Capture the Rich Textures of Nature, Step by Step Capture nature's beauty as you never have before. Beloved artist and teacher Claudia Nice leads you on an inspired journey through the great outdoors. With paints in hand, she shares with you her best techniques for creating landscapes that come alive with richness, depth and textured detail. Open this guide and start painting right away. As you follow engaging, step-by-step demonstrations and exercises, you'll learn to recreate the textural elements of a range of terrains and landscapes. Chapters include: • Creative clouds and skies • Majestic mountains, hills and mesas • Texturing trees, trunks and foliage • Rugged rocks and gritty gravel • Transparent textures for rivers, falls and lakes • Flowers of the field In a special section, Claudia covers basic texturing techniques with mini demos using lines, dots, bruising, scribbling, spattering, blotting, printing, stamping and more. From paints and pens to sponges, leaves and facial tissue, you'll explore all kinds of fun and inventive ways to create amazing textures. And to help you put it all together, Claudia includes her masterful advice for creating compositions using reference photos, field sketches and your own creative license. Each demonstration features a large image of the completed landscape, so you can see exactly how Claudia's methods work - from start to finish.

Claudia Nice shows you how to turn ink and watercolors into the coarse-barked trunk of an oak, or the burnished smoothness of brass, or the verdant velvet of moss. Or any of many other things. She shows you how to use dots, fine lines, brushstrokes, black and white, color—a mixture of mediums and techniques—to suggest: • glass • cast iron • adobe and brick • sunrise and sunset • driftwood • leaf textures • basketry • surf and ocean waves • enamelware • rainbows • wood grain • distant trees • eggs and onions • animal hair • and dozens of other textures! You'll learn how to use materials, from technical pens to paint brushes, colored inks to liquid acrylics. You'll discover ways to blot, spatter, stamp and otherwise alter and combine ink and watercolor for exciting texturing effects.

Expand your artistic horizons with watercolor! Watercolor is a fun, challenging medium that captures the magic of light and color. Now world-renowned artist and instructor Claudia Nice helps you get started in watercolor today. In Watercolor Made Simple with Claudia Nice, you'll start with the very basics, learning new techniques as you paint. Detailed instructions and step-by-step artwork show you how to: • Explore the amazing variety of effects you can get by painting watercolors on dry, damp or wet paper • Mix paint and water to create a variety of soft, beautiful washes • Use fun and easy techniques such as spatter, sponging and stamping to bring a lively new look to your work • Blend colors on your palette to capture the precise shade you're seeking • Use your brushes, papers and paints to produce wonderful textural effects Throughout, you'll find helpful troubleshooting tips, practical exercises, and Claudia's encouraging advice - all so you, too, can become a watercolor pro.

Showing how to paint a variety of leaves, vines, weathered wood arbors, birdbaths, and other outdoor details, bestselling author Claudia Nice provides all the information artists need to create gorgeous country garden art. 150 color illustrations.

How to paint your world in watercolor…and have fun doing it! The day Sterling Edwards watched an artist paint an entire sky with three deft brushstrokes was the day he committed to trading his tiny oil brushes and photorealistic style in favor of big, bold strokes of watercolor. In the years since, he's developed not only a wonderfully fresh, luminous painting style, but also an approach that takes the intimidation out of this beautiful but often-mystifying medium. In this book, he shares both. • Initial chapters lay the foundation for successful paintings, from choosing the right brushes to achieving vibrant colors, interesting textures and strong compositions. • Step-by-step demonstrations illustrate techniques for painting rocks, skies, trees, foliage, buildings, water and other landscape elements. • An easy-to-follow, four-step painting process makes for easier starts and stronger finishes, complete with rich darks and sparkling highlights. • Eight complete painting projects cover a range of breathtaking scenes and seasons. Whether you're dipping into the medium for the first time or you're a watercolor devotee on a quest for clearer color and more personal statements, this book will help you make the most of the time you spend with brush in hand.

Capture the Magic of the Sea with Claudia Nice Nobody captures the misty splashes and weathered details of seascapes quite like Claudia Nice. In this step-by-step guide, Claudia shares her special approach to creating dynamic watercolor compositions textured with pen and ink, acrylics and gouache. Claudia starts with the basics, so you can advance at your own pace as you follow along through more than 60 step-by-step demonstrations ranging from short mini demos to full-scale paintings. Take a look inside to see how simple and inspiring Claudia's instruction can be. Each chapter focuses on a different element of coastal scenery, including crashing waves against rocky bluffs, wide sandy beaches and gently rolling surf, colorful boats and harbors, luminous ocean sunsets, and warm tropical scenes with kids and dogs at play. You'll find complete instructions for mixing the colors of active and still water, as well as creating the textures of sand and rock. Claudia also features her own reference photos and field studies to show you how to build solid compositions from a variety of sources. Dozens of quick tips teach you the details that add drama and realism to your seascapes, and 30 complete paintings will inspire you to create your own beautiful coastal scenes. With Claudia Nice, learning to paint lively seascapes is like spending a day at the beach!

Step-by-step guide to creating 83 different textures using watercolors.