watercolor | Annie Mason

Top 10 Books for the Beginner Artist

Annie Mason
2 min read

I thought I would do a few posts with my top books for those beginning to jump into the art world. I’m sharing the top ten books I picked for beginners from my collection.

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1.

Daily Painting: Paint Small and Often To Become a More Creative, Productive, and Successful Artist

You can read all the books you want, take all the classes and workshops you want, and buy all the best gear, but your art will only improve if you practice regularly. This book gets you started on that path.

2.

Watercolor 1: Learn the basics of watercolor painting

Caroline Linscott covers a range of popular subjects as she introduces several basic art concepts and painting techniques, all clearly explained and illustrated.

3.

Watercolour for the Absolute Beginner: The Society for All Artists

The exercises are ideal for beginners, and the main projects will also build skills that will help artists improve. A pull-out outline drawing is provided for every exercise and main project, and Matthew Palmer shows step-by-step instructions on how to transfer these onto watercolor paper.

4.

Drawing for the Absolute Beginner: A Clear & Easy Guide to Successful Drawing

A series of fun, hands-on exercises help you practice and perfect your strokes—24 mini-demos lead to 9 full step-by-step demos. The lessons you learn by drawing simple subjects such as coffee mugs, clouds and trees will help you take on progressively more challenging matter like animals, still lifes, landscapes and portraits,

5.

Art for Kids: Drawing

The entertaining, hands-on lessons begin with contour drawing techniques and feature numerous exercises that show budding artists how to make basic shapes and forms.

6.

30-Minute Watercolor Painting for Beginners

Beautifully presented instructions and illustrations show you the fundamentals of watercolor for beginners. In five different lessons, mix colors and try various brushstrokes and washes. Learn how to choose and assemble your supplies and paint using color theory and composition techniques.

7.

Lessons for Painting Flowers: Easy Watercolors for Understanding Colors and Procedures

The eight lessons are carefully constructed to build the necessary techniques, one step at a time, by first starting with simple tasks such as creating and painting flowers with just a few petals and gradually leading up to more complex works with multiple flowers and colors.

8.

Birds, Bees & Blossoms: A Step-by-step Guide to Botanical and Animal Watercolour Painting

Botanical artist Harriet de Winton shows you how to paint modern watercolor artworks to treasure and share. This book aims to expand readers' repertoires into fauna and flora, with easy-to-follow instructions for a variety of difficulty levels.

9.

The Big Book of Realistic Drawing Secrets: Easy Techniques for drawing people, animals, flowers and nature

This book can teach anyone to draw (yes, even you!) 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.

10.

Figure It Out! Human Proportions: Draw the Head and Figure Right Every Time

For those who want a bigger challenge and enjoy figure drawing, Christopher Harts shares his "foolproof" method; even beginners can quick-check the proportions of their head and figure drawings, identify errors, and swiftly fix mistakes.

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Let's go abstract!

Annie Mason
3 min read

If you have visited this site, no one would call me an abstract artist. However, I go in that direction occasionally.

This post will feature my artist friends on Society6.

For those of you whose niche is not in the visual arts, let's define abstract; at least let's try.

Abstract.

If you google it, you will wind up more confused than you started. I like this definition from the Tate Gallery in London: Abstract art is an art that does not attempt to represent an accurate depiction of a visual reality but instead uses shapes, colours, forms, and gestural marks to achieve its effect.

Then, there is this, from the Oxford Languages: art that does not attempt to represent external reality, but seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, forms, colors, and textures.

And another from artist, Arshile Gorky “Abstraction allows man to see with his mind what he cannot see physically with his eyes.”

So, got it? No? Well, you can probably find a myriad of definitions. This article from artistnetwork.com is a good one: What is Abstract Art? And Why Should I Care?

Common definitions contain the words you find in the above: forms, colours, shapes, and textures. I would add line to that list. Watch for those elements when I post my choices of "abstract" artworks below.

pillow with a green half circle and an arch of simple lines. — Arch balance green by MoonlightPrint on a pillow

Moonlight Print uses simple shapes like the green half-circle at the top, balanced against an arch made with simple, repeating lines.

hmm. Is it a garden fence? Or just geometric shapes, lines, and color. Maybe both.

ThingDesign lets us know by the title that this is "abstract." It too has a line, although a squiggle. Color, yes, and shape.

Does it have texture? I think so. That line surely could be a string. Or a hand reaching out.

It has a real "Boho" kind of feel.

Sun Retro Art III by Nadja on a welcome mat.

Nadja is literal when she titles the painting "Sun Retro Art III"

Indeed, we think of "sun" as the triangles which form rays radiating from the lower, bright half circle.

The abstract does imply realistic subjects. However, I have never seen a sun with this much color in any instance. Shape and color are dominant here, but placement plays a role.

