Archives: Walter Foster Books
The Grown-Up’s Guide series features how-to projects, creative prompts, and crafting activities that will inspire you and your little ones to spend hours of messy fun together. Now you can learn the fun, trendy paint pouring technique—and teach your kids to do it too!
Paint pouring, also known as fluid art, uses acrylic paint and a variety of everyday tools to create colorful, abstract art poured on canvases and other surfaces. With The Grown-Up’s Guide to Painting With Kids, prepare to get messy—some techniques require touching or even hitting the paint—but that’s half the fun! Kids will love the tactile nature of paint pouring, while you and the other grown-ups in their lives will feel good knowing that your children are exercising their creative and artistic playful side. Consider doing the projects outside, where it's OK to make a mess!
The book opens with an introduction to the affordable tools required to pour paint, from cups and canvases to stir sticks, paper, reusable straws, and more. Older kids—with the help of their parents, of course—might even learn to use a heat torch to create the cell-like structure typical in fluid art. Techniques are outlined so that you and your children can read about the pouring process before getting started. Then there are chapters on color mixing tips, instructions for finishing paintings with varnish and other materials, and much more. The step-by-step projects that follow are fun, easy, and easily customizable by color, surface, and skill level. They can even be done on surfaces other than canvas, such as coasters, pieces of wood, gift boxes, and much more.
Kids of all ages will love pouring paint. You can help too, ensuring family togetherness for hours as you and your children learn to create colorful, abstract art together with The Grown-Up’s Guide to Painting With Kids.
Paint pouring, also known as fluid art, uses acrylic paint and a variety of everyday tools to create colorful, abstract art poured on canvases and other surfaces. With The Grown-Up’s Guide to Painting With Kids, prepare to get messy—some techniques require touching or even hitting the paint—but that’s half the fun! Kids will love the tactile nature of paint pouring, while you and the other grown-ups in their lives will feel good knowing that your children are exercising their creative and artistic playful side. Consider doing the projects outside, where it's OK to make a mess!
The book opens with an introduction to the affordable tools required to pour paint, from cups and canvases to stir sticks, paper, reusable straws, and more. Older kids—with the help of their parents, of course—might even learn to use a heat torch to create the cell-like structure typical in fluid art. Techniques are outlined so that you and your children can read about the pouring process before getting started. Then there are chapters on color mixing tips, instructions for finishing paintings with varnish and other materials, and much more. The step-by-step projects that follow are fun, easy, and easily customizable by color, surface, and skill level. They can even be done on surfaces other than canvas, such as coasters, pieces of wood, gift boxes, and much more.
Kids of all ages will love pouring paint. You can help too, ensuring family togetherness for hours as you and your children learn to create colorful, abstract art together with The Grown-Up’s Guide to Painting With Kids.
With Drawing: Faces & Expressions, learn to draw detailed, realistic human faces in graphite pencil from basic shapes.
Perfect for beginning artists, Faces & Expressions offers a comprehensive introduction on how to draw faces and expressions—the most important aspects of an individual. First, learn everything about the tools and materials you need to get started, including selecting the right pencils, papers, and erasers for their work. Then discover tips for drawing and shading techniques, such as how to achieve volume, suggest depth, and render various hair and skin textures. With some knowledge of pencil drawing basics, begin mastering the art of drawing the human face through a series of helpful examples and easy-to-follow, step-by-step projects. Projects include a child portrait, an adult portrait, a senior portrait, and others that feature different techniques for capturing expressions and rendering features, including eyes, mouths, noses, and hands.
Featuring the stunning artwork of gifted artist Diane Cardaci, this 10.25 × 13.75–inch book features artwork designed to inspire a classical approach to rendering faces in graphite pencil. With its wide-ranging instruction, plethora of artist tips, and beautiful artwork, Faces & Expressions is the perfect resource for any beginning portrait artist.
Designed for beginners, the How to Draw & Paint series offers easy-to-follow guides that introduce artists to basic tools and materials and include simple step-by-step lessons for a variety of projects suitable for the aspiring artist. Drawing: Faces & Expressions allows artists to develop drawing skills by demonstrating how to start with basic shapes and use pencil and shading techniques to create varied textures, values, and details for a realistic, completed portrait drawing.
Perfect for beginning artists, Faces & Expressions offers a comprehensive introduction on how to draw faces and expressions—the most important aspects of an individual. First, learn everything about the tools and materials you need to get started, including selecting the right pencils, papers, and erasers for their work. Then discover tips for drawing and shading techniques, such as how to achieve volume, suggest depth, and render various hair and skin textures. With some knowledge of pencil drawing basics, begin mastering the art of drawing the human face through a series of helpful examples and easy-to-follow, step-by-step projects. Projects include a child portrait, an adult portrait, a senior portrait, and others that feature different techniques for capturing expressions and rendering features, including eyes, mouths, noses, and hands.
