Many people like terracotta in its natural form, but if you do want to decorate it, this is intended as a general guide.

This is fairly easy to do and you will also find it quite enjoyable. So now I will give you a list of your requirements to achieve nice, colourful items. A soft pencil, scissors, a black felt tipped pen, cartridge paper, tracing paper, masking tape, some fine nibbed poster paint markers and one with an extra broad nib.

You will find that these poster paints are wonderful. Not only do they give you good results, they are useful as you can use them on other surfaces too. If you have a porous surface they will mark this permanantly, but they can also be used on fabrics and wood.

However, I would not recommend washing them. They are not permanent on glass, plastic, rubber or non absorbent surfaces, but at least you can change your design. So in this instance, it gives you some flexibility.

As an example, if you need to make your design permanent, say on a non porous surface, all you need to do is to apply a coat of acrylic varnish.

With cartridge paper, using the poster paint markers, start working out your ideas of design. It is probably better that you make quite a few, as you need to experiment with shapes and your chosen colours.

Before you get around to painting your chosen design, first look at your design against the terracotta. Remember, it has to fit a certain space. The next step then being to get your tracing paper and draw the outlines of your design with your black felt tipped pen. Position them on your article, but make sure that you leave a space around the outside of your design.

Now you have to keep them in place. To do this, use some masking tape, but double it over. This way you can move your motifs any way you choose. If you are satisfied with your motifs start eliminating them and draw them freehand.

We are just about ready to be set free with the colours now. If you have filled in all your outlines, the colour markers can then be used for filling in. You will soon see that the markers will dry very quickly. A word of warning though, it is so easy to smudge your work with the side of your hand, so do be careful not to fall into this trap.

Now looking at your sketches, fill in the insides of them with a fine nibbed paint marker. Then you can continue filling in your motifs with, say, your second colour. Of course you will need to fill in your background colour with a broad nibbed pen, but take care when you are near your motifs.

The motifs themselves need to have an amount of space all round them that has not been painted. Also the background you use does not have to reach right to the top or the bottom of your article. Terracotta often has a decorative edging to it which adds a finishing touch.

Colour wheels play a big part in art. The wheel itself is made up of six basic colours. The first side contains red, orange and yellow, and the second side, blue, violet and green. The first set of colors have a warmth to them and seem to come to meet you, with the second set moving backwards, with a cool feel to them.

You could use this to advantage if you were doing a landsape painting. If you used blue and green for trees at the back, it would make them look distant and far away. When you use colors that are opposites in the circle they are called complementary colours.

So, if you place them side by side, one works against another to dominate the space you have. This is very effective when you want to produce contrast and vibrant colours to your work.

Bear in mind that light is the main way we perceive colour all about us. To a lot of people red is red, blue is blue etc., but it does not stop there, you only need to look at the sea or the skies to decide upon that.

Or look at the ocean with differing shades of blues, greens ect. How we see these in our minds eye, is down to the light.

So, your colour wheel contains the colours that go to make up a rainbow, for if the sun shines through the raindrops, it gives you the spectrum. Now we will move on to colour mixing.

The primary colours and also the, what we call pure colours, are red, yellow and blue. Note these shades cannot be made up from any other colours. Orange, green and violet are the secondary colours, with these are made from a 50/50 ratio of the two primary colour neighbours in the circle.

This can be stretched even further by mixing in any of the three primary colours with any of the secondary colours. So, as an example, turquoise is the result of blue and green being mixed together. Mixed colours generally seem to have their names derived from flowers or stones. You only need to look at a few labels to see this.

As you may have come to the realisation, the wheel does not include black and white. In essence, when the light shines on to something it soaks up part of its wavelengths, this results in some coming back to make up the colour we are seeing.

Black, if you like, extracts them all and then white throws them back again. Therefore, black vanishes and white is a mix of all the colours.

If you take brown as an example. Mix the primaries together and see how many shades you get.

