Archives: Walter Foster Books
*Named One of the 54 Best Colored Pencil Drawing Books of All Time by BookAuthority*
What medium is as immediately relatable as the colored pencil? Vibrant, versatile, and familiar, the simple colored pencil is the proverbial first step on your journey to becoming an artist. Beginning Colored Pencil is an inviting and approachable guide loaded with everything an aspiring artist needs to know about colored pencil, including tools, materials, composition, and color theory.
Walter Foster Publishing’s Portfolio series takes a technique-driven approach, emphasizing topics like blending, shading, and creating form and texture to provide a well-rounded approach that allows readers to master key concepts. Try step-by-step demonstrations with a fresh, contemporary design to keep lessons vibrant, so you can practice your fresh, new skills. Get in touch with your inner creativity, and dive into colored pencils today!
The Portfolio series covers essential art techniques, core concepts, and media with an approach and format that’s perfect for aspiring, beginning, and intermediate artists.
Also available from the series:Beginning Acrylic, Beginning Drawing, Beginning Watercolor, Beginning Pastel, Beginning Color Mixing, Expressive Painting, Beginning Color Mixing, Beginning Pen & Ink, and Beginning Composition.
*Named One of the 54 Best Colored Pencil Drawing Books of All Time by BookAuthority*
There has never been a better opportunity to master textures. Knowing how to make your surfaces and textures look real is one of the most challenging aspects of creating art in colored pencil, even for experienced artists. 101 Textures in Colored Pencil provides artists with step-by-step instructions for drawing a wide variety of the most common textures and surfaces, including sand, water, metals, foliage, wood, fabrics, stone, grass, hair, and many more.
To get you started, this comprehensive guide opens with a review of tools and materials as well as basic skills, such as strokes, effects, and color mixing. Each page of instruction is a comprehensive resource on how to create a specific texture, complete with two to three easy-to-follow steps and a final, detailed image of the finished artwork. Plus, the book is organized into sections based on subject matter, so you can easily find the specific texture you're looking for. An artist's gallery in the back of the book provides examples of the textures in completed works of art.
Just a sample of the textures you will learn to render:
- People: smooth skin; aged skin; straight, curly, and wavy hair; lips
- Animals & Insects: smooth, curly, and course canine fur; elephant skin; feather; fish scales
- Fabrics & Textiles: burlap, tweed, silk, velvet, leather, lace, sequins
- Glass, Stone, Ceramics, Wood & Metal: porcelain, polished silver, hammered brass, peeling paint
- Food & Beverage: red wine, cut citrus fruit, coconut, peach, dark chocolate
- Nature: smooth and rough bark, moss, river pebbles, still and rippled lake, clouds
Finally, an art book that’s specially made for people that have no idea how to make art! Just for Fun: Drawing takes the pressure out of learning to draw by making the basics of art casual and fun.
With Just for Fun: Drawing, aspiring artists and art enthusiasts who have never before picked up a pencil can follow incredibly simple step-by-step instructions and discover how to draw everyday subjects. Each featured subject starts with basic lines and shapes, and slowly progresses with each new step to a fully rendered, completed drawing.
Saving the nitty-gritty technical aspects of drawing for the more advanced student, Just for Fun: Drawing simply touches upon key drawing concepts and fundamentals, including perspective, proportion, volume, shading, and composition, among others, that are relevant to a beginner’s core understanding of the craft.
With its abundance of approachable and contemporary drawings, as well as loads of tips, instruction, and inspiration, Just for Fun: Drawing will have even the most artistically challenged individuals mastering the art of pencil drawing in no time.
Artist Toolbox: Color explains how color captures mood and helps communicate meaning, as well as how to use color to create personal, expressive works of art.
In Artist Toolbox: Color, painters will learn how to create impactful work with an understanding of basic color theory. Topics include the color wheel, hue, saturation, value, temperature, relativity, color relationships, and color mixing. You will learn how color captures mood and to communicate meaning with nothing more than color as you create personal, expressive works of art. Step-by-step projects and accessible technique demonstrations show color theory in action, making this book a useful reference for any beginning artist's library.
The Artist Toolbox series provides easy-to-use reference guides for beginning and aspiring artists. While many instructional art books gloss over important concepts, focusing instead on how to replicate a piece of art, the Artist Toolboxseries breaks down the whats, whens, whys, and hows of each relevant tool or technique, clearly demonstrating its purpose and how to employ it to achieve the desired effects.
Beginning Pastel guides beginning artists through an exploration of pastel techniques and step-by-step projects for a comprehensive and approachable overview of the vibrant pastel medium.
Pastels are a unique tool, and Beginning Pastel is the perfect introductory resource for artists just getting started in this colorful medium. Before jumping into the step-by-step projects, this book covers choosing the right paper, pastels, and colors, to basic techniques like blending, gradating, and masking. Each stroke and technique is clearly explained and beautifully illustrated. After learning the key concepts, you’ll promptly put them into practice through simple step-by-step exercises. With pastel often considered an advanced medium, Beginning Pastel makes the tricky task of drawing in pastel accessible and achievable for any artist.
The Portfolio series covers essential art techniques, core concepts, and media with an approach and format that’s perfect for aspiring, beginning, and intermediate artists.
Also available from the series: Beginning Acrylic, Beginning Drawing, Beginning Watercolor, Beginning Colored Pencil, Beginning Color Mixing, Expressive Painting, Beginning Color Mixing, Beginning Pen & Ink, and Beginning Composition.
With Beginning Drawing, discover and master the fundamentals of drawing with professional tips and expert instruction.