Featuring the stunning artwork of gifted artist Diane Cardaci, this 10.25 × 13.75–inch book features artwork designed to inspire a classical approach to rendering faces in graphite pencil. With its wide-ranging instruction, plethora of artist tips, and beautiful artwork, Faces & Expressions is the perfect resource for any beginning portrait artist.
Designed for beginners, the How to Draw & Paint series offers easy-to-follow guides that introduce artists to basic tools and materials and include simple step-by-step lessons for a variety of projects suitable for the aspiring artist. Drawing: Faces & Expressions allows artists to develop drawing skills by demonstrating how to start with basic shapes and use pencil and shading techniques to create varied textures, values, and details for a realistic, completed portrait drawing.
With Drawing: Birds, learn to render a variety of beautiful, realistic birds in graphite pencil.
Artists of all skill levels and bird enthusiasts alike will find creative inspiration and valuable drawing instruction in Drawing: Birds. This comprehensive, 10.25 × 13.75–inch book book opens with an introduction to essential drawing tools, including graphite pencils, erasers, paper, and other materials. Then learn a variety of basic drawing techniques, such as shading, stippling, hatching, crosshatching, and others. Discover helpful tips for creating a good composition, understanding and seeing value, transferring photo references, and taking artistic liberties. After learning the drawing basics, jump into the easy step-by-step projects to draw specific birds, including a barred owl, a great blue heron, a ruby-throated hummingbird, a gray parrot, a pileated woodpecker, and black-capped chickadees.
In this book, professional artist and nature enthusiast Maury Aaseng offers simple, comprehensive instruction for drawing a range of lovely birds, as well as information for achieving accurate proportions, capturing motion, and building up form. Aaseng also shows you how to create realistic textures, such as feathers, nests, tree bark, and water. With his easy step-by-step projects that start with basic shapes and progress to detailed final drawings, you can draw many birds, from the common to the exotic. Easy-to-follow instruction and art tips throughout make Drawing: Birds a complete guide for creating realistic and detailed drawings of these feathered friends. For the aspiring avian artist, this book is a must-have art-instruction reference.
Designed for beginners, the How to Draw & Paint series offers easy-to-follow guides that introduce artists to basic tools and materials and include simple step-by-step lessons for a variety of projects suitable for the aspiring artist. Drawing: Birds allows artists to develop drawing skills by demonstrating how to start with basic shapes and use pencil and shading techniques to create varied textures, values, and details for a realistic, completed drawing.
Artists of all skill levels and bird enthusiasts alike will find creative inspiration and valuable drawing instruction in Drawing: Birds. This comprehensive, 10.25 × 13.75–inch book book opens with an introduction to essential drawing tools, including graphite pencils, erasers, paper, and other materials. Then learn a variety of basic drawing techniques, such as shading, stippling, hatching, crosshatching, and others. Discover helpful tips for creating a good composition, understanding and seeing value, transferring photo references, and taking artistic liberties. After learning the drawing basics, jump into the easy step-by-step projects to draw specific birds, including a barred owl, a great blue heron, a ruby-throated hummingbird, a gray parrot, a pileated woodpecker, and black-capped chickadees.
In this book, professional artist and nature enthusiast Maury Aaseng offers simple, comprehensive instruction for drawing a range of lovely birds, as well as information for achieving accurate proportions, capturing motion, and building up form. Aaseng also shows you how to create realistic textures, such as feathers, nests, tree bark, and water. With his easy step-by-step projects that start with basic shapes and progress to detailed final drawings, you can draw many birds, from the common to the exotic. Easy-to-follow instruction and art tips throughout make Drawing: Birds a complete guide for creating realistic and detailed drawings of these feathered friends. For the aspiring avian artist, this book is a must-have art-instruction reference.
Designed for beginners, the How to Draw & Paint series offers easy-to-follow guides that introduce artists to basic tools and materials and include simple step-by-step lessons for a variety of projects suitable for the aspiring artist. Drawing: Birds allows artists to develop drawing skills by demonstrating how to start with basic shapes and use pencil and shading techniques to create varied textures, values, and details for a realistic, completed drawing.
Illustration Studio: Inking Florals features inking and watercolor tips and techniques, drawing basics, an overview of plant and flower structures, and step-by-step inking projects for a well-rounded, engaging introduction to multimedia botanical art geared toward artists of all skill levels.
