Archives: Walter Foster Books

With this interactive drawing pad, it’s easy to learn how to draw faces, figures, and poses using traceable starter sketches and supportive step-by-step exercises.

Drawing people can feel overwhelming—but not with Quick Start Drawing Beginner People. Inside, you’ll find simplified drawing lessons that help you develop your skills while boosting confidence. From proportions and postures to facial features and full-body poses, you’ll practice drawing people through easy prompts and visual templates. Tear-out pages make it simple to display your artwork or use it for inspiration.

Inside, you’ll find:

• Lessons in head-to-toe figure drawing, from facial expressions to full-body forms
• Traceable outlines that reduce guesswork and improve confidence
• Step-by-step guidance on body proportion, movement, and symmetry

Whether you’re working on portraits, cartoon characters, or everyday figure sketching, Quick Start Drawing Beginner People is a stress-free way to get better at drawing humans.

With helpful tips and easy-to-follow, step-by-step lessons, Big School of Drawing is the perfect series for beginning artists ready to grab a pencil and get started drawing. With practice, you’ll soon be able to create your own realistic pencil drawings. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Build your skills further with:Quick Start Drawing Beginner Basics; Big School of Drawing; Big School of Drawing Workbook; Big School of Drawing People; Big School of Drawing Animals; Big School of Drawing Manga; Comics & Fantasy, Big School of Drawing Manga; and Big School of Drawing Comics & Fantasy Workbook.

Immerse yourself in an interactive coloring mystery—the first of its kind!

Color & Sleuth: Ghost Town by Rebecca Demos is an engaging and interactive coloring book that invites you to dive into a charming, ghostly town filled with adorable characters and curious clues. With each detailed coloring page, you will explore creepy-cute scenes from a haunted suburban setting, all waiting to be brought to life with color and creativity. Alongside each coloring image is text describing an eerie scene from the story that holds clues to the mystery, adding a layer of intrigue to each page.

As you color and read the scenes, you will gather hints to help you answer four key questions to unravel the mystery haunting this cozy ghost town. By solving the puzzle correctly, you will unlock downloadable rewards such as exclusive posters, bonus coloring pages, and sneak peeks at future books in the Color & Sleuth series, making the experience both rewarding and interactive. Adding to the immersive nature of the book, a QR code links to a curated soundtrack to enhance the spooky, whimsical atmosphere, making Color & Sleuth: Ghost Town a perfect blend of art, puzzle-solving, and storytelling.

Inside, you will find:

• Beautifully illustrated scenes for coloring: Explore a charming ghost town through richly detailed scenes featuring ghostly inhabitants and haunted locations.
• Engaging text and clues: Each page includes a written scene that offers clues to help readers solve the overarching mystery.
• Rewarding downloadable content: Solve the mystery to unlock exclusive posters, bonus coloring pages, and sneak peeks into future books.
• Optional atmospheric soundtrack: Access a spooky, whimsical soundtrack via QR code to set the perfect mood for coloring and solving.

With the Color & Sleuth series, you can enjoy a unique and immersive experience that combines the relaxation of coloring with the thrill of mystery-solving in a whimsical, haunted world. Color & Sleuth: Ghost Town and Color & Sleuth: Haunted City are the first titles in this innovative and immensely entertaining new series.

Papier mache is back—and not just for kids! In this third book in the Art Makers series, artists of all skill levels, crafty families, and others will love learning to work with their hands to make and then create with papier mache.

The perfect tactile and environmentally conscious art form, papier mache uses simple, affordable, and recyclable tools and can be made easily at home. This accessible guide covers the tools, materials, and techniques for making papier mache, followed by step-by-step projects for making quirky, whimsical, folk art–inspired:

• Home decor
• Gifts
• Jewelry
• Dolls
• Animal figurines
• And much more

Art Makers: Papier Mache is the perfect book for anyone wanting to get started with this fun, easy technique, or for those who want to revisit the joy of making papier mache from their childhood.

