Small Pieces is a collaboration between novelist Micheline Aharonian Marcom and writer and visual artist Fowzia Karimi, pairing Marcom’s short stories—miniatures as Marcom calls them—with Karimi's watercolors. The work is a conversation between two artists in text and image, side by side.

A visually rich guide that can help aspiring and experienced artists master the stunning yet often complex techniques used to create dazzling watercolor backgrounds in only a few simple steps. Watercolor paintings are highly regarded for their delicate strokes, incandescent washes, and ethereal pigments. But the very beauty of this medium also makes it challenging for painters. Unlike oil and acrylic paints which can be easily applied and maintain their appearance after drying, the primary water base of watercolors alters the shape of the paper as well as the appearance of the paint as it dries. A leading expert in watercolor painting and highly regarded teacher, Yuko Nagayama has developed a unique and fool-proof twelve-step system to help you become proficient in creating exquisite landscapes as well as detailed objects and backgrounds using this popular medium. You Can Paint Dazzling Watercolors in Twelve Easy Lessons includes a list of necessary tools for watercolor painting, tutorials on different paints, instructions on mixing colors on a palette, and initial sketching techniques. Powered by Yuko's unique method and filled with helpful illustrations, You Can Paint Dazzling Watercolors in Twelve Easy Lessons will inspire you to diversify your skills and create beautiful works of art.

The pull-out tracings and step-by-step instructions in this guidebook show beginning artists how to draw and paint poppies, daisies, roses, pansies, primroses, jonquils, and daffodils. With tips for tracing and transferring the image onto watercolor paper and a detailed section on the necessary materials, this guide makes painting flowers simple and accessible, allowing novice painters to develop their skills. These elegant and vibrant projects not only build the confidence and techniques of any aspiring artist, they are also gorgeous paintings ready for framing.

Easy tips for buying and using materials, mixing colours, creating texture and correcting mistakes, as well as for painting skies, fields, trees, water, roofs, winter scenes and much more. Terry demystifies the painting process, reveals his secrets and shows how to produce perfect pictures every time. This title was previously published as Terry's Top Tips for Watercolour Artists. In this new easy-to-use flexibinding format with an updated design, the books in the Watercolour Artists' Pocket Books series bring you the best tips from some of Search Press's leading authors.

'When we paint with colours we should paint in such a way that we are conscious that we are calling forth life from what is dead.' -- Rudolf Steiner A vital factor in a child's development is the stimulation of active imagination and creativity. Here are ideas for encouraging self-expression through watercolour painting. Essentially practical, this book is based on Goethe's colour theory and shows that painting with children is more than just a form of self-expression. Muller encourages and attempts to understand children's fantasies through their artwork. This guide for parents and teachers to painting with watercolours covers preparation, colour-stories and poems, painting moods of nature and the seasons of the year.

A unique guide that will teach complete beginners how to paint a beautiful floral watercolour in just one weekend. Beginners recognise that they need to acquire basic painting skills - but at the same time they are eager to produce their first finished painting. This popular 'weekend' formula allows them to do both in a limited amount of time - to build skills gradually and to produce an attractive, frameable painting that they can hang on their walls by the end of the weekend. The author starts by introducing the materials required, and then leads readers through a series of watercolour technique exercises designed to provide a basic grounding in the skills needed for this subject area. This instruction is followed by six weekend projects for painting a range of popular floral subjects: a single flower; a group of white flowers; an indoors still life; an outdoors close-up; autumn flowers; and wild flowers in the landscape. Each course starts with practice exercises to be completed on the Saturday; readers are then ready to complete the full watercolour painting on the Sunday. Clear instructions accompany step-by-step photographs throughout, and technical information is given in special feature boxes.

Geoff Kersey shares his expertise in this book packed full of tips for watercolour painters. Learn all you need to know, from what to buy, composing a painting and mastering techniques such as wet into wet and dry brush work, to how to paint skies, water, trees, buildings and more. The tips are clearly explained and illustrated through artwork and step-by-step photographs. This title was previously published as Geoff's Top Tips for Watercolour Artists. In this new, easy-to-use flexibinding format with an updated design, the books in the Watercolour Artists' Pocket Books series bring you the best tips from some of Search Press's leading authors.

This nostalgic, humorous and richly illustrated volume celebrates the Somerset of years gone by. Syd Durston was seven when the Second World War broke out. As well as causing panic in Britain's cities, the war transformed life in the countryside in all sorts of ways. This is how one boy remembers life in rural Somerset during that time, where from 'the age of ten you were at school between 9 a.m. and noon, and then you could work on the land until 8 p.m.'. It is an elegy to the levels and the moors, and the rich diversity of wildlife that could once be found in the fields - 'thousands of grasshoppers, large and small, hopping everywhere, butterflies of all kinds feeding on the red clovers that were now in flower; the smell of the honeysuckle and the dog roses in the hedges' - and a lament for the landscapes and ways of life that we have now lost. From the outbreak of war to the drama of D-Day, Syd - whose watercolour paintings, many of which illustrate this collection, aim to show the reality of farming life as it was then - captures a moment in history as it really was. Containing more than 120 paintings, sketches and drawings, it will delight residents and visitors alike.

Using clear and concise language and in-depth, step-by-step demonstrations, author and renowned artist Mary Whyte guides beginning and intermediate watercolorists through the entire painting process, from selecting materials to fundamental techniques to working with models. Going beyond the practical application of techniques, Whyte helps new artists capture not just the model's physical likeness, but their unique personality and spirit. Richly illustrated, the book features Mary Whyte's vibrant empathetic watercolors and works by such masters of watercolor as Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, and Georgia O'Keeffe.

