Some additional materials you might find handy include the following:
The Beginner’s Guide to Oil Painting – by Craig Stephens (Paperback)
“Craig Stephens has a simple motto for painting: With a brush, some paints and a willingness to learn, anyone can do it. With that mindset, Craig takes his most essential lessons, boils them down to their basics and teaches you everything you need to know to start oil painting, without any fuss or highbrow. Thanks to his experience teaching painting to high school students for over two decades, Craig is an expert at helping those with no experience pick up a brush and make beautiful art they are proud of. With his direction, you’ll create dynamic, vivid paintings and learn to capture your world in ways you never thought possible”–
Book Synopsis
The Easy Way to Get Started with Oil Painting
Craig Stephens has a simple motto for painting: With a brush, some paints and a willingness to learn, anyone can do it. With that mindset, Craig takes his most essential lessons, boils them down to their basics and teaches you everything you need to know to start oil painting, without any fuss or highbrow. Thanks to his experience teaching painting to high school students for over two decades, Craig is an expert at helping those with no experience pick up a brush and make beautiful art they are proud of. With his direction, you’ll create dynamic, vivid paintings and learn to capture your world in ways you never thought possible.
Each project in this book is designed to highlight the important elements of using oil paints, helping you to practice new skills and get comfortable with the medium. And thanks to Craig’s helpful step-by-step directions that pair a picture with each stroke, you’ll get great results. Hone your color-mixing eye as you blend the vibrant greens and subtle yellows in the Freshly Cut Avocado piece. Practice painting unique textures, like the small craters in the Simplified Strawberry or the glossy skin on the Smooth and Shiny Plum. Learn all the ways to capture natural light, like transparency in a glass of Refreshing Lemon Water or dazzling reflections on a Chrome Coffee Creamer. Oil painting is a timeless art form, and with Craig as your teacher, you’ll create 22 beautiful pieces for your walls and learn all the foundational skills you need to enjoy this hobby for years to come.
Review Quotes
“The Beginner’s Guide to Oil Painting is perfect for anyone who wants to learn oil painting but doesn’t know where to begin. Craig taps into his decades of teaching experience and articulates with clarity how successful paintings are created.” —Terry Miura, professional artist and illustrator
“This easy-to-follow book walks you through the perfect place to begin with oil painting: the simple still life. Through step-by-step instruction, you’ll learn to create beautiful and harmonious paintings.” —Todd M. Casey, author of The Art of Still Life
“This book teaches you everything you need to know about capturing color and light with oil paints.” —James Gurney, author of Color and Light
About the Author
Craig Stephens is a professional painter. He taught art at the high school level for over two decades and now teaches painting courses online. His works can be seen in the Sparrow Gallery in Sacramento, California, and online at his website, craigstephensart.com. Craig and his family live in Auburn, California.
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Отзывы о Pet Portrait Embroidery
Рейтинг: 4.3076923076923075 из 5 звезд
13 оценок 3 отзыва
Toni White
Рейтинг: 5 из 5 звезд
Amazing book. Have followed the author for a long time and this is just what I needed.
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DigitalVault Enterprise
Рейтинг: 5 из 5 звезд
Simple and easy to understand guide to realistic embroidery ?
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Alana Roxin
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If there’s a holy bible for embroidery and animals… look no further. This has it all.
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Pet Portrait Embroidery – Michelle Staub
Thread painting is the perfect medium for pet portraits. The small stitches look so similar to fur and create a texture like no other medium. You can run your fingers across it and follow the fur and stitch patterns, feeling the texture of the thread. It’s almost as if you’re touching the pet itself.
This book will teach you how to create your own custom embroidered pet portraits and provide patterns to follow along with. You can embroider the patterns as they are, or you can edit them to make them look like a dog or cat you know.
Each pattern will provide a different fur color palette that can be mixed and matched to create custom palettes. You can also use the patterns as templates to draw your own pets with their own unique fur markings. There are a lot of colors needed for each portrait, and sometimes you may only use one or two stitches of a color. As you buy the colors needed for these projects, however, you’ll build a collection of thread to use for future portraits.
There are also additional patterns for floral accents that you can add to your pieces, as well as two alphabets, so you can truly customize your pet portrait with a name or a significant date.
The patterns in this book are very meticulous and require a lot of small stitches. Please make sure you are in a comfortable position for embroidery so you don’t strain your eyes or hands. It’s okay to take breaks if you feel overwhelmed! The patterns in this book can be followed by both those who are new to embroidery as well are those who already know their way around the hoop.
Try not to compare your work to others. Just take your time and enjoy the process of creating an embroidery. The more you work at it the better you’ll get. Enjoy stitching through these patterns and creating your own embroidered pet portraits!
SUPPLIES
There really is no right or wrong type of fabric to use, but you should choose a fabric that is not too thin, transparent, or stretchy. Choose a medium-weight fabric that is sturdy enough to withstand the heavy amount of stitches you’ll be making. In addition, you should choose a fabric that has a tight, even weave to it so you can make small and delicate stitches. All of the embroideries in this book are stitched on either cotton twill or Kona Cotton (by Robert Kaufman Fabrics). Linen and calico are also common fabrics to use. I recommend washing your fabric beforehand if you are planning on creating your embroidery on an object that you will occasionally be washing. I also recommend cutting your fabric a minimum of 2˝ larger than the hoop diameter. The patterns in this book are designed for a 6˝ hoop, so start with a square of fabric at least 8˝ × 8˝.
Photo by Tristan Gallagher
HOOPS
There are many different types of embroidery hoops, but the most common ones are made from wood or plastic and have a metal screw closure at the top. Sizes range from 3˝ to larger than 14˝ (8 to 36cm)! The embroideries in this book are made to fit a 6˝ (15 cm) embroidery hoop and all embroideries are stitched in Frank A. Edmunds hoops.
The embroidery hoop consists of two parts: the outer hoop and the inner hoop. The fabric goes in between the two, and the screw at the top tightens the outer hoop to keep the fabric taut. You will want to use an embroidery hoop that will keep your fabric drum tight as you work.
tip It’s normal to have to readjust the tightness of your fabric as you work, but if your hoop can’t keep your fabric taut at all, you might try using two layers of fabric or wrapping the inner hoop with bias tape. This will give the hoop something to grip.