By now you must surely agree that colours are vital to our work. I think it is fantastic that they can be used to portray so many things. Emotions, space, realism, excitement, just some things that come to mind. However, they can also be vibrant, dull, opaque, impasto, textured, matt, gloss, flat translucent, light or dark.

Sanguine can be a chalk or crayon which comes in a flesh colour, it can also be a reddish or blood red shade. The pigment has oxide contained in it and is usually made of clay or chalk. This can also be the name of a drawing done in this medium and is really the main colour in conte crayons. The description red chalk also refers to the shade.

Sandy Paste is a very interesting texture which also spreads very well. It is often used with pastels and is a gritty acrylic type of paste that is the colour of sand.

Scale – As an example, if I was to say I am drawing a quarter scale, my drawing would be a quarter of the size of the original drawing. Therefore, the scale is the ratio of dimensions of one object to another, so in art it is the ratio of your work in comparison to the original.

Triptych can actually be a set of three carvings or pictures, which also share a definate connection. Usually the central piece is the largest and has a piece of art both sides of it. These can be hung side by side, mounted sometimes, or even, in some instances, are hinged together.

Diptych – A set of two pictures which often can be united in the centre, or if you prefer it, they can be hung with a gap between them. Polytych, on the same theme, only with four or five works of art.

Automation or Automatic Drawing. Surrealists probably started this as it is drawing and painting for people who do not like to conform to traditional methods. This is using a brush or pencil without any real thought behind what you are creating.

Working like this you often arrive at Abstract Expressionism, as this on the spur of the moment type of art often produces fascinating results.

Graphite used to be called black lead years ago, but in essence, it is a form of greyish, black carbon. It, at one time, was used for writing and came in sticks with lumps on them. Clay and graphite makes up the pencils. Interestingly enough, even now, some pencils are named wrongly and are still reffered to as lead pencils.

Conte crayons are a mixture of clay with graphite. These have variants which will produce differences in the degrees of hardness. These crayons date back to the 18th Century.

They are a bit like chalk, but slightly greasy, so they do not crumble as much. Available usually in a few colours, namely brown, black and a red. These are used for drawing. Conte invented the modern graphite pencils, but when he was young he was a portrait painter.

There is such an assortment of these terms to wade through, this really is a continuation of my first article.

Opaque – If your paint covers your surface concealing the underlay, we say it is opaque. Opaque is just the opposite of transparent. You will find that you may need to make some pigments opaque, only because the pigment is fairly transparent. This can be achieved by adding a bit of white to it, or adding a binding agent such as beeswax.

Masking – This is a very useful fluid to own. For this is a way of keeping your ground colour, or in fact, any other parts of your painting, clean and clear by protecting them with a masking fluid. You can then paint where you like on the unmasked areas without having to worry about overlapping. Many artists will actually mask out large areas of their canvas. Then they can paint liberally and have tidy mapped out shapes.

Stippling – To do this method you need a stiff bristled brush that is pretty thick, which will make paint marks. Dip this brush in the paint, while making sure that your brush is held at right angles to your canvas. What you do then, is to put short, light dabs to the canvas, leaving paint fleck, sort of, circular impressions.

Scumbling – another technique whereby you brush a layer of semi opaque or opaque paint over a previous layer of another colour, but in a manner that you can still see some of the under layer. So you will have glimpses of your under covering coming through.

Gum Arabic – which comes from Acacia trees which grow in Australia, Asia and Africa. It is a medium which usually comes in liquid form. Sometimes it can be bought in a powder form or in a lump. This gum is one that is water soluble. This is often used as a binding agent for ceramics. More often then not, this solution is used with tempera and water colours.

Poster Paint (Gouache), has to be diluted, then you can use it for silk, paper or card. This is a watercolour which is opaque. Artists often use it as a preparation for oils and acrylics. This will leave no brush marks, it dries quickly and is relatively cheap. Most stores stock this type of paint.

Terracotta – the name itself originates from Italy. The colour of this can be an ochre or a reddish brown. It is a clay which is of a roughish consistency and porous too! Terracotta is a clay which can be fired. This is used to manufacture many items besides pots, ornaments, tiles and bricks to name a few.