This complete beginner's guide to painting animals and birds is ideal if you want to learn to paint in watercolour but are short on time. Broken down into 32 quick and easy paintings measuring just 15 x 10cm (6 x 4in), this basic course will teach you all the skills you need to paint domestic and wild animals and birds, in home settings or in nature. Best-selling author Matthew Palmer shows you how to paint a diverse range of animals and birds, including a parrot, cat, dog, zebra, stag, cow and swan, and teaches you how to paint realistic markings, fur and feathers, and how to create faces filled with character and personality. Tracings are provided for all the paintings, including the three projects at the end of the book. Simply trace them off onto your watercolour paper and paint with confidence, without the need to make an initial drawing. Each painting takes just 30 minutes to complete and teaches you a different technique, so by the end of the book you will be equipped with all the skills you need to complete one of the three full-size projects: a King Charles cavalier spaniel, a snow leopard and a hummingbird.

This exquisite book by the founders of the studio May & Berry shows you how to create beautiful messages through the combination of hand lettering and watercolour. Broken down into easy-to-follow stages, you will soon learn how to use different pens and inks to produce gorgeous lettering, embellished with simple yet stunningly effective watercolour motifs. This practical book guides you gently through the materials and tools you need to get started, and sets you on your hand-lettering journey with some simple exercises. There are then ten pretty step-by-step projects for you to try, after which you'll be confidently creating your own handwritten artworks that you can display on your wall, send as notecards to loved ones, or use to decorate your journals and scrapbooks. At the back of the book there is a treasure trove of gorgeous botanical-style motifs and borders along with four delightful alphabets created by the authors in a variety of scripts - perfect for gently encouraging beginners and inspiring more experienced hand-lettering artists to play with new designs and styles. This is followed by six handy worksheets on which to practise your letter-writing technique. You'll soon find that hand lettering with watercolour is quick and fun to learn, and a wonderful skill that will bring you joy for many years to come.

This is a practical and comprehensive guide for all watercolour enthusiasts, from the beginner who wishes to explore this popular painting medium to the experienced artist looking for inspiration and ideas. Starting with advice on materials, colour and composition, the book goes on to describe basic and more advanced techniques and the wonderful effects they can produce. Fourteen easy-to-follow, step-by-step demonstrations show the reader how to paint skies, trees, water, buildings and flowers, and each section is accompanied by a selection of inspirational paintings by the seven featured artists, in a rich variety of styles. Originally published as 'Working with Watercolour', this book uses material from the 'Leisure Arts' series.

John Singer Sargent's approach to watercolor was unconventional. Going beyond turn-of-the-century standards for carefully delineated and composed landscapes filled with transparent washes, his confidently bold, dense strokes and loosely defined forms startled critics and fellow practitioners alike. One reviewer of an exhibition in London proclaimed him "an eagle in a dove-cote"; another called his work "swagger" watercolors. For Sargent, however, the watercolors were not so much about swagger as about a renewed and liberated approach to painting. In watercolor, his vision became more personal and his works more interconnected, as he considered the way one image--often of a friend or favorite place--enhanced another. Sargent held only two major watercolor exhibitions in the United States during his lifetime. The contents of the first, in 1909, were purchased in their entirety by the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The paintings exhibited in the other, in 1912, were scooped up by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "John Singer Sargent Watercolors" reunites nearly 100 works from these collections for the first time, arranging them by themes and subjects: sunlight on stone, figures reclining on grass, patterns of light and shadow. Enhanced by biographical and technical essays, and lavishly illustrated with 175 color reproductions, this publication introduces readers to the full sweep of Sargent's accomplishments in this medium, in works that delight the eye as well as challenge our understanding of this prodigiously gifted artist.
The international art star of the Gilded Age, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was born in Italy to American parents, trained in Paris and worked on both sides of the Atlantic. Sargent is best known for his dramatic and stylish portraits, but he was equally active as a landscapist, muralist, and watercolor painter. His dynamic and boldly conceived watercolors, created during travels to Tuscan gardens, Alpine retreats, Venetian canals and Bedouin encampments, record unusual motifs that caught his incisive eye.

A countrywoman's illustrated ramble through the seasons on the South Downs. Written over a period of twenty years, as she witnessed the stunning natural world around her, Antonia Dundas' diary records the progress of twelve months over her beloved South Downs. Accompanied with her own beautiful and delicately observed watercolours, this book revels in the passing of the seasons. Her celebration of nature's finery has been lovingly created, and will appeal to anyone with a love of the Downs and the natural world.

Artists who work from photographic source material need to learn how to adapt and improve in order to create a successful painting. Geoff Kersey is a master of this way of working, and here he shows how it is done. Reference photographs, colour charts and preparatory sketches are shown alongside all the finished paintings in this book, with full details of the adaptations and creative processes involved. There are plenty of clear tips and advice, and an illustrated glossary of all the painting terms used. Readers who want much more advice on adapting from reference sources than is provided in step by step painting books will have all they need here, and there are dozens of beautiful paintings to inform and inspire them.

Inspired by the beauty of the plants and flowers in her garden in France, Sue Goodchild has built up a gallery of beautiful moments in pencil and paint. Here she turns her attention to the vegetable garden, delighting in the forms and colours, observing details and creating paintings radiant with light. Each vegetable is also discussed from the point of view of the gardener, whose work complements that of the artist. Here the task is not just to provide a collection of edible plants, but to make a living composition - a lovely place to wander and enjoy the sights, scents and tastes of all around.