Kaleidoscope: Ideas & Projects to Spark Your Creativity


Suzanne Simanaitis - 2007
    Indulge your creative cravings Are you passionately curious? Let "Kaleidoscope" open new doors of creativity as you explore dozens of stories, exercises and instructive projects, all designed to feed, encourage and sometimes flex your creative muscle.Between the beautiful pages of "Kaleidoscope," you'll tap into the joy of drawing, be encouraged to create art in bed, create your own folded-paper shrine, discover the liberation of stream-writing, practice idea brainstorming, make your own duct-tape purse, learn to quiet the negative voice in your head, dream up your own creative studio space and much, much more.Inspiring art and eye-candy on every page - a "Kaleidoscope" of creative energy awaits you today.

The Golden Secrets of Lettering: Letter Design from First Sketch to Final Artwork


Martina Flor - 2016
    With easy-to-understand instructions and guidelines, plenty of inspirational examples, and hundreds of hand sketches and illustrations, Martina Flor shows readers how to transform their initial lettering concepts and handdrawn sketches into a well-shaped, exquisite piece of digital lettering that can be sold and published. Readers learn how to train their "typographic eye" by studying lettering samples and the anatomy of letters; explore concepts of hierarchy, composition, and flourishes; and discover the many different ways of creating letter shapes. In addition, Flor explains the process of creating a lettering project step by step— from start to finish, from analog to digital—and gives valuable tips about how to make a career as a lettering artist.

Drawn In: A Peek into the Inspiring Sketchbooks of 44 Fine Artists, Illustrators, Graphic Designers, and Cartoonists


Julia Rothman - 2011
    Artists use these journals to document their daily lives, produce their initial ideas for bigger projects, and practice their skills. Using a variety of media from paint to pencil to collage, these pages can become works of art themselves. They often feel fresh and alive because they are first thoughts and often not reworked. These pages capture the artist's personalities along with glimpses of their process of working and inspirations.In Drawn In, you can take a peek inside the sketchbooks of 44 high-profile, amazingly talented artists as they discuss their collections and how they use them. Featuring a spectrum of creators from illustrators and fine artists to graphic designers and cartoonists, this books offers an inside, full-color glimpse into pages filled with pencil and pen sketches, thumbnail drawings, unpublished comics, elaborate collages, loose clippings, and much more. Become inspired by these incredible artists and the pages they share in Drawn In!

Geometry of Design: Studies in Proportion and Composition


Kimberly Elam - 2001
    Kimberly Elam takes the reader on a geometrical journey, lending insight and coherence to the design process by exploring the visual relationships that have foundations in mathematics as well as the essential qualities of life. Geometry of Design-the first book in our new Design Briefs Series-takes a close look at a broad range of twentieth-century examples of design, architecture, and illustration (from the Barcelona chair to the Musica Viva poster, from the Braun handblender to the Conico kettle), revealing underlying geometric structures in their compositions. Explanations and techniques of visual analysis make the inherent mathematical relationships evident and a must-have for anyone involved in graphic arts. The book focuses not only on the classic systems of proportioning, such as the golden section and root rectangles, but also on less well known proportioning systems such as the Fibonacci Series. Through detailed diagrams these geometric systems are brought to life giving an effective insight into the design process.

Beneath the Roses


Gregory Crewdson - 2008
    The images that comprise Crewdson’s new series, “Beneath the Roses,” take place in the homes, streets, and forests of unnamed small towns. The photographs portray emotionally charged moments of seemingly ordinary individuals caught in ambiguous and often disquieting circumstances. Both epic in scale and intimate in scope, these visually breathtaking photographs blur the distinctions between cinema and photography, reality and fantasy, what has happened and what is to come.Beneath the Roses features an essay by acclaimed fiction writer Russell Banks, as well as many never-before-seen photographs, including production stills, lighting charts, sketches, and architectural plans, that serve as a window into Crewdson’s working process. The book is published to coincide with exhibitions in New York, London, and Los Angeles.

The Adobe Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers


Scott Kelby - 2003
    This book covers topics which include the secrets of how the pros retouch portraits; how to color correct any photo without breaking a sweat (you'll be amazed at how they do it!); how to unlock the power of Photoshop CS' new features for digital photo pros; and others.

Creative Illustration Workshop for Mixed-Media Artists: Seeing, Sketching, Storytelling, and Using Found Materials


Katherine Dunn - 2010
    You will become familiar with a wide variety of media and approaches to drawing, learn how to work through "creative blocks," and discover ways to scan and layer your illustrations using a computer.

The Natural Way to Draw


Kimon Nicolaides - 1941
    Great for the beginner and the expert, this book offers readers exercises to improve their work.

Encaustic Workshop: Artistic Techniques for Working with Wax


Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch - 2009
    In Encaustic Workshop, it becomes much more: a dynamic medium where anything goes and the possibilities are endless.Packed with step-by-step techniques, helpful tips and diverse examples of completed works, Encaustic Workshop brings all the accessibility and excitement of a mixed-media workshop to your own workspace. If you're a beginner, you'll find everything you need to know to get started. If you're a more advanced crafter or fine artist, you'll discover things you never knew you could do with encaustic.Instructions and photos will guide you as you learn to:Apply, layer, color and carve wax to create artwork rich with texture and depth.Create collages that combine encaustic with papers, fabric, found objects, image transfers and more.Experiment with charcoal, inks, watercolors, pastels and other mediums to create unexpected effects in the wax.Then, complete step-by-step projects and an extensive inspirational gallery will show you how you can combine the techniques you've learned to create more complex works.Sign your creativity up for this Encaustic Workshop--then just melt, paint and play!

