Overflowing with drawing prompts and tips, Your Year in Art will invigorate beginning and practicing artists as they build skills, gain confidence, and overcome artistic anxiety with fun, creative prompts for every week of the year. Leave your artistic anxiety behind with 52 weeks of hearty inspiration. Your Year in Art is a must-have guide to rouse your creative side. Designed for aspiring, beginning, and practicing artists looking to hone their skills, Your Year in Art is packed with unique projects and encouraging instruction. The mission of Your Year in Art is to sharpen your art skills and quiet your inner critic by showing you how to draw habitually and spontaneously. As you build your craft, techniques, and confidence, this guide encourages you to create in a way that celebrates your individuality. Fifty-two clever drawing prompts, along with tips and tricks, from expert illustrator Chelsea Ward will get your creative juices flowing. Weekly challenges include making a “self-portrait” by sketching things that describe you; practicing mark-making techniques like cross-hatching and stippling; filling a sketchbook page with drawings on a theme, like potted plants or fire hydrants; and adding water to ink drawings to practice wash techniques. Join fellow artists in an exciting yearlong journey of developing creative habits and discovering new ways to express yourself.

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!

365 art-based, on-the-page activities; stimulates the creative left brain; takes a straightforward approach - art is for everyone, every day; and provides inspirational content.Three hundred sixty-five art-based, on-the-page activities-one for each day of the year. A combination of imaginative prompts and step-by-steps are designed to unleash creativity. Inspirational content devised by expert author Susan Schwake will stimulate the creative left brain; the diverse range of activities include wearing your favorite color and noticing how it makes you feel, feeling different textures, counting the number of different colors in your bedroom, and recording it all in words and pictures in your journal. The straightforward approach of this book encourages the reader to think creatively, even if they don't feel that they have the "right" skills or knowledge. When completed, the reader will have a souvenir of the 365 days in which they discovered their own personal creativity.

Come on, you know you've thought it--while viewing a "masterpiece" of abstract art, you mutter, "A kid could do that." Here Susie Hodge, author of How to Survive Modern Art, explains why the best examples of modern art are actually the result of sophisticated thought and serious talent. From Marcel Duchamp's notorious Fountain and the scribbles of Cy Twombly to Mark Rothko's multiforms and Carl Andre's uncarved blocks, Hodge addresses critical outrage with a revealing insight into the technical skill, layering of ideas, and sheer inspiration behind each work. In cleverly organized chapters such as "Objects/ Toys," "Provocations/Tantrums," and "People/Monsters," Hodges thoughtfully and definitively lays bare the perception that modern art is mere child's play.

An insider's detailed chronicle of the inner workings of the contemporary art world, now in paperback.

One year in the life of the students, teachers, and artists at one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious art colleges

A unique system for jump-starting artistic creativity, encouraging experimentation and growth, and increasing sales for artists of all levels, from novices to professionals. Have you landed in a frustrating rut? Are you having trouble selling paintings in galleries, getting bogged down by projects you can’t seem to finish or abandon, or finding excuses to avoid working in the studio? Author Carol Marine knows exactly how you feel—she herself suffered from painter’s block, until she discovered “daily painting.” The idea is simple: do art (usually small) often (how often is up to you), and if you’d like, post and sell it online. Soon you’ll find that your block dissolves and you’re painting work you love—and more of it than you ever thought possible! With her encouraging tone and useful exercises, Marine teaches you to: -Master composition and value -Become confident in any medium including oil painting, acrylic painting, watercolors, and other media -Choose subjects wisely -Stay fresh and loose -Photograph, post, and sell your art online -Become connected to the growing movement of daily painters around the world