Designed especially for aspiring artists, Beginning Drawing offers a well-rounded introduction to the art of basic drawing. In this concept-and technique-driven approach, beginning artists will discover the fundamentals of the craft and how to put those skills into practice for creating realistic works of art. From showing how to select and work with the tools of the trade to demonstrating a range of basic techniques, Beginning Drawing provides a thorough, easily digestible overview of key drawing concepts, including lighting, shading, shadows, perspective, texture, and composition, and then demonstrates how these techniques intersect, both functionally and creatively, in a wider context within a complete piece of art. Step-by-step lessons encourage practice, focusing readers on the methods and techniques designed to enhance their overall skill level, before graduating on to more subject-specific works. Packed with professional tips and expert instruction, Beginning Drawing is the perfect book for anyone desiring to learn, and ultimately master, the art of drawing.
The Portfolio series covers essential art techniques, core concepts, and media with an approach and format that’s perfect for aspiring, beginning, and intermediate artists.
Also available from the series:Beginning Acrylic, Beginning Watercolor, Beginning Pastel, Beginning Colored Pencil, Beginning Color Mixing, Expressive Painting, Beginning Color Mixing, Beginning Pen & Ink, and Beginning Composition.
Packed with helpful photographs, hundreds of techniques, and loads of expert instruction, The Complete Book of Posesfor Artists is the perfect resource for artists of all skill levels.
The human figure is one of the most difficult subjects to capture in drawing. The Complete Book of Poses for Artists combines photographs and illustrations that demonstrate how to accurately render the human form in hundreds of realistic poses. The book guides artists through the process of drawing the human figure as it pertains to anatomy, proportions, volume, mass, gesture, movement, and expression. From there, the book reveals how these characteristics come together using light, shape, line, and form to accurately depict the human figure in a variety of everyday poses, including standing, sitting, reclining, and action. Each section features color photographs of people in several "core" poses (e.g., sitting, reclining, and action), as well as multiple variations of those poses. Step-by-step artist illustrations demonstrate how to render the core pose, whereas illustrations and professional tips demonstrate how to turn the core pose into a new variation. In addition, step-by-step drawing instructions and techniques demonstrate how to capture realistic poses as they differ from one person to the next across a range of human characteristics, such as age (child, teen, adult, senior citizen); body type (ectomorph, mesomorph, endomorph); gender; and activity (e.g., athlete, dancer, etc.). Packed with helpful photographs, hundreds of techniques, and loads of expert instruction, The Complete Book of Posesfor Artists is the perfect resource for artists of all skill levels-and one that will be referred to over and over again.
With comprehensive instruction and artist tips and tricks, Beginning Acrylic is the perfect resource for aspiring painters just getting started in this colorful medium.
Beginning Acrylic teaches aspiring artists everything they need to know to get started painting in acrylic. From showing how to choose the right paper, brushes, and paints to basic painting tips and techniques, this beginner’s guide to acrylic painting is bursting with valuable exercises and advice to help artists master this colorful and approachable medium. This book guides beginners through an exploration of acrylic painting with easy-to-understand concepts and step-by-step methods, including how to paint a variety of skies, trees, mountains, roads, clouds, and waterscapes from start to finish. Building on these basic, fundamental techniques, novice artists can practice their craft with step-by-step painting projects that are broken down and explained with large, detailed images and examples. From the first brushstroke to the finishing touch, let Beginning Acrylic guide you as you begin your artistic journey in acrylic painting.
The Portfolio series covers essential art techniques, core concepts, and media with an approach and format that’s perfect for aspiring, beginning, and intermediate artists.
Also available from the series:Beginning Drawing, Beginning Watercolor, Beginning Pastel, Beginning Colored Pencil, Beginning Color Mixing, Expressive Painting, Beginning Color Mixing, Beginning Pen & Ink, and Beginning Composition.
The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Drawing contains more than 200 drawing techniques, tips, and lessons for budding artists looking to practice drawing a variety of subjects.
This comprehensive, 240-page hardcover drawing guide covers a vast array of subjects, from landscapes, still lifes, and flowers to animals, portraits, and the human figure. Begin with a thorough introduction to the essential tools and materials you need to get started, including different types of pencils, sketchbooks, papers, and other tools. Then learn the fundamentals of drawing, as well as a variety of drawing techniques, including rendering realistic textures, creating volume, and capturing perspective. A series of easy-to-follow, step-by-step projects cover a variety of techniques, including:
- Developing form
- Rendering texture
- Depth and distance
- Foreshortening
- Values and shading
- Perspective
- Balance and composition
- Capturing realism and likeness
- Depicting figures in action
With helpful tips and straightforward step-by-step lessons, The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Drawing is the perfect resource for beginning artists who want to improve their drawing skills.
The Complete Book of … series provides a comprehensive guide to drawing a vast array of subjects, from landscapes and flowers to animals and poses. Artists will learn the fundamentals of drawing, as well as a variety of techniques, including rendering realistic textures, capturing perspective, and creating dynamic portraits and compositions. With helpful tips and step-by-step artwork to inspire, the Complete Book of … series is the perfect resource for practiced beginning to intermediate artists looking to hone their drawing skills and techniques.
Beginning Still Life teaches aspiring artists everything they need to know to get started in drawing with graphite pencil. From choosing paper and pencils to basic pencil techniques to composition and development, this book is bursting with valuable lessons to help beginning artists master this captivating medium. Talented artist Steven Pearce guides the readers through an exploration of pencil drawing, covering basic concepts and techniques, such as value, shading, blending, setting up a still life, and more. Building on these basic techniques, artists can further practice their craft with step-by-step drawing projects that cover a variety of still life subjects, including fruits and vegetables, flowers, and more. With comprehensive instruction and artist tips and tricks, Beginning Still Life is the perfect resource for aspiring artists.