great book for art lovers or even people that just love crafts. I've been wanting to get back into art again and this book helped me do that. Hoping to use this book again in the future

The artwork of this title is simple and evergreen! I wish that there were more animals. I believe this book will help artists of all level and abilities with their art. The spot color really pops and the animals chosen were quirky. The artists did a great job breaking down how to get the effect taught.

This is a very interesting book. The illustrations are unique and the instructions are easy to understand.
The book would be a great reference to have in my desk because there is so much inspiration in these pages!

Thank you NetGalley for giving me a copy of this ARC for an honest opinion.

This was a very educational book. It taught me how to used wet and dry inking techniques. As well as how to ink animal patterns. It also taught me about using varying even the smallest detail, can alter the mood in a picture.
I would recommend this for any newcomer wanting to start inking their own animals.

Loved this book - lots of fun to read and follow. Attempted number of the animals described and easily achieved loveable characters

Unable to give a review as the link would not work on my tablet or computer. Sorry only way I can advise this is here?

Illustration Studio: Inking Animals is a new tutorial guide for visual artists by Sova Huova. Released 25th Sept 2018 by Quarto's Walter Foster imprint, it's 144 pages and available in paperback format.

I think there are many would-be artists who believe that they're not capable of 'real' art because they've spent their non-childhood lives in a negative feedback cycle. Children (as regards art) are mostly fearless. As Picasso said, “All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.” Anyhow, though I often feel the desire to be visually creative, to paint and draw... my efforts generally don't live up to my expectations and I get discouraged.

This book does a very good job of trying to counteract that negative feedback loop. The author is encouraging and positive, always upbeat.

For a relatively short book, there is a lot of content and many techniques. I especially loved the tutorial guide for collage. There how-to sections include prepping paper for collage, lino cutting, some digital work, drawing, drybrushing, wet inking and more.

The author spends about 25% of the book's content introducing and showing the materials and methods used in the book. The next chapters show different types of animals and in different media. There's even a chapter on imaginary/fantastic creatures which has a nifty mix-and-match creativity exercise included.

There is a fair bit of 'note' space and doodle space included in the page count which could have been given over to more content, since most readers will not be marking up the physical book. Otherwise, it was a really encouraging, fun, and very useful book.

Four stars! I had a lot of fun with this one; in fact, I had enough fun that I am encouraged to continue.

What a amazing book in showing you how to take your art to a another level.
Great how to's and photos to help you get started and make yours look as good as you can make it.

Resources were good and helpful. Interesting book and would be a great reference to have in your craft room.

I feel that this book has a lot of value for both new artists and seasoned artists, offering some new suggestions and tools to help view drawing/inking from a different perspective. While I felt that many of the tips were familiar, I am an artist and spent a fair amount of time with brush/pen and ink while starting out. However, for my friends and nieces who are unfamiliar with the tools, the basic breakdown of the physical tools and the skillsets to create forms is incredibly helpful! Overall this is a great book for public libraries or creative programs!

This was a great book - and it is how I want most art/drawing guides to be, because it teaches you some basics, it talks about some mental blocks artists might experience, and the art projects are diverse - there's even a lino-cut in this one!

My favourite part was connecting with the author and her talks about doubting yourself when it comes to drawing, comparing yourself with other artists and the scary blank page before you start drawing. These are all things I go through, so I really loved it.

And my other favourite part is the diversity in artworks and projects in this book! Rather than getting 10 different art projects in the same style but different subjects, it's better to have fewer projects that touch different styles or things when it comes to art - like color or background or collage. Her artworks were so different and I really loved that! Plus it was inspiring! Really inspiring!

I have nothing but praise, which is why I am repeating myself.

Some of the best times I had teaching my children over our years of homeschooling were outside in nature.

We did the nature walk scavenger hunt thing, we spread a blanket on the beach and learned about sea life, we even sat in a big hole in the backyard to learn literature analysis. Those really were some of the most fantastic moments with my kids.

There is just something about nature and forests that allows your child to really learn and explore.

I recently read three fabulous books that can help you teach your children math and art using a nature theme. These are books you can use with your little ones to learn math and appreciate nature. You can also use them with your elementary aged children to do those wonderful crafting and art projects that really make the memories. And you can use these books with middle ages and even high schoolers who love to get out and smell that crisp fall air in the woods.




