If Calligraphy is our passion, RUBooks has a great offer. They have two great Calligraphy Sets available and for a limited time you can choose one of three Calligraphy Books and only pay half the usual price!
If you are looking for a book packed with acrylic painting tips then the book Terry’s Top Tips for Acrylic Artists by Terry Harrison will offer some great tuition with 115 great tips from one of today’s professional acrylic artists working today.
As an artist who paints using acrylics, I often cast my eye over the books that land on my desk as part of my day job. One such book is Terry’s Top Tips for Acrylic Artists, an acrylic painting techniques book packed with some great tips and techniques.
This acrylic painting technique book is from Search Press, known for their range of informative art instruction books. Like others in the series this is a smallish pocket book that you could easily take with you if painting outside. At 160mm x 215mm x 17mm thick with a spiral bind and in hardback, this is a handy book to have around. The spiral binding allows you to lie the book completely flat without the pages wanting to fold back over and close. This is great when trying to paint and want your hands free. The hardback cover means this book can the knocks and bumps without the corners of the covers turning up, a pet hate of mine.
In this review we look at Charlie’s Top Tips for Watercolour Artists, a compact handbook from Charles Evans detailing over 100 tips to improve your watercolour painting.
Lets start by looking at the author himself, Charles Evans
Charles Evans is one of the UKs leading Painters. His likeable personality is reflected in his watercolour paintings, and have a lightness that many artists aspire to. Charles lives and works in Morepeth, Northumberland, in the North East of England, and gains inspiration from the natural scenery surrounding him. As well as painting in various mediums, Charles runs his own art classes from his studio, but also travels extensively, holding various painting holidays, visiting art societies and filming for his popular television series.
Charlie’s Top Tips for Watercolour Artists has a hard cover with 96 pages of tips from Charles, built up over years of watercolour painting. At about 160mm x 210mm x 15mm it can be taken anywhere, out and about when painting outside or in your studio.
Charles Evans is a well-known, popular author, and in his watercolour techniques book he shares many of his experience as a professional artist in over 100 great tips. Watercolour artists of various abilities will find this book interesting with superbly illustrated tips, step-by-step demonstrations and glimpses of various finished paintings.
The first thing you notice about Charlie’s Top Tips for Watercolour Artists is that it’s spiral bound. For art reference books, all should be like this as it allows you to lay your book flat without the pages wanting to turn back over and allows you to have your hands free for painting.
Joe Francis Dowden free tips - read the full post to view the free tips.
As the days grow longer and spring starts to warm up the days it’s time to think about getting out and about, drawing and painting. Joe Francis Dowden’s book, The Landscape Painter’s Essential Handbook, is packed with 50 projects on how to paint beautiful landscapes in watercolour.
To celebrate spring being just around the corner and giving us more chance to get out and paint, below is the first of a few new free projects.
Joe Francis Dowden shows us some great tips on how to paint a shingle beach. As Joe mentions in his opening line for these tips, “A million pebbles on a beach, jumbled one on top of the other, all different colours, all in perspective”, if you are like me you will be thinking where do I start, but these great tips will guide you in the right direction.
If you missed your chance to win the Derwent Watercolour Collection Wooden Box Set then don’t worry, as RUBooks are now giving you the chance to win The Derwent Sketching Wooden Box Set containing 24 high quality coloured pencils.
The Ideal gift for the budding art student in your family or a little treat for yourself! This high quality Derwent wooden box, made from Maple, is really neat and compact. Opened out the box lies flat, displaying all 24 colours clearly. Contains 24 pencils including Graphic and Watersoluble Sketching Pencils and the unique Tinted Charcoal and Graphitint Pencils.
If you fancy your chances then all you have to do is click the link here to the competitions page and fill in your details, it’s that simple and good luck!
The Windsor & Newton Artist Water Colour Bamboo Set
First impressions of the Winsor & Newton Artist Water Colour Bamboo Set is one of suprise as the set itself appears more sturdy and of a better build quality than I had expected. The weight of the watercolour box hints at to the quality materials inside, which is what you would expect from a brand such as Winsor & Newton.
As an artist myself I really like these box sets, as they give you all your require, in one place, and a unit to store them in.
RUBooks brings you another great competition, this time to win a LowePro CompuDayPack bag worth £99.99. To get your chance to win this great bag, just go to the RUBooks competition page and type in your details, it’s that simple!
Click the images below to take a closer look at this great prize!
The CompuDaypack is lightweight and features a triple compartment design.
The CompuDaypack is lightweight and features a triple compartment design
If you’re like me, sometimes you just can’t wait to get your hands on the latest book, dvd or game. With this in mind, I wanted to highlight Artist Network TV, a great resource for the artist with demonstrations, tips and general know-how from some great artists.
ArtistsNetwork.tv was launched in 2008 to provide online instructional videos from leading contemporary artists. The videos are streamed to ArtistsNetwork.tv members so that they can be viewed 24/7 from any computer with a high-speed Internet connection without requiring software downloads.
The site allows you to preview a lot of demonstration clips before you buy and there are a lot of categories covering subjects from Dragons to landscapes. The previews make for some brief but great viewing and you can pick up some great inspiration from just watching the previews.
The new book from Impact, Other Worlds by Tom Kidd is now available at RUBooks. An inspirational 192 page book packed with great fantasy art, both pencil and full colour.
Bizarre terrains, enhanced forests, futuristic metropolise, ornate palaces are some of the places where adventure dwells and where Tom Kidd, fantasy artist takes you on the pages of this book. In this fun and fiercely original book celebrated fantasy artist Tom Kidd, you’ll learn how to set the scene for epic tales of adventure and to see the world around you with fresh eyes. (take a look at some of the internal pages below)
Watch this space for a review on Angelic Visions, a new instructional art book coming to RUBooks soon but in the mean time, take a look at this great video clip of the artist, Angela Sasser, in action.
Learn step-by-step how to create bodies, heads, limbs, wings and details, including flowing clothing and background elements and a whole lot more in Watercolour, ink and pencil. Beautiful final projects will inspire you to push the limits of your imaginations. Step-by-step processes are the focus of this book from simple poses and views to more complex scenes. You will find sidebar feature tips, frequently asked questions, solutions to common mistakes, information about angels and more.
