Keats said: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

For those of us who aspire to create beautiful art, there is help available in Artist!, a lifestyle CD-Rom from Focus Multimedia.

Whether you want to make the most of your artistic flair or to dabble in art for the first time, the CD suits both beginners and advanced artists.

There is instruction on five basic genres: portrait, still life, landscape, life drawings and nude studies.

There are 40 models and 1,200 drawings to choose from and each model is broken down and presented through 20 easy-to-follow, linear steps. With more than 650 helpful tips, you should master those tricky techniques in no time.

If it's a masterpiece you are after, then you can use the 120 illustrations of works by artists such as Cezanne, Van Gogh and Renoir as a source of inspiration.

Other Artist! features include rotating 3-D models that show their structure, a zoom feature to view each of them in detail, video sequences covering basic drawing techniques and essential perspective and simulation exercises.

As you progress, you will also learn to criticise your own drawings and correct your mistakes.

So give it a try. Even if you don't become an artist, you might still become an art critic.

Price: £9.99.

Contact: 01889 570156
Feel good factor: 7 out of 10.