Thoughts on Design


Paul Rand - 1947
    Writing at the height of his career, Rand articulated in his slender volume the pioneering vision that all design should seamlessly integrate form and function. This facsimile edition preserves Rand's original 1947 essay with the adjustments he made to its text and imagery for a revised printing in 1970, and adds only an informative and inspiring new foreword by design luminary Michael Bierut. As relevant today as it was when first published, this classic treatise is an indispensable addition to the library of every designer.

The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution


Denis Dutton - 2008
    Human tastes in the arts, Dutton argues, are evolutionary traits, shaped by Darwinian selection. They are not, as the past century of art criticism and academic theory would have it, just "socially constructed."Our love of beauty is inborn, and many aesthetic tastes are shared across remote cultures—just one example is the widespread preference for landscapes with water and distant trees, like the savannas where we evolved. Using forceful logic and hard evidence, Dutton shows that we must premise art criticism on an understanding of evolution, not on abstract "theory." He restores the place of beauty, pleasure, and skill as artistic values.Sure to provoke discussion in scientific circles and uproar in the art world, The Art Instinct offers radical new insights into both the nature of art and the workings of the human mind.

Egon Schiele, 1890-1918: The Midnight Soul of the Artist


Reinhard Steiner - 1994
    After a short flirtation with Klimt's style, Schiele soon questioned the aesthetic orientation to the beautiful surface of the Viennese Art Nouveau with his rough and not easily accessible paintings. Many contemporaries found his expressive nudes and self-portraits, with their strange movements and morbid colours, to be ugly and even morally objectionable - criticism which culminated in criminalizing the painter as "obscene" and resulted in 1912 in an indictment and short jail sentence. However, not even his harshest critics could dispute however the artist's extraordinary drawing talent.

Marrakesh by Design


Maryam Montague - 2012
    For anyone who wants to add Morocco's spicy design mix into their own home, Maryam Montague, the personality behind the award-winning blog My Marrakesh, explains how to do so with the building blocks of Moroccan design—from the colors, patterns, and textiles to the archways, fountains, gardens, and so much more. With illustrative text and gorgeous photographs, Maryam shows how Moroccan design comes to life in real villas and riads and in her own magnificent home and guesthouse. Eager DIYers will love the ideas presented in sidebars and in how-to projects that can be applied to homes anywhere. Filled with all the richness of Morocco,Marrakesh by Design will transport readers straight to the souks and salons of this exotic city while showing them the multitude of ways to live with the enticing elements of Moroccan design.

Modernism: The Lure of Heresy from Baudelaire to Beckett and Beyond


Peter Gay - 2007
    Beginning his epic study with Baudelaire, whose lurid poetry scandalized French stalwarts, Gay traces the revolutionary path of modernism from its Parisian origins to its emergence as the dominant cultural movement in world capitals such as Berlin and New York. A work unique in its breadth and brilliance, Modernism presents a thrilling pageant of heretics that includes (among others) Oscar Wilde, Pablo Picasso, and D. W. Griffiths; James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and T. S. Eliot; Walter Gropius, Arnold Schoenberg, and (of course!) Andy Warhol. Finally, Gay examines the hostility of totalitarian regimes to modernist freedom and the role of Pop Art in sounding the death knell of a movement that dominated Western culture for 120 years. Lavishly illustrated, Modernism is a superlative achievement by one of our greatest historians.

How to Draw Noir Comics: The Art and Technique of Visual Storytelling


Shawn Martinbrough - 2007
    In How to Draw Crime Noir, Martinbrough walks the reader step-by-step through layout, thumbnails, staging the action and working with actual scripts. Martinborough's art is cutting edge, has a 1940's vibe, but comes across contemporary, complelling, dramatic and urban. The book also contains twenty-two page original graphic novel, written and illustrated by Martinbrough.How to Draw Noir Comics: The Art and Technique of Visual Storytelling is an instructional book based on the cinematic, high contrast noir style of acclaimed comic book and graphic novel illustrator, Shawn Martinbrough.Martinbrough’s work has been published by DC Comics, Vertigo and Marvel Comics, illustrating stories ranging from Batman to the X-Men. This is his first book, released through Watson-Guptill Publications and The Nielsen Company.In How to Draw Noir Comics, Martinbrough shows how the expert use of the color black is critical for drawing noir comics. He demonstrates how to set a mood, design characters and locations, stage action and enhance drama, and discusses important topics like page layout, panel design, and cover design.How to Draw Noir Comics includes The Truce, an original graphic novel written and illustrated by Martinbrough which incorporates the many lessons addressed throughout the book, and has an introduction by critically-acclaimed novelist Greg Rucka, author of the graphic novel Whiteout, currently in production as a major motion picture.