Greece had the terracotta figures in the Bronze Age, so this material is and has been worked worldwide. Often used by potters, doesn`t actually need a glaze, maybe because of it`s rough surface.

Living only one block from the beach this is something I just had to try! I am sure at some time or another most of us have carried souvenirs back from the beach. Whether it be shells, driftwood, or if you are anything like me, pebbles that you like the feel or shape of.

No matter what the weather, we still find shells and pebbles in our suitcases, wending their way back to our homes.

Using pebbles for mosaics is an interesting idea, being not only easy to make, but they are very effective and quite popular.

How you assemble them is another thing! Thought needs to be given to the design and subject of your picture. Creating this type of work you really need to have an abstract look. Bear in mind the colours chosen for your pebbles will make or break your mosaic.

If, like me, you are inspired by the seas, here itself you need to choose your colours accordingly. So you would require some sand coloured for the shore, and whites and different greys to a sort of a maroon colour.

The darker colours will be right at the top of your picture and moving downwards greys to white finishing with sand for your shore at the foot of your work.

So what is the damage? What will I need? Quite a list I am afraid, but it will be worth it! matt acrylic varnish, a deep picture frame, panel pins, whitewood primer, blue emulsion, white paper, medium grade sandpaper, a decorators brush, some half inch MDF and some PVA adhesive glue.

Added to the above you will need some driftwood and some gravel and pebbles. These extra items can be put to good use. At all times you need to keep your picture image in your mind before you now begin to arrange your treasures, driftwood and pebbles into sizes and colours.

Get rid of anything you are not going to use for your design. Any gaps that you may have you can fill with gravel if you keep some by you.

So, now we take the picture frame apart. Remove the backing, the glass and its mat. Sandpaper the frame thoroughly out and in before you apply white primer to it. Now you must leave it to dry.

Paint the frame and put on your top coat of blue emulsion. This needs to dry, then be rubbed down with sandpaper so that some of your white primer will show through, giving like a distressed effect. You then really ought to seal the frame with a varnish of acrylic matt.

Take your white piece of paper and now place your frame backing board on it and draw round it. This gives you your working area. Sort out your design on it, slotting your pebbles and driftwood together to make up your pattern.

With your MDF cut a piece to cover the back of your picture frame backing. Centralise your backing board on to the MDF and draw round it. This is the space you have for your mosaic.

The tricky job now is moving your mosaic to the MDF. Do this carefully. You need to put a splodge of PVA glue on each pebble or bit of driftwood before you position it on the MDF.

You have to think about the pebbles colours as you form lines with them. You can alter these fairly easily, but it needs to be quite a tight fit. So, now everything has been glued down. Just do a final check that it is really tight fitting.

Do not bother with small spaces, but you can fill in any big spaces with fine gravel. If you have any driftwood remaining, you can glue bits across others. With panel pins, go from the back through your frame, to pin your frame down into position.

It’s not always easy to come up with new, creative ideas for your photos. Sometimes you need to give yourself an assignment to snap out of the old way of doing things. Submitting your photos to contests not only gives you a specific goal to work towards, you also get feedback on your work from the pros. And if you’re lucky, a prize or two to boot.

Below are 6 annual contests that will challenge your creativity and hopefully bring you worldwide recognition:

Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award In celebration of its 30th year, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award (for professional photographers only) has added a Newcomer Award category, open to prospective professional photographers, 25 years or younger. They are looking for a series of photos (up to 12) showing the interaction between man and the environment, and the deadline is March 1st, 2009. The winner will receive $2,500 Euros (presented at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie festival in Arles, France) and their work on display in an online gallery at Leica’s website.

