Paint Lab

Paint Lab is packed with unique and experimental techniques and ideas in painting. This hands-on book is organised into 52 units, which may, but don't need to be explored on a weekly basis. The labs can be worked on in any order, so that you can flip around to learn a new mixed-media technique or be inspired by a particular painting theme or application.

The underlying message of this book is that, as an artist, you should learn and gain expertise through experimentation and play. There is no right or wrong result, rather you will find new forms of expression in your work and gain confidence in your skills. Designed to inform and inspire new artists and rekindle passion for painting in experienced artists, this book offers a range of exercises broken down by theme: Who (artist-inspired), What (tools and materials), When (a time-based concept), Where (a sense of place), and How (inspired by a technique or method).

Paint Lab is illustrated with brilliant full-colour images and multiple examples of each exercise. This book offers you a visual, non-linear approach to learning painting techniques, and reinforces a fun and fearless approach to creating art.

About the Author

Deborah Forman is a practicing artist and a passionate teacher of art with seventeen years' experience instructing students from ages 2 to 80. Currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wheaton College and an Instructor in Continuing Education at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Deborah specialises in teaching the fundamentals: drawing, 2D design, color theory, beginning to advanced painting, and conceptual approach to painting and materials.

In her own painting practice, Deborah works within the realm of geometric abstraction, with emphasis on the phenomena of color interaction. Deborah received intensive training in the fundamentals and application of aesthetics and design at RISD, one of the nation's premier higher education institutions for art and design, where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1992. She went on to earn a Master of Science in Art Education degree from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1996, a school whose progressive pedagogical program has a focal philosophy that teaching is an art form itself, where the emphasis is on process over product, and the importance of play and risk-taking are stressed as being integral to artistic growth. Deborah immersed herself in the New York City art world during her Master of Fine Arts in painting program at the prestigious Parsons School of Design, where she specialised in post-modern theory and contemporary art, graduating in 2001. Deborah has exhibited her paintings locally in Rhode Island as well as in various venues in the New England region. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with her illustrator husband, Matthew Finger, and their four year-old son Nathaniel.