Colorways: Acrylic Animals is a really cute and inspiring guide. I loved the art style included, and personally found both the style and the guide to be soothing. I felt like the way Megan Wells explained everything made a lot of sense, and made the idea of getting started a lot less intimidating than it can sometimes be.
This book covers a little bit of everything, which is always a plus in my book. There are the basics, of course. The tools of the trade, how to create certain effects in paint, and so on. I particularly enjoyed the paint effects sections, but that’s just my personal preference.
The book then went on to covering color theory, which is an important, but difficult to explain basic of the art world. From there it moved on to actual projects; taking us step by step through a variety of different projects. It was brilliant seeing a piece slowly come together on the pages. It was educational as well, as intended.
I have to confess that while I adore all animal portraits, I did find myself particularly drawn to this style. I really enjoyed the lighter and freer style. It made everything feel so alive and genuine. I felt like it would apply especially well to pets – as there’s nothing better than seeing their endearing personality shining through.

Great inspirational reference with projects starting with grid work to capture your animal look, and moving on to color choices, flourishes, and techniques to complete original, magical, stylized pieces of art. Great book!

I've reviewed several books about art and painting over the last few months. I don't consider myself an artist by any means, but I have dabbled, and it is a topic which fascinates me and in which there is always something to learn - especially if you're a writer and want to imbue your stories with a little realism. It doesn't hurt to absorb some advice from established artists in books like this to sort of sprinkle yourself with a bit of authenticity to use in your writing projects. Plus the books are interesting in themselves. I'm always happy to learn how artists do what they do and get such appealing works out of the seemingly paltry source materials of some colored pigments and some brushes. It's really quite magical when you think about it. The paintbrush as a magic wand! Paint as fairy dust!

This book is firmly in the acrylic camp, and it takes a loose and playful approach to painting animals. This artist definitely has fun, and the art here isn't about absolute photographic realism, but about conveying a sense and feeling for the animal subject and making it stand out, in both how the basic image looks and also in the colors it employs including some collage techniques in one image.

The subject titles are amusing. We have complementary cows, pointillistic pandas, tetradic llamas, and vibrant flamingos. The titles are a hint to the technique the author/artist is going to use and the shades and hues of paint that are going to be employed in it, because each exercise follows a slightly different strategy to reaching the end goal, although there are certain rules about building-up the painting which are common to all. The level is beginners, so if you're just starting out, have a little experience, or have never picked up a brush before, this should still work for you. I don't think anyone is so advanced that they can't learn from a new talent!

There was one section on painting a giraffe that I found interesting for several reasons. The author shows her work - like anyone taking a math test should do! - so you can see the steps to the result, and sometimes looking at those early images, I wondered if I were painting this, would I have stopped there and not gone on to 'finish' the work. Is a work of art ever finished? I guess it is if the artist thinks so, but there are different places any individual can stop and say it's done, so it was interesting to think about that. Another reason this was interesting is that the giraffe image was laterally reversed in the final picture. I think someone got an image the wrong way round, but it didn't detract from the effect of seeing the resulting finished-image after following all the steps to get there.

The book is replete with hints, tips, suggestions, and most importantly, encouragement, and the whole works well together to give anyone a solid grounding in expanding their range and ability if they're looking for a leg up. I commend it as a worthy read. Each time I read something like this it makes me want to go pick up some supplies at the art store and get to it! Fortunately for my kids' clothing and dietary needs I restrain many of these impulses! But setting yourself up with some basic brushes and colors doesn't cost that much these days, and you can paint on pretty much anything you want! Grant Wood's American Gothic was painted on "beaverboard" which is more like cardboard than it is like canvas! So grab this book and get to it!

This book is for intermediate painters. There are some great idea in playing with color but the most basic techniques are not instructed. As a beginner, I wasn't sure how to do details and the best stroke and such to do them. Plus, mixing colors confused me as their was only a little instruction.
But I learned a lot and can see colors in a whole new light. I saw techniques that i would have never thought off.
As a how to book this is a pretty good book. As a piece of literature isn't not great. If I rad "expressive" one more time, I might hurl the book across the room lol. (also, i'm not even sure what that means for painting.)

Lovely painting book with easy step-by-step instructions. I liked the choice of motives, there's definitely something for everyone. Even people, who do not have much experience with painting can achieve good results with the help of this book!

I'ts an enjoyable instructional book for beginners on how to paint animals in acrylic. The subjects are sympathic, the colors are psychedelic, the layout of the book is coloured and joyful, however the result IMHO is more craft than art. One other negative thing, at least for me, the use of the grid method, using that you'll never learn to draw.

Grab your paints, canvas, and imagination because it's time to paint pointillistic pandas, tetradic llamas, vibrant flamingos, and complementary cows...and that's just the beginning! Each step-by-step project in Colorways: Acrylic Animals shows you not only how to capture an animal’s likeness, but also how to use color to create magical, other-worldly, and whimsical paintings. You'll also learn how to use acrylic paint to add texture and fanciful flourishes, like florals and collage, to your glorious animal subjects.

Colorways is a brand-new series from Walter Foster teaching artists of all skill levels how to create innovative, inspired artwork that's full of color and imagination. Focusing on creating expressive pieces over realistic scenes, Colorways shows artists how to break the "rules" of color and let their imaginations and artwork soar to new heights. In the Colorways series, flamingos are green, giraffes boast multicolored spots, and raccoons feature blue undertones.

I absolutely loved this book! I took a painting course in college and wish I would have had this book back then. It has clear and easy instructions and tips on how to start out painting with acrylics. It also has pictures that you can follow step by step in the book. My favorite one was the dolphin. I loved the colors and the animals that were used in this book. This is a perfect book for anyone who likes art and animals!

Thank you #NetGalley for the ARC of #ColorwaysAcrylicAnimals
Pub Date: 08 Jan 2019

This book is so inspirational! Beautifully styled and very helpful. Usually I use watercolours to paint, but I like to venture out of my comfort zone once in a while. The introduction and basics are clear and useful. I love the step by step tutorials to begin with. When you practise with them and get the techniques down, you can move on to other animals or things. There's also a really interesting technique using paint swatches and other mixed media tutorials that I can't wait to try. The book looks so colourful, it makes you happy by just reading through it.

This was a creative painting book. I enjoyed the artist's style of painting colorful animals, not just the colors you see in the photo.

This book is a great exercise in color theory. I found it unique that each step by step painting is a different example of the color theory. This technique makes it easier for a beginner to understand cool color, warm colors, complements, split complements, triadic, and value. When you are just reading about color theory it is more difficult to fully grasp the concepts and apply them on your own. By painting Megan’s examples you progress much more quickly.

Megan also provides tips on how to sketch the animals prior to painting. Some paintings use multimedia as well as acrylic paint.

I received this galley from NetGalley.