwork by the likes of Michelangelo, Titian, and Rubens are studied alongside AAA games like BioShock, Journey, the Mario series, and Portal 2, to demonstrate perpetual theories of depth, composition, movement, artistic anatomy, and expression. Although Drawing Basics and Video Game Art is primarily a practical reference for artists and designers working in the video games industry, it’s equally accessible for those interested to learn about gaming’s future, and potential as an artistic medium.Also available as an eBook

    The Bargue-Gerome Drawing Course is a complete reprint of a famous, late nineteenth century drawing course.