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What mosaic is to painting, and origami is to sculpture, quilling is to wrought iron or bas-relief sculpture. It is a Renaissance crafting activity which, nowadays, revolves around using long, inexpensive strips of paper sold wherever crafting supplies are found. The packs I’ve found are often in a varied yet complimentary colors that look wonderful together.
This book seems to be a comprehensive guide to all its many possibilities, from artworks, to jewelry, to ornaments, to decorating objects used at home or office. With the help of this well-designed and written book, filled with lovely photographs, detailed step-by-step instructions, helpful tips, and simple tools, anyone can create designs that are as simple or complex as they like.
It’s a really fun crafting activity! The book is divided into five main sections, aside from introductions and resources listing of where to buy supplies. There is a chapter on basics, another on the basic quilling shapes, round and needle forms, shaped forms, and quilling molds. It really offers everything I need to learn more about this amazing craft!
I remember trying to learn how to carve soap when I was a child. I was excited by the forgiving and inexpensive medium but was disappointed by my results. I really needed some instruction to get beyond the beginner level but had no idea who to turn to. Well, now I do. This seems like the ultimate guide for all levels of soap carving.
I love how this book offers detailed instructions for important techniques to master and then, step-by-step, walks you through dozens of projects from beginner, to intermediate, to advanced. The newer glycerin soaps add a lot of potential that I didn’t have when I was young, and I found the beautifully designed book easy to follow with generous and helpful photographs throughout. It’s an excellent guide for any skill level from the master behind the Mizutama.Soap YouTube channel. My favorites are the flowers, I’m hoping to get good enough to give them as gifts!
This fun crafting book includes a large set of origami papers yet is mostly an in-depth origami book, that is well designed, engagingly written, and printed in a super high quality style for a paper back(!). The clever and innovative projects, besides from being super cute, are fun to make and not-too-difficult, either. The book starts with a helpful guide for beginners, and then offers a series of projects, which include: boxes, puffy five-pointed stars, “water balloons,” “tea bags,” little envelopes, love knots, scoops, bracelets, bookmarks, and hearts.
I really love the adorable miniature renditions of other objects, such as the sushi, bento boxes, cacti, swirling ice cream cones, flowers, and many more. The projects are a delight for all ages — my daughter made matching friendship bracelets for her and her sister, which are just darling! I think that this book would be a great gift for any age.
This easily accessible book for all ages offers (actually, many more than) 62 different animal designs using a clear and easy approach, and would be a help to cartoonists, illustrators, and everyday doodlers, too. The basic approach starts with simple outlines to which one adds details and fills in with fur, feathers, and more. They are cute but I think this novel, intuitive artistic approach is a truly helpful guide and should instill confidence in less experienced illustrators, by pointedly eschewing the more complex/bewildering draw-basic-shapes-then-transform-them-into-what-you’re-actually-drawing approach.
Think more Klee, or later Picasso, than, say, Durer or Da Vinci. Each spread offers a step-by-step approach for one of the 62 animal designs, yet also offers the same animal in a number of other poses which can then be attempted using the same, intuitive approach. The book is well bound and printed, primarily in black and white, with colored accents on each page. Especially if the goal is to help instill artistic confidence in your child, student, or yourself, this is a safe bet and is super fun for all ages!
As a professional designer and teacher, I’ve noticed that kids (especially girls) have become more and more interested in chibi-style design. I see their doodles of cute characters, well, literally everywhere, as they try to emulate this charmingly cute Asian style of animation, which is sort of a baby-sized, extra cute version of anime characters (e.g., more “Teen Titan Go” than the more traditionally animated “Teen Titans”). So this is a book that I am sure will be much desired by many a budding artist/doodler/everyone.
It really is a sort of course on the whole concept with step-by-step instructions for a wide variety of characters, along with what I think is kind of a ground-breaking overview of the basics of chibi design — including body and facial proportions, “traditional” facial-feature designs, as well crucial details that raise the bar on your illustrations from beginner to pro, such as wrinkles the clothing, uncooperative hair, etc. Pointing out the specific differences between realistic, anime, and chibi designs is really helpful.