IPA – International Photography Awards This competition is open to professional, non-professional and student photographers, and there are lots of categories to choose from. A few examples are Bridges, Underwater, Self-Portrait, Micro and Digitally Enhanced, and the cost to enter (for non-pros) is $25/single image, $50/series (2-5 photos), and $15 for each additional category. The jury selects 21 category winners, and each receives a Certificate of Achievement, tickets to the Lucie Awards ceremony, and the annual IPA book. In addition to that, the top three winners get cash prizes ($10,000 and $5,000), Lucie statues, and exhibitions of their work, and The Photographer of the Year also gets to travel to the Czech Republic and be featured in and shoot a portion of a Pilsner Urquell documercial. The deadline is March 27, 2009.

Underwater Images Photo/Video Competition The 12th Annual Underwater Images Photo/Video Competition is obviously limited to photos taken underwater, but these prizes will probably make you want to go out and invest in a waterproof housing if you don’t already own an underwater camera. Winners are awarded dive trips to Papua New Guinea, Honduras, the Solomon Islands, the Cayman Islands, Bonaire, Hawaii, and Indonesia. Other prizes include a 7 night all inclusive dive package in Roatan, a five day stay (for 2) in Borneo, dive equipment, gift certificates and more. The contest is open to amateurs only, and it’s $10/image to enter (as many images as you want). All prizes are donated by the dive operators and resorts, and the proceeds from the contest go to marine conservation, education, and scholarships. The deadline for 2009 is April 1st.

National Wildlife Photo Contest This contest, held by the National Wildlife Magazine, is open to everyone over the age of 13, and divided into pro, amateur and youth divisions. (If you’re not 13 yet, check out the Ranger Rick Photo Contest, held every three months). The 2009 deadline is July 20, and you can enter up to 20 photos. The entry fee is $15 (for all 20 pictures) and includes six issues of National Wildlife as well as a year-long membership in NWF. The categories this year are “Plant Life”, “Birds”, “Mammals”, “Other Wildlife”, “Connecting People & Nature”, “Landscapes”, “Backyard Habitats” and “Global Warming & Wildlife”. Winners are awarded cash prizes, calendars, field guides and more.

National Geographic’s World In Focus If you’ve ever leafed through an issue of National Geographic, you know that they are used to stunning photography. There is some serious competition in this one, but don’t use that as an excuse not to enter! No details have been announced yet for the 2009 contest, but the deadline is normally in late summer/early fall (check their website for updates), and categories last year were: Sense of Place, Outdoor Scenes, Travel Portraits, Photo Essay and Spontaneous Moments. The entry fee is ordinarily $12/image for amateurs and $35/image for pros. Prizes in 2008 included camera gear, photo workshops, trips to various exotic locations, and your image in print and online.

Islands If you, like me, love to travel, you’ll want to keep an eye out for the next annual photo contest by Islands Magazine. The deadline for 2009 was January 31st, so we missed that one, but on the upside, that gives you almost an entire year to travel and shoot in preparation for the next. Since they want island-based travel photos, that’s a thoroughly enjoyable assignment if you ask me. The entry fee is usually $3/photo, and among the prizes this year were trips to Aruba, Oahu and Fiji!

Still life drawing is a bit of a puzzle to novices who usually mainly spend their time, say focusing, on the main objects. Really, I would say the shadows in the picture, are just as important.

The shadows you create for your work are always interesting and complement the objects. You do not really need many items for your still life. Pencils, rubber, some mounting board and a sheet of cartridge paper.

A backdrop for your work is needed and the board will have to be big enough to hold the shadows you wish to transfer to your paper.

Place your objects in front of it. Now, for example, it could be a bowl of fruit, a bottle of wine with a glass, or even a coffee cup with the jug. What you can really do with now, is a spot lamp to cast shadows say from the right side.

So you are ready to go and you have your backdrop! Take a 2B pencil and draw very lightly squares on to your cartridge paper, one and a half inches. When this is complete, do the same on your backdrop, only in three inch squares and heavier pencil pressure.

Before you start drawing, you need to ascertain how the shadows fall on the screen. They can be seen quite easily as they will be dark.

What do you do now? Sort out your positive and negative objects. The negative being your objects and the positive being your actual shadows. So go for drawing your shadows first.

