"Sadie Montogmery has had good breaks and bad breaks in her life, but as a struggling artist, all she needs is one lucky break. Things seem to be going her way when she lands one of the coveted finalist spots in a portrait competition. It happens to coincide with a surgery she needs to have. Minor, they say. Less than a week in the hospital they say. Nothing about you will change, they say. Upon recovery, it begins to dawn on Sadie that she can see...

"North Carolina, 2018: Morgan Christopher's life has been derailed. Taking the fall for a crime she did not commit, she finds herself serving a three-year stint in the North Carolina Women's Correctional Center. Her dream of a career in art is put on hold-until a mysterious visitor makes her an offer that will see her released immediately. Her assignment: restore an old post office mural in a sleepy southern town. Morgan knows nothing about art restoration,...

The Jelly Beans--four friends who like to do such different things as paint, play soccer, read, and dance--paint a mural on an outside wall of Mrs. Petunia Dinkley-Sneezer's candy shop that depicts them each doing what they love best.

"The quick-start guide to great results! Oil painting doesn't have to be rocket science, although some books on the subject make it seem that way. Filled with encouraging, easy-to-follow instruction, Oil Painting for the Absolute Beginner is a no-fear, no-experience-required guide to enjoyable painting and happy results. Focusing on the needs of the first-time painter, this book covers everything from selecting brushes and setting up your palette...

"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, colora mixture of mediums and techniquesto suggest: *glass *cast iron *adobe and brick *sunrise and sunset *driftwood *leaf textures *basketry *surf and ocean waves *enamelware *rainbows...

"A decaying palazzo on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from Rome makes a discovery that inspires a search for a painting lost for almost two centuries. The artist was Caravaggio, a revolutionary painter beset by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, in and out of jail, all the while...

Join noted watercolorist Ted Kautzky as he shares his wisdom on painting the infinitely wonderful details of trees and landscapes. Beginning with the fundamentals of good composition, value arrangement, balance, rhythm, and basic brushstrokes, the book explores ways of painting such important landscape components as trees, roads, puddles, rain, plant life, and fog. Individual chapters are devoted to painting forests, and different types of trees are...

"Enjoy the scenery with fast and fun landscape painting! A summer sunset, a bubbling brook, a sea of golden wildflowers like nature itself, landscape painting doesn't have to be complicated to be beautiful. In this beginner-friendly guide, Lee Hammond shows you how to use a handful of colors, a simple three-step approach, and the friendly medium of acrylic to create charming landscapes throughout the seasons. *Step-by-step instructions for painting...

"Silken strands of hair. Water tumbling over rocks. Blinding reflections in glass or metal. Cathy Johnson shows you how to create realistic textures like these and make your watercolor paintings come alive. You'll find practical, easy-to-follow guidelines inside for creating 83 wonderful textures for fruits, vegetables, hair, glass, metal, fabric, flowers, fur, skin and much, much more. Johnson's beautiful watercolor sketches - complete with helpful...

"This is what we long for: the profound pleasure of being swept into vivid new worlds, worlds peopled by characters so intriguing and real that we can't shake them, even long after the reading's done. In his earlier, award-winning novels, Dominic Smith demonstrated a gift for coaxing the past to life. Now, in The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, he deftly bridges the historical and the contemporary, tracking a collision course between a rare landscape...