You will love learning to work with ink, pencil, and watercolor as you create your own favorite plants and flowers. Step-by-step projects feature popular flowers, including poppies, peonies, roses, freesias, snapdragons, and more, for a wide variety of well-loved plants that many of us have in our own gardens and/or see while out and about. The Illustration Studio series features interactive exercises, creative prompts, and step-by-step exercises to educate and excite beginning and aspiring artists working in a variety of media and techniques, from manga and anime to illustration done in ink.
Illustration Studio: Inking Florals opens with an introduction to plant structure. Essential tools and materials are covered as well, and then you can learn all about drawing basics, ink shading tips, and watercolor techniques so that you have some basic knowledge before getting started on the more than 15 step-by-step drawing projects that round out the book. The final project is a bouquet that incorporates all of the instructions and tips that you have learned throughout the book. Each project in the book makes a beautiful keepsake item or gift for a loved one.
With Illustration Studio: Inking Florals, you can learn to draw, ink, and add watercolor to all of your favorite botanicals!
You will love learning to work with ink, pencil, and watercolor as you create your own favorite plants and flowers. Step-by-step projects feature popular flowers, including poppies, peonies, roses, freesias, snapdragons, and more, for a wide variety of well-loved plants that many of us have in our own gardens and/or see while out and about. The Illustration Studio series features interactive exercises, creative prompts, and step-by-step exercises to educate and excite beginning and aspiring artists working in a variety of media and techniques, from manga and anime to illustration done in ink.
Illustration Studio: Inking Florals opens with an introduction to plant structure. Essential tools and materials are covered as well, and then you can learn all about drawing basics, ink shading tips, and watercolor techniques so that you have some basic knowledge before getting started on the more than 15 step-by-step drawing projects that round out the book. The final project is a bouquet that incorporates all of the instructions and tips that you have learned throughout the book. Each project in the book makes a beautiful keepsake item or gift for a loved one.
With Illustration Studio: Inking Florals, you can learn to draw, ink, and add watercolor to all of your favorite botanicals!
Take your watercolor painting beyond the studio—learn how to effectively use color and light to capture mood, create atmosphere, and convey emotion on location.
Geared for beginning artists, En Plein Air: Light & Color introduces a variety of techniques for on-location watercolor painting. Following a brief introduction to the basics of painting en plein air and an overview of the necessary tools and materials, you will learn how to choose a subject and paint a compelling outdoor composition using the subtleties of watercolor to create beautifully expressive subjects and themes.
Other important topics include perspective, rendering the background and foreground, capturing both urban and pastoral landscapes, mastering color to convey weather and time of day, and much more. From choosing just the right subject to awaiting the perfect time of day, let En Plein Air: Light & Color guide you in your artistic travels as you explore this daring and expressive medium.
Painting outdoors is a rewarding, peaceful experience full of joy, adventure, and persistence. Let the En Plein Air Series guide you in your artistic travels as you explore this daring and expressive method of painting, wherever you may be.
Geared for beginning artists, En Plein Air: Light & Color introduces a variety of techniques for on-location watercolor painting. Following a brief introduction to the basics of painting en plein air and an overview of the necessary tools and materials, you will learn how to choose a subject and paint a compelling outdoor composition using the subtleties of watercolor to create beautifully expressive subjects and themes.
Other important topics include perspective, rendering the background and foreground, capturing both urban and pastoral landscapes, mastering color to convey weather and time of day, and much more. From choosing just the right subject to awaiting the perfect time of day, let En Plein Air: Light & Color guide you in your artistic travels as you explore this daring and expressive medium.
Painting outdoors is a rewarding, peaceful experience full of joy, adventure, and persistence. Let the En Plein Air Series guide you in your artistic travels as you explore this daring and expressive method of painting, wherever you may be.
Filled with easy step-by-step instruction from a variety of artists and a wealth of inspiring images to study and admire, The Art of Basic Drawing shows beginning artists how to draw everything from flowers and still lifes to landscapes, animals, and people.
You’ll find plenty of helpful tips on choosing the right tools and materials, fundamental drawing techniques, developing value and shading, and setting up an effective composition, as well as important information about the influences of perspective, balance, and texture. Detailed examples of animals, people, flowers, and landscapes will help guide you through the most challenging aspects of drawing almost anything, from basic shapes to realistic details.
Some included pencil drawing projects are:
You’ll find plenty of helpful tips on choosing the right tools and materials, fundamental drawing techniques, developing value and shading, and setting up an effective composition, as well as important information about the influences of perspective, balance, and texture. Detailed examples of animals, people, flowers, and landscapes will help guide you through the most challenging aspects of drawing almost anything, from basic shapes to realistic details.
