Anyone can draw - including you! Learn to draw today, even if you've never drawn before! Carrie Stuart Parks and Rick Parks, FBI-trained composite artists and drawing instructors, have taught thousands of people of all ages and skill levels how to turn out impressive realistic drawings. Discover how to: • Train your brain to re-create what you see through observation • Accurately capture main shapes and important details • Make your drawings incredibly lifelike with shading and blending • Identify and fix the parts of a drawing that look inaccurate With concise, memorable lessons and foolproof step-by-step instruction, this book makes learning to draw easy - and fun! Before you know it, you'll be creating picture-perfect illustrations of animals, still-lifes, people, landscapes and more. So if you think you can't draw, think again. Surprise yourself and others with your own spectacular drawings today!"With concise, memorable lessons and foolproof step-by-step instruction, this book makes learning to draw easy - and fun! Before you know it, you'll be creating picture-perfect illustrations of animals, still-lifes, people, landscapes and more. So if you think you can't draw, think again. Surprise yourself and others with your own spectacular drawings today!

This is the book that can teach anyone to draw (yes, even you!) If you're not getting the kind of true-to-life results you want in your drawings (or if you can't even draw a straight line), Carrie and Rick Parks can help. As award-winning teachers, they have a proven game plan for helping artists of all levels overcome common problems and see immediate improvement in their work. As professional composite artists, they know the tricks and tools for achieving incredibly lifelike results. In this friendly, foolproof guide to drawing, they share it all: • Easy-to-master techniques for achieving a convincing sense of depth • How to draw challenging textures like metal and fur • Putting personality into your portraits • 40+ step-by-step demonstrations featuring a variety of people, animals and nature Easy enough so that beginners can jump right in, and comprehensive enough to help more accomplished artists refine their skills. This book covers all the essentials, teaching you the secrets of realistic drawing one step at a time, building the skills you need to tackle any subject convincingly--even those you've always thought were beyond your reach. Before you know it, you'll be turning out picturesque landscapes, stellar portraits--any subject that inspires you to put pencil to paper!

Drawing children has never been easier! Maybe you can't stop your favorite child from growing up, but you can create timeless memories with pencil, paper and some simple drawing skills. Now you can capture your most cherished moments in a way no ordinary photograph can. Here to show you how are Carrie Stuart Parks and Rick Parks, professional composite artists and drawing instructors. In their friendly and foolproof teaching style, the Parks cover everything you need to know to create incredibly true-to-life pencil portraits of the children you love. You'll learn how to: • Take strong reference photos • Achieve correct facial proportions • Draw a face from different angles and bring it to life with shading • Master tricky facial features such as eyes, nose, ears, hair, lips and smiles • Make hair look realistic and shiny • Draw clothing, incorporate props, and work with light and shadows • Convey the true sense of character of your child Complete with step-by-step demonstrations and countless expert tips for striking results, this book will help you create drawings that capture the one-of-a-kind essence of a child, preserving forever that lovable, clownish, whimsical or impish nature that makes children so very special.

Paint Lively, Expressive Watercolor Portraits Ready to unlock the secrets of watercolor? With the masterful instruction of Carrie Stuart Parks and Rick Parks, success is within your reach. In this beginner-friendly guide, Carrie and Rick shares their 30-plus years of experience as artists and instructors to give you the tools and techniques for painting lively, realistic watercolor portraits you can be proud of. Detailed step-by-step demonstrations and lots of tips and sidebars help you avoid mistakes, stay loose and have fun. In addition to complete information on supplies and materials, each chapter focuses on a specific aspect of watercolor portrait painting, visually teaching you how to: Handle watercolors with confidence using washes, masking, underpainting and a "less-is-more" approach Map out great compositions by using grids, transferring the drawing, choosing colors and applying masking in the right places Convey light and dark values with precision and impact for striking, lifelike portraits Paint beautiful hair in all styles, colors and textures by building tones gradually Avoid common watercolor missteps (and learn to fix the ones you couldn't help) by following a whole chapter of advice just for those "oops" moments Gain the confidence to "step out of your comfort zone" and work to establish your own distinct and expressive painting style Leave your frustration and fear of watercolor in the past. With Carrie Stuart Parks and Rick Parks you have all the guidance you need to paint the faces you love with skill and style. Get started today! "I want you to have every secret, every tool, every technique, every shortcut, and every success in your painting. I want you to feel that you've found your true artistic style and expression with this medium." —bestselling author and artist, Carrie Stuart Parks

It's the first thing anyone looks at when there's a figure in a painting: the details of the human head and face. There's far more to creating an accurate portrait than meets the eye, and that's exactly what this extremely focused, richly visual guide teaches artists.

"As long as humans have been alive, we have drawn." ~Justin Maas Drawing is the most essential of all visual arts. Everyone, from sculptors to painters, draws in one form or another. It is also the simplest and most affordable form of artistic expression. All you need is a pencil and paper to make something magical. But to create a successful portrait, one must understand how to capture a person’s likeness--their spirit--and portray it in graphite. In Drawing Realistic Pencil Portraits, artist and teacher Justin Maas provides a step-by-step guide for both novice and experience portraitists looking to enhance their skillsets. His tried-and-true techniques for mastering the basics and accurately rendering proportion, placement and nuance when drawing the head and face will help you add energy and life to your drawings and create recognizable and moving portraits. In this book: • Lessons in drawing basics, including value, line, shadow, light and anatomy • How to work from both reference photographs and live models, plus tips for selecting your subjects • Step-by-step demos to create crucial features, such as eyes, ears, and hair • Methods for building successful portraits, including the grid method, the tracing method and the author's own Maas method • 15 detailed step-by-step portrait-drawing demos with subjects of different ages, genders and ethnicities • A gallery of additional portrait examples in both black-and-white and full color

Draw amazingly accurate portraits starting today! Even if you're an absolute beginner, you can render strikingly realistic faces and self-portraits! Instructor and FBI-trained artist Carrie Stuart Parks makes it simple with foolproof step-by-step instructions that are fun and easy to follow. You'll quickly begin to: • Master proportions and map facial features accurately • Study shapes within a composition and draw them realistically • Use value, light and shading to add life and depth to any portrait • Render tricky details, including eyes, noses, mouths and hair Proven, hands-on exercises and before-and-after examples from Parks' students ensure instant success! It's all the guidance and inspiration you need to draw realistic faces with precision, confidence and style!