The Art Makers series is designed for beginning artists and arts-and-crafts enthusiasts who are interested in experiencing fun hands-on mediums, including polymer clay and embroidery.

By following the lessons in Cartoon Animation with Preston Blair, you can make any character—person, animal, or object—come to life through animated movement!

While animators must first know how to draw, the animation process involves much more than just good drawing skills. In this new edition, acclaimed cartoon animator Preston Blair shares his vast practical knowledge to explain and demonstrate the many techniques of cartoon animation. Learn the knowledge and skills animators must have, including:

Full of expert advice from animation pioneer Preston Blair, and packed with helpful drawings and diagrams, the new edition of Cartoon Animation with Preston Blair is a book no animation enthusiast should be without.

THIS REVISED EDITION INCLUDES:

Chapter 1: Getting Started
Tools & Materials
Drawing Basics
Animation  Methods

Chapter 2: Cartoon Construction
Parts of a Cartoon Character
The Body
The Head
Facial Expressions
The Hands

Chapter 3: Character Design & Development
Cartoon Examples
The Cute Character
The Screwball Type
The “Pugnacious” Character
More Animal Characters
Fictional People
Children

Chapter 4: Basic Character Movement
Comics to Life
Line of Action
Rhythm & Design
Basic Movement

Chapter 5: Animation
Principles
Beyond Simple Movements
Rough Sketches
Balance
Paths of Action
Animation Effects

Chapter 6: Animated Acting
Expressing an Attitude
Three Rules for Actors
Body Language
Dialogue


The Collector’s Series offers a broad range of projects across a variety of mediums and genres, such as drawing, oil, acrylic, watercolor, cartooning, calligraphy, and others. This series is suitable for beginning to intermediate artists, and each title features in-depth instruction about how to work with the tools of the trade, master techniques, and use newfound skills in practical application. 

Learn to create unique, contemporary works of art with traditional carving tools and printmaking techniques. Step-by-step projects and creative lino prints make it fun and easy.

Aspiring artists, illustrators, art students, and art hobbyists will discover how to use basic carving tools and techniques to design and create custom lino prints for distinctive works of art. Practical instruction combined with approachable step-by-step projects and inspirational imagery guide readers on an engaging, easy-to-follow exploration of block printing.

Following an introduction to essential materials, such as printmaking inks, linoleum blocks, carving tools, and papers, Block Print for Beginners demonstrates how to get from uncarved block to finished print, including transferring a drawing, carving the block, working with inks, and achieving the best print results. Once comfortable with the basics, aspiring printmakers can move on to explore a series of step-by-step tutorials for creating a variety of lino prints with blocks they can use over and over again.

From basic block prints to more advanced techniques, such as printing in repeated patterns and creating stationery, wrapping paper, wallpaper, and more, Block Print for Beginners provides a fresh, contemporary, and enjoyable approach to learning this time-treasured art form.

The Inspired Artist series invites art hobbyists and casual art enthusiasts to have fun learning basic art concepts, relaxing into the creative process to make art in a playful, contemporary style. Also from the series, find even more artistic inspiration with: Draw Every Little Thing, Paint Every Little Thing, and Watercolor Painting at Home.

Featuring sketching and illustration instructions, basic stitches, embroidery techniques, and 6 projects with portraits of famous women, this book is a must-have tool for hands-on artists and crafters.

If you’re a beginning embroiderer, start with the basic stitches and embroidery instructions at the beginning of the book. Essential tools, warm-up exercises, tips for embroidering facial features and hair, and general information on embroidery will give you the know-how you need to get started. Then dive into sketching your favorite female cultural and historical icons:

• Frida Kahlo
• Eleanor Roosevelt
• Maya Angelou
• Harriet Tubman
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg
• Michelle Obama

Once you’ve sketched your figures, follow along with the step-by-step embroidery projects as you learn to stitch the women featured in the book—and anyone else you admire! All of the projects are beautifully paired with large photos so that you can easily mimic the techniques at home while relaxing with your embroidery.