Shadowing will give your picture more interest. From the far left of your drawing, draw your shadow outlining. Noting how the shadow outline crosses over your boxes. Once you have done this, you can transfer this to your paper using a 2B pencil.

You may not get it quite the same, so don’t get disappointed. Carry on filling in your shadow outline. It is surprising, the forms your picture takes.

With all shadow lines filled in, it is possible now to erase some of your boxes that contain your shadows. Then, only with a light touch, you can erase some of these boxes, being careful not to spoil your surface as you go.

The dark shadows now have to be filled in, often you will have white spaces in between, but this is nothing to worry about. You have to exercise caution here, as it is all too easy to smudge your work doing this. Use a piece of white paper under your hand to remedy this.

To fill in shadows you need to do it by cross hatching quite closely with a 6B pencil. Draw straight lines across, then draw straight lines down. It doesn’t matter if the down strokes are on a slant. Don’t just fill in by scribbling in madly.

Use a 2B pencil to outline the objects at the back. Take your time filling in the object outlines, then erase the boxes in which they were contained, giving you both positive and negative shaping. Remember to sharpen your pencil before you start.

Still using the 2B pencil, on the darker parts of your objects, do some light cross hatching. Do not try to hard, try it on the edges for example.

Bear in mind you need some light tones too in your work. To finish it, use the 2B pencil to light hatch, just don’t do too much so that it intermingles with the shadows. Good Luck!

It is always good when you are in your home, as you can take as much time as is needed to paint. However, it can be more enjoyable and challenging to go to a location outside.

If you have read any of my other articles you can probably guess what I am about to say? The most important thing of all, is to actually be as comfortable as possible. This being the case, you need to be warmly dressed for the occasion. It is pretty essential to have your feet warm with sturdy boots or shoes and decent socks! Clothing with big pockets to store things in helps too.

Often it takes great effort to go out and brave the elements when the mood takes you, but painting outdoors is often not without its problems.

So, here goes. Really, what you need to decide to do, is to work fairly quickly and not waste valuable time as the elements can be very changeable. I think most artists would probably have already put a fairly thin undercoat on their canvas before they left home, to give them a quite strong base to work on.

What I personally find helpful, is to carry with me, like a cardboard frame border. I can then, after I have spent time looking at my subject, look through this and choose which bits I will draw.

You don’t necessarily have to put in everything you see before you. This can be a big mistake, as then your painting can look busy and overcrowded. Personally, I look for the parts which basically shout out at me. Sometimes the subjects are strong and other times pretty non-nondescript.

Sooner or later you have to put your marker on the canvas, but I do not spend a lot of time filling in all the white space on the canvas. I just fill in my main guide lines. I want my paint to dry quickly, so my paint needs to be really quite thin.

The light can be going, a break in the weather etc. These are all normal conditions that you have to work around. Therefore, lay some of your colours, then try and get the main part of your painting filled in.

It is never easy to decide what colours to use when you look out at the landscape. Most art needs to have dark and light shading to create light and shade and, all important, shadows.

Like I said, do not spend much time filling in unnecessary details. The rule is just to do the basics. I am never afraid to put in strong details or not to do the actual same colours. After all, if the light changes you can hope it may change back again. You have to make a decision whether to stay or pack up and go home and complete it from memory.

It is very different and challenging to paint outdoors, but often the finished article is more dramatic and pleasing to the eye.

You will find there are two varieties of watercolours, students and artists colours. The main difference is the actual pigments. Artists colours are very intense, as the best pigments are used for these, soaked with much colour.

Obviously they last longer, are easy to use and better than students colours. Whereas students are much cheaper in price, as they have pigments which are cheaper, mixed with synthetic type of ingredients.

When you go to your local art shop you will also be posed with the question “do you want tubes or pans?” The difference being that the paint in the tubes appears quite soft, so that makes it ideal for doing large washes. If you are going to choose this type, do close the lid on them when you have finished for the day. Similarly put the caps on your tubes. You will not like dry paint.