Wooden Navy iPhone Case by Nicklas Gustafsson

Nicklas Gustafsson uses this digital graphic design with a simple choice of slanted lines complemented by wood texture to balance the strong navy stripes.

If you like minimal design, this is a good selection as an iPhone Case. Clean, strong linear feeling harkens to classic Marine, Naval, strength, and power.

Searching "abstract" brought up this tote bag design by Color and Color.

The artist wants us to know the subject matter by giving us the title, "Four Blue Dandelions." They're recognizable, but I daresay I have never seen blue dandelions unless it's late evening and the dark is setting in.

Abstract. This design is abstract by technique, with its spattered paint, shapes, and colors that don't apply to "real" life. For me, this is borderline "abstract."

VWDigitalPainting uses this digital graphic design to create this abstract. (Personal note: I would do far more abstract designs if I were more proficient in using Procreate and other software.)

This, to my eye, is the definition of "abstract:

Color, shapes, lines, texture, pattern, and layers. What is it? No matter. It makes me think about ribbons, celebrations, New Year's Eve, tangled forests, the moon, mystery, and more. Its overall design is balanced by a simple color palette (green, purple, blue, and shades of those colors),

Abstract Flower Palettes by Alisa Galitsyna on a sling chair

Once again, the artist lets us know it's "abstract" in the title, "Abstract Flower Palettes."

The artwork by Alisa Galitsyna is fabulous.

The true artistry of clean, bright color shapes, balance, bold in its design, and modern in its concept. Minimalism and direct. Flower Palettes? Doesn't matter. This design looks great on all the products offered by Society6.

My work? As I said, I don't do much artwork in an abstract style. One I will show here:

Office Blues by Annie Mason on a Desk Mat

This is watercolor and pen. I used a template from my Creative Memories days. Using a blue palette, I continued to place the shapes around the paper. I thought this looked like an office cubicle for me, the artist. Hence, the name.

In conclusion, there is no strict definition of "abstract." Paying attention to all the samples here, you will know that the elements of art are all present: color, line, shape, form, value, texture, and space. Other design principles are used: contrast, rhythm, proportion, balance, unity, emphasis, movement, and variety.

For your interest:

Thanks for joining me as we shared thoughts about "abstract" artwork.

I invite you to browse Society6. Over 500,000 artists from over 200 countries worldwide choose to showcase their artworks.

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Create a Seamless Pattern with Photoshop

Annie Mason
3 min read

My background in art involved paintbrushes, paper, pencils, paint of various sorts, and something to paint. As I began a major in Graphic Arts I moved into the realm of photography, copy, advertising, layouts, fonts, and the technology which existed in the late 1960s. Would you believe that in order to "justify" the print in those days, I had to type my copy on a keyboard that kicked out a roll of tape with a pattern of holes? The tape was then fed into a linotype machine.

The holes matched the copy that had been typed on a keyboard. The copy could then be set to align to right, centered, left, or justified.

Can you imagine? I am typing this now and all I have to do is look to the top and pick out my desired alignment.

Point of note: in 1967 when I was a graphic arts student at Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) I was allowed to do the copy process whatever we were working on...but I was NOT allowed to work the printing press because that was a "man's job."

Whaaaatttt!!!!!

My next art experience was when I transferred to Westfield State University to continue my education. My major was then "fine arts" so I was back to using paints, and paper, and added potter's clay, weaving, sculpture, and art history.

Back to the point. I LOVE ART. I say it often and now, in retirement, I paint almost every day. I also have a mantra that may seem cliché: Learn something new every day.

I have written here in this space, however, that digital art is a whole other animal. One of my principals at one of the schools where I taught elementary art proposed that there be a computer at every grade level, and he mandated that at least one teacher in each level learn how to use it. This was around 1976, and the computer was still elusive in the classroom. Most teachers cringed. I couldn't wait.

When I started using watercolors again after my retirement, my daughter gave me a phone case from Society6 with a small bird. We began to check the site, and she said, "Mom, you should upload your work to this platform." I didn't know what "upload" meant; I had to learn about pixels and assets and edit my artwork for print.

I've come a long way since then. I can resize, HTML, embed, change the hue, rotate, and transform with the best of them (well. maybe not with the best). My daughter has been impressed with how well I can navigate in Photoshop. It has been a slow process but I love learning.

I have subscribed to SKILLSHARE. This is where I really took off in learning how to make Seamless Patterns from my artwork. I joined my favorite artist-friend, Cat Coquillette https://www.skillshare.com/user/catcoq You can read my earlier Meet the Artist - Cat Coq to get to know her better.

Here we go. Start with the more traditional plan: watercolor image. You want one dominant form, then some middle-sized elements, and finally small "pieces" of the floral designs.