The author is a professional illustrator, designer, and embroiderer uniquely suited to give instruction on this fun, trending embroidery technique. With her expert tips, you’re sure to enjoy learning a new hobby, or advancing your skills if you’re already familiar with embroidery.

Art Makers: Empowered Embroidery makes it easy to sketch, stitch, and create your favorite female icons, from empowering women of today to icons of the past.

The Art Makers series is designed for beginning artists and arts-and-crafts enthusiasts who are interested in experiencing fun hands-on mediums, including polymer clay and papier-mache.

Featuring illustrated tutorials for drawing faces, features, and figures, Ten-Step Drawing: People breaks down each subject into ten simple steps. All you need to get started is a pen or pencil and a piece of paper!

With Ten-Step Drawing: People, learn to draw the figure from head to toe, step by easy step. From eyes, lips, noses, and ears to hands, feet, and clothing, beginning artists will delight in rendering a variety of poses and expressions; as well as how easy it is to recreate them in ten simple drawing steps. Handy prompts help encourage artistic individuality and include helpful tips for drawing other subjects not featured in the book. Approachable text and step-by-step drawings make learning to draw fun and easy, and the portable format allows for spontaneous drawing wherever you may be. So grab a pencil and start drawing!

Designed especially for aspiring illustrators, doodlers, and art hobbyists, the fun and approachable books in the Ten-Step Drawing series encourage new artists to get acquainted with the basic principles of drawing so they can learn to create art with confidence. Ten-Step Drawing: People is sure to encourage even the most reluctant artist to break out a sketchbook and doodle to their heart's content.

Also available in the Ten-Step Drawing series: Flowers, Animals, and Nature.

Featuring illustrated tutorials for drawing 60 different animals, plants, and insects, Ten-Step Drawing: Nature breaks down each subject into ten simple steps. All you need to get started is a pen or pencil and a piece of paper!

With Ten-Step Drawing: Nature, learn to create an array of animals, insects, and plants, step by easy step. From dragonflies and birds to flowers, feathers, and shells, nature lovers will delight in the varied selection of subjects; as well as how easy it is to recreate them in ten simple drawing steps. Handy prompts help encourage artistic individuality and include helpful tips for drawing other subjects not featured in the book. Approachable text and step-by-step drawings make learning to draw fun and easy, and the portable format allows for spontaneous drawing wherever you may be.

Designed especially for aspiring illustrators, doodlers, and art hobbyists, the fun and approachable books in the Ten-Step Drawing series encourage new artists to get acquainted with the basic principles of drawing so they can learn to create art with confidence. Ten-Step Drawing: Nature is sure to encourage even the most reluctant artist to break out a sketchbook and doodle to their heart's content. So grab a pencil, get out in nature, and start drawing!

Also available in the Ten-Step Drawing series: Flowers, Animals, and People.

Learning to render a variety of textures is a fundamental skill for any fine artist, no matter the chosen media or subject matter. The Complete Book of Textures for Artists features more than 275 step-by-step lessons, tips, and techniques for rendering a wide range of textures in a variety of media, including graphite pencil, charcoal, colored pencil, oil, and acrylic.

Whether you're an experienced artist or just starting out, The Complete Book of Textures for Artists features a wide variety of both traditional and contemporary techniques. After an introduction to the basic tools and materials, discover a variety of drawing and painting techniques, such as hatching, crosshatching, shading, blending, layering, burnishing, and more. Organized into sections based on subject matter and media, each page features easy-to-follow steps demonstrating how to create each specific texture. Not only will you learn a variety of techniques, but you’ll also discover new ideas and inspiration for using the techniques in your own projects.
 
Packed with easy-to-follow instructions and plenty of helpful artist tips, The Complete Book of Textures for Artists is the perfect resource for beginning and established artists who are ready to master the intricacies of rendering realistic texture in their artwork.