Stephen Coates – författare

The ultimate no-nonsense guide to painting realistic, captivating water, from still lakes and crashing waves to water droplets.Whether calm and reflective or sparkling with light and movement, water can bring atmosphere, drama and life to your watercolour paintings. In this invaluable, practical guide, popular artist, author and teacher Stephen Coates leads you through a multitude of highly effective techniques that will transform good paintings into great ones.Begin with an exploration of reflections and their pivotal role in capturing water on paper.Create 8 beautiful, beginner-friendly step-by-step projects, including stormy seas, cascading waterfalls, still lakes and lapping waves.Build up a range of versatile skills and techniques as you progress through the book.Be inspired by Stephen’s handy tips and a vibrant selection of his stunning artworks.Perfect for beginners, this is this latest addition to the Easy Guide to Painting series, and brings the excitement of Stephen’s live teaching into a no-fuss book that will help you create your own captivating watercolour masterpieces.

The ultimate, accessible, no-nonsense guide to painting watercolour skies.There are some areas of watercolour painting that beginners often have trouble with, and one of these is skies. In Stephen’s characteristic style, he approaches the subject in a no-fuss, technique-led way that aims to demystify sky painting so that you, the novice watercolourist will be able to approach it with confidence.Beginning with advice on key tools and materials, how to prepare your palette and achieve the right consistency of paint, Stephen takes you through seven common skies, ordered by difficulty: from simple plain blue skies and white cloudy skies to sunsets and storms. Every sky includes invaluable guidance on how to plan your sky, dozens of handy tips and clear step-by-step instructions and numerous examples. This is an essential book for watercolour artists starting out, as well as the more experienced looking to hone their landscape painting skills.

Even if you have never picked up a paintbrush before, professional watercolour teacher and artist Stephen Coates will show you how to paint lakes and rivers in watercolour using just three brushes, three colours, a plastic palette and a watercolour pad.Using just red, blue and yellow paint Stephen shows you how to paint nine realistic watercolour scenes. There is no off-putting colour theory or long-winded mixing information, just a practical absolute beginner’s course that shows the three colours in action. Build your skills through each of the nine easy paintings, starting from the simplest of scenes and ending with a more challenging, stunning picture you’ll be proud to have painted.There are step-by-step photographs for each project, clear instruction and advice throughout, and handy tips and jargon busters. Each of Stephen’s finished paintings is shown at full size for easy reference, which you can even use to trace from for a stress-free painting experience.This is a straightforward, economical, practical progressive course to painting lakes and river scenes in watercolour.Stephen uses the following paints and brushes in this book: Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolours - Raw Sienna, Light Red and Ultramarine.Brushes - Proarte Series 101 round size 2, Series 101 round size 8, Proarte 3/4inch Mini hake flat goat hair brush.

Learn to paint colourful watercolours using only three colours in this collection of projects, tips and techniques from the innovative Take Three Colours series.Each of the 25 projects explores a variety of watercolour techniques and walks the reader through a sequence of clear steps using a selection of three pure colours and their many mixes, and only three brushes to complete the work.Project themes include landscapes, seascapes, flowers, mountains, lakes and rivers and snow scenes. There is also a comprehensive glossary at the end of the book, exploring some of the most commonly used terms and techniques featured in the book.

Even if you have never picked up a paintbrush before, professional watercolour teacher and artist Stephen Coates will show you how to paint lakes and rivers in watercolour using just three brushes, three colours, a plastic palette and a watercolour pad.Using just red, blue and yellow paint Stephen shows you how to paint nine realistic watercolour scenes. There is no off-putting colour theory or long-winded mixing information, just a practical absolute beginner''Äôs course that shows the three colours in action. Build your skills through each of the nine easy paintings, starting from the simplest of scenes and ending with a more challenging, stunning picture you''Äôll be proud to have painted.There are step-by-step photographs for each project, clear instruction and advice throughout, and handy tips and jargon busters. Each of Stephen''Äôs finished paintings is shown at full size for easy reference, which you can even use to trace from for a stress-free painting experience.This is a straightforward, economical, practical progressive course to painting lakes and river scenes in watercolour.Stephen uses the following paints and brushes in this book:- Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolours - Raw Sienna, Light Red and Ultramarine.- Brushes - Proarte Series 101 round size 2, Series 101 round size 8, Proarte 3/4inch Mini hake flat goat hair brush.

Many watercolour artists are disappointed with the results of their endeavours because their attempts at painting do not always turn out as intended. However, the majority of mistakes are caused by the incorrect use of paint rather than artistic inability.The Watercolour Enigma is based on a practical course by artist Stephen Coates, and is designed to take the student through a process of learning rarely seen in other practical art books. By examining the basic science of watercolour including the properties of water and colour pigment, and through a series of practical, straightforward, step-by-step painting exercises, budding painters will leave Stephen''s book not only with a mine of watercolour knowledge but with a selection of stunning paintings they can proudly say are their own.Understanding the medium and how to use it will turn potential failure into success, and discovering the truth about how to use watercolours is exciting, liberating and enormously rewarding. So fulfil your dream and, with Stephen''s guidance, learn to paint like a true, watercolour expert.

Stories of the secret underground Cold War–era Soviet music subculture that distributed forbidden music on used hospital x-rays.During the Cold War era, the songs that Soviet citizens could listen to were ruthlessly controlled by the state. But a secret underground subculture of music lovers and bootleggers defied the censors, building recording machines and making their own records of forbidden jazz, rock 'n' roll, and Russian music, cut onto used hospital x-ray film. Bone Music is the follow up the acclaimed X-Ray Audio: The Strange History of Soviet Music on the Bone, delving deeper into a forgotten era when being a music fan could mean a lengthy prison sentence, or worse. Who made these records? Why did they do it and how was it even possible? Foregrounding interviews and oral testimonies gathered over five years, Bone Music presents the stories of the original bone bootleggers, their customers, musicians, record collectors, and commentators, evoking a spirited resistance to a repressive culture of prohibition and punishment. It reveals that although Western jazz and rock’n’roll were important to the Stilyagi youth culture, the true rebel music was that of forbidden Russian emigres, gypsy romances, and criminal tunes: the soul songs of a society brutally cut off from its culture. Richly illustrated with dozens of new images of Soviet x-ray discs and sound letters, Bone Music details how the bootleggers worked, outlining the technical precedents of their techniques, situating their discs in a revised history of recorded media, and bringing a wealth of compelling new detail.