Essential Techniques: Drawing & Painting

Whether you’re an absolute beginner looking for a new and challenging hobby, or have always dabbled and now want to take your interest further, Essential Techniques: Drawing & Painting is the perfect place to develop and improve your artistic skills.

From architecture to people, natural landscapes to still life, even the everyday becomes extraordinary and is a potential subject for your pencil or paintbrush. No previous knowledge is necessary to get started, although more experienced artists will find plenty here to keep them occupied. The book is reassuringly straightforward, setting things out clearly with a large number of visual examples. Each of the more detailed assignments has step-by-step instructions and photographs to guide you through the stages. And to help illustrate various styles, we’ve featured works by great artists such as Monet, Van Gogh and Constable.

The opening chapters cover the basic materials and equipment needed. From there, you’ll move on to learn about composition, colour, figure-drawing and painting portraits, before exploring a wide variety of artistic techniques and tricks. The second half of the book is devoted to more than 40 highly varied projects that will help you put what you’ve learned into practice.

Whether you’ve always wanted to try portraiture, paint traditional landscapes or have a secret desire to create like a Cubist, there’s something in Essential Techniques: Drawing & Painting that will inspire and help you realise your artistic goals.