Some included pencil drawing projects are:
- Strawberries
- Bottle and bread still life
- Flamingo
- Elephant
- Giraffe
- Horse
- Siberian Husky puppy
- English Bulldog
- Clouds
- Desert landscape
- Half Dome, Yosemite
- Woman in profile
- Man in profile
- and many more!
With a striking new design and refreshed, easy-to-understand instruction, this comprehensive drawing guide is the perfect first step for beginning artists. Follow along, step by step, as professional artists reveal their drawing secrets. With practice, you’ll soon be able to capture amazing realism in your own pencil drawings. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.
The Collector's Series offers approachable, step-by-step art instruction for a variety of mediums and subjects, such as drawing, oil, acrylic, watercolor, cartooning, calligraphy, and more. Perfect for beginning artists, each title features artist tips for drawing or painting anything and everything from people, animals, and still life to flowers, trees, and landscapes.
The Collector's Series offers approachable, step-by-step art instruction for a variety of mediums and subjects, such as drawing, oil, acrylic, watercolor, cartooning, calligraphy, and more. Perfect for beginning artists, each title features artist tips for drawing or painting anything and everything from people, animals, and still life to flowers, trees, and landscapes.
Wham! Pow! Bam! Kaboom! Learn everything you need to make your own comic books, superheroes, and story lines with The Art of Comic Book Drawing.
Featuring step-by-step tutorials, helpful tips, and dozens of drawing and illustration techniques, aspiring cartoonists, graphic illustrators, and comic book artists will discover all of the basics, from creating characters to mastering features and expressions to bringing it all together with unique and interesting story lines.
This helpful guide also includes practice pages to help put your newfound skills to immediate use. Learn all the drawing tips and techniques you need to create your very own comic book, including:
- Drawing basics
- Inking techniques
- Creating characters
- Drawing bodies in motion
- Designing characters
- Creating battle scenes
- Adding speech
- Developing a story segment
Veteran comic book artists teach you to draw basic cartoon characters, superheroes, villains, and more using simple, step-by-step drawing lessons. Once you get the hang of illustrating your favorite characters, you’ll learn to draw action scenes, set up panels, add speech bubbles, and even learn the basics of cartoon and comic book word treatments.
With approachable exercises, interactive pages, and action-packed projects to guide you, The Art of Comic Book Drawing will help you find inspiration, learn how to create a story, and most importantly, develop the characters that will make your story come to life. So, grab a pencil and paper, and learn to create your own comic books, step by easy step!
Fashion Design Workshop: Remix is a modern, inclusive, and diverse approach to fashion illustration for up-and-coming designers.
In her long-awaited follow-up to the best-selling Fashion Design Workshop, Stephanie Corfee introduces aspiring illustrators and designers to the art of creative expression and individuality through fashion design. While encouraging freedom of expression, empowerment, strength, diversity, and a modern take on individual style, Stephanie shows you how to work and experiment with a variety of mediums to create fashions that range from classic and conventional to wild and whimsical.
Begin your exploration of fashion illustration by getting acquainted with the art tools and materials you can use, including graphite and colored pencils, markers, pens, watercolor paint and brushes, and mixed-media materials. Then, learn basic figure drawing techniques, consider approaches to inclusive design, and explore your style preferences with a personal style quiz and inspirational examples of different style types.
Put your new knowledge into practice and discover how easy it is to develop eye-catching fashions quickly and easily with step-by-step projects inspired by pop culture and contemporary fashion, including:
- Iconic Designs featuring such notables as Frida Kahlo, Audrey Hepburn, Jay-Z, and Meghan Markle
- Everyday Fashions including rock-n-roll chic, after-hours glamour, and sportswear for yoga, surfing, skiing, and tennis
- Special Occasions such as red carpet glam, prom queen flair, and tuxes both traditional and funky
Pull it all together by creating your own mini collections based on a single word or phrase. At the back, find figure templates for a range of body shapes that can be copied and used again and again.
Filled with creative ideas, inspiration, and a plethora of art tips and techniques, Fashion Design Workshop: Remix will help you take your fashion illustration game to the next level.
Overcome your creative blocks and fears and start painting with confidence with Your Year in Art: Watercolor! Filled with weekly art challenges, step-by-step watercolor lessons, helpful tips and techniques, and gorgeous artwork, this follow-up to the drawing-focused Your Year in Art is a must-have for any watercolor artist.