Many people probably prefer working with pans as they are easily portable. Just find yourself a couple of small vessels, cups, jugs, glasses whatever. Something you already have will do just fine. These will both need filling with clean water, as you need clean water to clean your brushes, but also to mix paint.

Several mixing dishes will also be needed. Maybe you would find it easier to work with the pans first time around. Using a flatish mixing dish, transfer some water to it by dipping the brush into the water. Best to tap the brush not too strongly so that you drop the water.

Repeat the process a few times, then dip the brush in the water, tap it on the side of your vessel so that it is not to watery, then move your brush over and collect the paint.

All you need to do then, is take the brush to the dish, mix in the water so the paint is now transferred. If you keep doing this method you can get the colour shade you need, light or dark. More water will give you a lighter shade. It is quite simple really! You can always test the paint on a piece of paper first.

Whatever you do, just look after your brushes. If you do not care for them it can be expensive for you. They need cleaning well in water as soon as you have finished with them.

It is so much better if brushes retain their shape. This can be done by fingering them, or with a flicking wrist movement. If, for example, you want to store them in a box in a cupboard, dry them thoroughly first. You could also wrap them in a piece of cloth or paper as long as you put some sort of tie around it. Finally, indoors, you can store them in pots with the brush head up. Never leave the brush standing in water.

As you will have gathered, the tools you use can make a big difference to your work, so spend and choose them wisely. Quality pays and will give you a helping hand. Handle them with care, it is certainly worth it!

Art abounds today everywhere in so many different guises. So, interestingly enough there must be something to suit everyone. Personal taste is a matter of opinion, so really it does not matter if you are knowledgeable or a beginner to art.

As a race the Chinese and Japanese generally use black and white to express themselves. Very cleverly they use brushes for both their writings and their drawings. Brushes, in fact, made of hair with a very fine point, ideal for their delicate work, with a bamboo handle.

It is usual for the brushes to have handles of bamboo and I would imagine these go back to the paintings of Zen. They seem to sometimes paint with these long painted brushes with a very delicate stroke, sometimes in ink over a slight wash.

Not only do they appear very true to life, they often give the feeling of actual movement in the work. How delicately they must use their brushes to get this fragile effect. Nevertheless these same brushes are used for Calligraphy.

Expressionism as we know it is not necessarily a true representational art form. Really I would go as far as to say, it is how you express your inner feelings on a given subject emotionally.

So many odd shapes which also often appears very unusual and hard to understand. Van Gogh seemed to have it right expressing his strange feelings on any amount of different subjects.

How often we all admire the works of Monet and his wonderful landscapes amongst other pictures. Interestingly enough they appear as a series of dots and dashes which then form the picture. This is called Impressionism.

If you go back to about the 19th Century this is about where it started. This style is good for landscapes where the light makes such a difference to the actual scene.

Still Life painting often is often done with simple everyday life objects. A few examples to name are; a bowl of fruit, bread and cheese, a glass of wine and a carafe, or even a cauliflower or onions.

Simple items are not always easy to reproduce and you need a good backdrop for this type of work. I think that this dates back to about the 17th century and the famous Dutch Masters. How fantastic some of these artists from a bygone age were, and so forward thinking.

The works of Toulouse-Lautrec and his wonderful pictures of the Parisian nightlife. The Can Can dancers etc. all brought to life. Generally he seemed fascinated with the theatricals of the ” Moulin Rouge”, the Montmartre and the Bohemian lifestyle.

Even Monet did some amazing humorous sketches often of his friends yet still created such fantastic luminous colourful scenes. They were always so lovely and bright.

There is so much that could be said about these artists and their foresight and actual talent. These are just a few I have named but I could also add Matisse, Picasso, Constable, and many more.

His works appear to be from another world – so innovative- what a brain that man surely had, terrific insight and amazing incredible talent. If you are fortunate enough to have visited Barcelona his work abounds there, for everyone to appreciate.