Passport to Painting

Susie West trained as a graphic designer. While stuck on a train, she passed the time doodling the little rows of houses through the misted-up windows. These little rows of houses got stuck in her head and she painted them. She began selling her paintings of these quirky made-up village scenes which eventually evolved into a full-time business of travelling around Britain’s real cities, towns and villages for a range of travel poster prints.Today, Susie is kept busy in her home in Leatherhead, Surrey, UK. When not producing her lovely acrylic paintings of cities, towns and villages, she is exhibiting at craft fairs and shows, or selling her prints. To learn more about Susie's work visit her website www.artistsusiewest.com, or follow her continuing painting travels on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @artistsusiewest

If you like the idea of working with bold colours and geometric shapes to capture the essence of a place in an interpretation, rather than a slavish imitation of the classic travel poster, this delightful book will give you all you need. It is almost certainly unique – I've never seen one before and I doubt I will again, so it needs to be a good and its pleasing to be able to report that it is both.Susie provides plenty of advice, both basic and advanced - how to take photographs as well as use them, for instance, and how to hold brushes as well as distil detail and colour to create striking images.Just leafing through the pages gives a sense of a job not only well, but completely done. This might be a niche book, but the results are intriguing and it's hard not to be encouraged to experiment.

• Introduction 6, Before you set out 12, Planning the trip: Designing your own travel poster 18, Getting started 36, Adding lettering 66Projects 72Amsterdam Canals 74Sydney Opera House 80London Tower Bridge 88Mount Rainier National Park, USA 96Lisbon Trams 104 Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco 112Onward travel 120, Afterword 124, Lettering templates 125, Index 128