Written and illustrated by Kristin Van Leuven, owner of the popular online art shop Hello Lovely People and author of Modern Watercolor (Walter Foster Publishing), Your Year in Art: Watercolor seeks to motivate and inspire. The book is divided into weekly art challenges and prompts that cover appealing themes like florals, birds, and portraits, as well as inspirational ideas for painting patterns, holiday decorations, scenery, and so much more. Lessons and prompts are guided but invite personalization so you can build your skills while celebrating your own unique style.
If you're a beginning artist, you might feel intimidated by watercolor, a medium that doesn't allow for many errors. However, Kristin Van Leuven makes watercolor fun and approachable with her easy-to-follow tips and free-flowing, expressive style. With her guidance, you'll learn to embrace imperfection and use the lessons as inspiration, rather than something to imitate exactly.
With Your Year in Art: Watercolor, develop your own painting style and express yourself using watercolor!
Written and illustrated by Kristin Van Leuven, owner of the popular online art shop Hello Lovely People and author of Modern Watercolor (Walter Foster Publishing), Your Year in Art: Watercolor seeks to motivate and inspire. The book is divided into weekly art challenges and prompts that cover appealing themes like florals, birds, and portraits, as well as inspirational ideas for painting patterns, holiday decorations, scenery, and so much more. Lessons and prompts are guided but invite personalization so you can build your skills while celebrating your own unique style.
If you're a beginning artist, you might feel intimidated by watercolor, a medium that doesn't allow for many errors. However, Kristin Van Leuven makes watercolor fun and approachable with her easy-to-follow tips and free-flowing, expressive style. With her guidance, you'll learn to embrace imperfection and use the lessons as inspiration, rather than something to imitate exactly.
With Your Year in Art: Watercolor, develop your own painting style and express yourself using watercolor!
Learn even more paint pouring techniques with The Art of Paint Pouring: Swipe, Swirl & Spin.
In The Art of Paint Pouring, you learned the basics of creating fluid art—from the essential tools and materials to the most popular techniques. Now with The Art of Paint Pouring: Swipe, Swirl & Spin, you can build on your existing knowledge of paintpouring by learning many new techniques and variations on your favorites to create your own art.
Written and illustrated by Amanda VanEver, author of Walter Foster’s much-anticipated The Art of Paint Pouring, The Art of Paint Pouring: Swipe, Swirl & Spin includes everything you need to take your skills to the next level, whether you are a beginning or an established paint pouring artist. From learning variations on several popular techniques—including flip cup, dip, swirling, spinning, and swiping—as well as more intermediate and advanced pouring techniques, you'll soon be creating colorful, textured fluid art on a variety of surfaces.
Amanda VanEver's YouTube channel, Amanda's Designs, has a huge following of subscribers who watch her weekly videos featuring simple instructions for creating various types of fluid art, from pieces done on canvases and other traditional surfaces, like wood, to objects such as jewelry, bookmarks, coasters, clocks, and vases. With her expertise, you'll learn about:
In The Art of Paint Pouring, you learned the basics of creating fluid art—from the essential tools and materials to the most popular techniques. Now with The Art of Paint Pouring: Swipe, Swirl & Spin, you can build on your existing knowledge of paintpouring by learning many new techniques and variations on your favorites to create your own art.
Written and illustrated by Amanda VanEver, author of Walter Foster’s much-anticipated The Art of Paint Pouring, The Art of Paint Pouring: Swipe, Swirl & Spin includes everything you need to take your skills to the next level, whether you are a beginning or an established paint pouring artist. From learning variations on several popular techniques—including flip cup, dip, swirling, spinning, and swiping—as well as more intermediate and advanced pouring techniques, you'll soon be creating colorful, textured fluid art on a variety of surfaces.
Amanda VanEver's YouTube channel, Amanda's Designs, has a huge following of subscribers who watch her weekly videos featuring simple instructions for creating various types of fluid art, from pieces done on canvases and other traditional surfaces, like wood, to objects such as jewelry, bookmarks, coasters, clocks, and vases. With her expertise, you'll learn about:
- The tools and materials needed for paint pouring
- How to mix paint to the right consistency required for pouring
- Tips for creating complementary color palettes
- How to finish a painting so that it lasts
- And much more
The Art of Paint Pouring features beginning as well as advanced pouring techniques for a well-rounded, appealing approach to fluid art.
Also from the Fluid Art series, refresh your paint-pouring skills and learn new techniques with: The Art of Paint Pouring and The Art of Paint Marbling.
Also from the Fluid Art series, refresh your paint-pouring skills and learn new techniques with: The Art of Paint Pouring and The Art of Paint Marbling.