The Big Book of Decorative Painting: How to Paint If You Don't Know How and How to Improve If You Do

This is one of the best books I have seen on how to paint for the inexperienced but eager artist. It features an endless variety of terrific projects to suit anyone's taste. The wonderfully explicit, easy to follow and well illustrated directions make creating the projects a breeze with designs for all levels. The book starts with a list of both basic and "wish list" supplies. It then helps you choose the right brushes and gives some great tips on caring for them. Then there is advice on choosing paint, keeping it fresh and how to tell when it is dry. There is a large section on mixing color and color schemes as well.The essentials of brush loading, basic brushstrokes and blending are next. The author guides you through each step with detailed illustrations including the best section on creating basic brushstrokes I have ever seen. I found the learning from your mistakes section invaluable in helping me refine my technique. Practical advice and great tips here abound here. Surface preparation is also discussed here giving details on preparing wood, tinware, paper and glass. A wide variety of projects follow including brushstroke designs, leaves, ribbons, water drops, fruit, vegetables, flowers, lettering, faux finishes and Trompe l'oeil. There are even techniques for working with patterns and information on giving your projects great finishing touches. The instructions are excellent; they are both written and illustrated step-by-step. There is also a large full-color picture of each finished project. In many cases there are also several versions of a project, such as beginner, intermediate and advanced versions of making an apple. I also love that the projects show swatches of each color used and that brand names are not listed for the colors. This makes choosing matching color easier and it saves money because you don't have to buy a certain brand of paint to do the project. Some of my favorite projects include a daisy tray, forget-me-not candle holder, pear saltbox and mushroom sign. There are helpful template patterns for all the projects as well as a list of suppliers. Whether you're starting out or have experience with decorative painting this is the book for you.

I am just beginning to venture into decorative painting. This wonderful book answers every question I had. It is beautifully illustrated and covers every aspect of this subject in a manner easily understandable to painters new to this craft. One doesn't need to spend money on many different books, each only covering a few aspects of this topic. This book has it all, as far as I'm concerned. What a treat!!!

We used this book as a course guide in an Adult Ed painting class--it is very well done, easy to understand and contains many wonderful projects to copy or adapt to your own taste. By using a piece of acetate over the "stroke" photographs, or preferably using a xerox copy of the stroke pages (so you don't ruin your book), you can easily perfect a stroke or "teach yourself" with this book. I have several other books in my decorative painting library, but this is the one I refer to the most often. I recommend it highly.

You can learn about all basic subjects from paints and brushes, to color choice and surface preparation. This books teaches all fruit, vegetable and floral designs with leaves and ribbons with shades and highlights,etc. There are a lot of projects with each you can start.Each project is handled in three ways, such as "quick and easy apples", "intermediate apples", "advanced apples" as if you are taking courses. The most importrant I think are the pages including the palette so that you know which colors you would have and the step-by-step instructions with excellent photos. Besides you will be able to learn a lot of faux finishing tecniques.What else?