Illustration Studio: Inking Animals

This is an amazing book by Sova Huova for any child older than about ten, although my daughter would have loved it at nine. You are guided by the author through a thorough introduction to all the various tools you need to draw with ink from the different nibs and types of pens to instructions for making your own lightbox. Then your child will learn the basic strokes and techniques for creating textures and patterns. After a brief introduction to the shapes that make up various types of animals, your child launches into a series of animal drawing projects from a ink washed-bear to dry brushing a fox and many, many more. This book is everything your child needs to start illustrating animals, except the actual ink and pens.
Author: Sova Huova
Format: Paperback, 144 Pages
ISBN: 9781633225763
Publisher: Walter Foster
Series: Illustration Studio

This is a lovely book on the use of ink with artwork .The animals are really sweet and look very effective - this is a step by step type of book, and includes ink watercolour, linoprint, masking, collage from inked backgrounds and mixed pen and paint techniques. There is certainly many things to learn from this book, and much fun to be had. It is a good starting point on using and understanding ink, and the whimsical animals are just different enough to make them "on trend". A fun book for both adults and children

What a wonderful book! and the perfect inspiration before Inktober begins. I'm so happy I requested it. It looks beautiful and Sova's whimsical animal illustrations persuade you into trying your luck at drawing and painting animals using inks.

The book focuses on how to draw and paint animals with inks and a little bit on how to create compositions. It is well suited for beginners, it has step-by-step tutorials, a lot of artist’s tips and explanations on different tools and techniques you can use (india ink with brushes or dip pens, fineliners, calligraphy markers, white gel pens, etc.). It also shows how you can mix other media like goache, watercolors, colored pencils, etc. to create beautiful illustrations. The animal tutorials cover woodland, domestic, exotic and imaginary animals (Unicorns!!!) and birds have their own section as well.

It’s nice that it covers a wide variety of techniques and you can pick your favorite tool and give it a try. My favorite parts of the book were “Finding inspiration”, with advice on how to keep your creative juices flowing, and the “creative exercises”. It is worth mentioning that it explains how to make a light box and that there is bonus material online. Totally recommend it!

"Illustrated Studio: Inking Animals" is a beautiful book containing wonderfully detailed projects. The author utilizes inks, watercolors, gouache and colored pencils on the various projects, which include both realistic and stylized animal drawings and paintings. The artwork is stunning, yet the author's tutorials make them achievable, even for beginners. I highly recommend the book to artistic nature-lovers of any skill level. Beautifully done! Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free digital copy of the book. I was not required to write a review, and these opinions are my own.

Beautiful ideas, sketches and art work.
It inspired me to illustrate birds and the book gave a clear instruction on how to get started.

What an absolutely gorgeous guide! It starts off by clearly explaining the different types of inking materials, from traditional dip pens to mop brushes, to then going through different inks, papers and additional materials.

I love that it teaches you how to make a DIY light box to assist the ability to reproduce your sketches without having to painstakingly redraw them each and every time. 

This is a wonderful book which explores different methods and means to draw using ink, along with providing numerous sources of inspiration for your next project. Illustration Studio: Inking Animals will definitely come in handy for when Inktober comes around and I am looking forward to putting these techniques into play.

*thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group – Walter Foster for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wonderful pictures of animals in ink made me want to grab my pens and inkwells and start recreating some of the animals in this book.

After the introduction to the materials and techniques used in this book, the first part of the book is about drawing animals, adding character and colour to your drawings. From sketch to finished illustration of woodland creatures/domestic animals/birds/..., every step is explained and photographs add further guidance. I especially liked the exercise areas where part of the finished animal was already provided to learn the techniques explained on the previous page.

I describe myself as a perma-newbie artist. I don’t put in a lot of effort, but I do enjoy art books and try to use the tips in them to help me get beyond stick figures. Because this book is more focused on inking specific animals, I do feel like you will benefit from it more if you already like to draw, specifically animals.

The first section has the usual art book intros to supplies and basic techniques as well as a DIY lightbox project.

From there we move into Woodland animals, Domestic Animals, Birds, Exotic Animals, and finally Imaginary Creatures. There are things like collage projects, Lithographs, minimalism, and creating animals from geometric shapes. I feel like if you have any interest in drawing/inking/painting animals, you will find something to like here. If you don’t feel comfortable drawing, you will still find something here to help, but I’d start elsewhere.

Looking for a great way to get into drawing/illustration? Look no farther! Sova provides a very accessible approach to getting started. First, we get an introduction to the various supplies we'll need. We get tutorials on a variety of illustration methods - drawing (pen, ink, pencil), painting and even block printing as well as combining techniques. We also get great artist tips along the way such as starting with the most detailed parts so if we mess up, it's not as big a deal to begin again. Sova makes drawing a more approachable art form.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. All comments are my own, unbiased opinion.

A lovely book full of creative projects and new ideas. There are a variety of techniques and styles to choose and everything is original. Great for animal lovers, journal projects, and would also be great projects to do with children. Colourful and imaginative. Thank you