Drawing from the Mind Painting from the Heart:  12 Essential Lessons to Becoming a Better Artist
An artist, teacher, and writer, Compton has produced a comprehensive set of exercises designed to develop artistic mastery via analytical and intuitive means. By addressing both technique and expression, artists explore the relationship between what they create in their minds and on paper, concurrently expanding their personal creative processes. Compton's 12-part course in guided experimentation includes an introductory section on depicting edges with a variety of drawing media; then "mind" and "heart" exercises are combined to help artists access their creative resources, culminating in end-of-chapter "studies" involving the use of works by master artists, "morning pages," and painting a still life. As the reader-artist progresses, he or she learns how to use tonal values to achieve three-dimensionality, shape forms via drawing, utilize the unique properties of watercolors and the nuances of color (including value, mood, and "temperature"), and work productively both in the studio and outdoors. Each step in this well-illustrated, endlessly helpful resource brings the artist closer to finding his or her own "voice" or view.Whitney ScottCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved