The acrylics of today have grown into the most adaptable art material of the modern age. Focusing on a popular art medium that has been around for over 50 years, The New Acrylics illustrates how artists can create lush textures, color, and luster with the modern acrylics readily available in any art supply store. These are nontoxic, environmentally sound, and exist in the most dazzling array of chemical formats-from the most fluid to the highly viscous. Not only do artists paint with acrylics these days, they can create rich metallic effects, or even 3-dimensional sculptures. Traditional technique based books on acrylics cover traditional methods of painting. However, The New Acrylics is geared toward more nonconventional ways in which to manipulate modern-day acrylics, and demonstrates new applications such as glazing, textured effects, soft sculpture effects, or staining, thus reinventing the old way of handling acrylics, and revealing a fabulous new artistic medium. The underlying theme of this dazzling and sophisticated book is to encourage artists to interpret and handle acrylic paints in a vibrant, fresh, and above all, individualistic style.

I am a big Jerry Yarnell fan. He is an excellent teacher and it really shows in his instructional books. I had the good fortune to attend one of his workshops, and really learned a lot. I expect to be able to continue to learn from these books.

From what I can tell, the books do not have to be followed in a specific order. I have the first four volumes in the series. What I plan to do is to work on the techniques presented in this first volume and at that point, I'll just pick paintings from his other books that I like.

The paintings are selected to help you develop specific techniques that will be of good general use and he gives step by step instructions and includes color photographs of the paintings at each stage to give you an idea of what each step should look like.

He gives instructions for mixing the colors required at each step too. He doesn't give an exact formula for the colors since brands and grades of paints vary so much. What he does do is to give you the colors and a relative idea of how much to use of each. You then can develop your eye by mixing until the color looks right. It doesn't take long to figure it out and it is much better for developing your color mixing skills than a rote formula.

Jerry also uses a limited number of colors in his palette. This really help with developing you color mixing skills too. He tell you what brushes you need and how to use them as well.

Adding buildings and other man-made creations to a painting demands an understanding of perspective. Perspective is crucial to accuracy and realism, allowing a structure to fit in seamlessly with its surroundings. Yarnell starts basic, with one-point perspective, using first a box and then entire houses with doors, windows, roofs and porches to demonstrate how perspective can change. He also covers more complex two-point perspective, where two sides of a building are visible.

Painting Perspective features seven projects, which build on the first section's introduction to perspective and boast simple and well-illustrated instructions perfect for both beginning and intermediate painters.

Jerry Yarnell is back to teach beginning and intermediate artists the techniques they need to create gorgeous paintings on canvas. Continuing from Painting Magic, he further encourages them to master composition, design, perspective, negative space, color mixing, values and color coordination. They'll also learn how to render water reflections, fog, mist, haze, trees, rocks, grass, bushes, leaves and more!

Readers will put these new skills to use in eight beautiful painting projects. Each one is easy-to-do and comes complete with step-by-step instructions and photos.

This new addition to the Acrylic category of our How to Draw and Paint Series features a number of popular pieces by renowned marine-life artist Wyland. The book provides basic information about painting in acrylic, making it easy for beginners to move right into the projects. From a cluster of manatees to a pod of dolphins, this book includes a range of inspiring and majestic scenes for artists to copy. And each project features easy-to-follow steps and clear instructions to make painting a breeze.

Renowned for his world-famous Whaling Wall murals, marine-life artist Wyland has been a leading advocate in the effort to protect the world’Äôs ocean resources for more than 25 years. Wyland has been recognized for his environmental education efforts by the National Educator’Äôs Association, the United Nations, and public and private environmental organizations around the world. Wyland is the creator of the Wyland Ocean Challenge, a free nationwide marine-life art and science educational curriculum in partnership with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (University of California, San Diego). It is estimated that Wyland’Äôs work is seen by one billion people every year.