An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers


Danny Gregory - 2008
    The margins sometimes spill over with hurriedly scrawled shopping lists and phone numbers. The cover may be travel-worn and the pages warped from watercolors. Open the book, and raw creativity seeps from each color and line. The intimacy and freedom on its pages are almost like being inside the artist's mind: You get a direct window into risks, lessons, mistakes, and dreams.The private worlds of these visual journals are exactly what you'll find inside An Illustrated Life. This book offers a sneak peak into the wildly creative imaginations of 50 top illustrators, designers and artists. Included are sketchbook pages from R. Crumb, Chris Ware, James Jean, James Kochalka, and many others. In addition, author Danny Gregory has interviewed each artist and shares their thoughts on living the artistic life through journaling.Watch artists—through words and images—record the world they see and craft the world as they want it to be. The pages of An Illustrated Life are sometimes startling, sometimes endearing, but always inspiring. Whether you're an illustrator, designer, or simply someone searching for inspiration, these pages will open a whole new world to you.

Go: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design


Chip Kidd - 2013
    Go, is an introduction to the ways in which a designer communicates his or her ideas to the world. It's written and designed just for those curious kids, not to mention their savvy parents, who want to learn the secret of how to make things dynamic and interesting.

The Curious Nature Guide: Explore the Natural Wonders All Around You


Clare Walker Leslie - 2015
    Using photography as well as the author's own illustrations, Explore Your Nature invites readers to start at home, using all of their senses to notice the colors, sounds, smells, and textures of the trees, plants, animals, birds, insects, clouds, and other features that can be observed right outside their doorstep, no matter where they live. Prompts range from suggestions to note one daily exceptional nature image to learning to identify cloud types and the weather they bring, or creating a record of nature spottings on daily walks with the dog.

How to Be a Moonflower


Katie Daisy - 2021
    In this lavishly illustrated book, New York Times-bestselling artist Katie Daisy explores the mystery and magic of the nighttime. Join her on a journey from dusk to dawn, complete with quotes, poems, meditations, field guides to different nocturnal flora and fauna, and charts that map out the cosmos. From night-blooming flowers to cozy campfires, from moon baths to meteor showers, Katie Daisy's lush illustrations capture the beauty that comes to life in the darkness.BELOVED AUTHOR: Known for her lush, painterly artwork and love of the natural world, NEW YORK TIMES-bestselling author Katie Daisy has 112K followers on Instagram, where you will find frequent posts featuring her vibrant illustrations.A CELEBRATION OF NATURE: Nature-lovers and plant-appreciators will find much to admire in this book. Illustrating everything from the phases of the moon to fluttering moths, Katie Daisy has a knack for capturing the very best this magical world has to offer.EXPLORE THE WONDERS OF NIGHT TIME: The nighttime offers time for reflection, exploration, and adventure. This book will help you make the most of those mystical, after-dark hours and observe the hidden wonders that come to life at nightDELUXE PACKAGE: Featuring a tactile two-piece case with silver metallic ink on the spine and back cover, How to Be a Moonflower makes a beautiful gift for the people in your life who look to art and illustration for creative encouragement, self-exploration, and mindfulness.Perfect for:• Fans of Katie Daisy's artwork and previous book HOW TO BE A WILDFLOWER• free spirits• art and nature lovers• tarot readers and moon worshippers

Figure It Out!: The Beginner's Guide to Drawing People


Christopher Hart - 2009
    Not only does he draw them with incredible style and flair, he also has a friendly, accessible teaching style that makes his how-to books super-sellers. In this unique figure-drawing course, Chris avoids the usual anatomy lessons that intimidate aspiring artists and gets right down to the basics young illustrators need to get started. Starting with heads and facial expressions, he moves on to full figures, male and female, ideal and average, some in fashion poses and others in dynamic action. On every page, his practical advice and clear examples will help readers achieve terrific results — and have fun every step of the way.

Noah's Ark


Rien Poortvliet - 1992
    The author, a popular Dutch artist, presents paintings of Noah's ark and its animals, both on the ark and in their natural settings.

How to Draw Animals


Jack Hamm - 1969
    Basic fundamentals for the beginner, new principles and techniques for the professional. A detailed guide for everyone who enjoys—or wants to enjoy—drawing.

What We See in the Stars: An Illustrated Tour of the Night Sky


Kelsey Oseid - 2017
     Combining art, mythology, and science, What We See in the Stars gives readers a tour of the night sky through more than 100 magical pieces of original art, all accompanied by text that weaves related legends and lore with scientific facts. This beautifully packaged book covers the night sky's most brilliant features--such as the constellations, the moon, the bright stars, and the visible planets--as well as less familiar celestial phenomena like the outer planets, nebulae, and deep space. Adults seeking to recapture the magic of youthful stargazing, younger readers interested in learning about natural history and outer space, and those who appreciate beautiful, hand-painted art will all delight in this charming book.

Fabulous Figures


Jane Davenport - 2018
    . . and end with a beautiful finished piece of art!You’ll love Jane Davenport’s fabulous, fun, and amazingly easy technique for drawing figures.   For aspiring artists, drawing people can be intimidating—but it doesn’t have to be. Over years working as a fashion illustrator, Jane Davenport devised her own method of creating in-proportion figures. Her clever core technique involves using equal-size hearts to build the body’s structure. And Jane’s results have been astounding: her students go from “I can’t draw a stick figure” to producing gorgeous, well-proportioned illustrations. After laying out the basics, her imaginative guide walks you through working with different mediums; drawing the head, face, clothing, hair, and features; and constructing figures inspired by fashion, fantasy, life drawing, and more.

The Urban Sketching Handbook Understanding Perspective: Easy Techniques for Mastering Perspective Drawing on Location


Stephanie Bower - 2016
    Learn about depth, scale, contrast, composition, and more.

Kawaii Doodle Cuties: Sketching Super-Cute Stuff from Around the World


Pic Candle - 2018
    With doodles of food, nature, animals, architecture, fashion, and more, you will learn to draw cute artwork from countries all over the world! Learn how to draw a darling Eiffel Tower, macaron, and beret from France. Or master how to draw precious natural wonders Like Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and enchanting architecture like India’s Taj Mahal. Or sketch fashion fun like a K-pop skirt from South Korea and charming transportation like a tuk tuk from Vietnam. Kawaii Doodle Cutiesfeatures over 100 lovable, huggable characters and includes simple step-by-step illustrations and instructions, search-and-find puzzle patterns that you can color, and inspiration pages. Thanks to this adorable crash course in doodling all things kawaii, you’ll soon be enhancing your notebooks, stationery, artwork, and everything with unbelievably adorable illustrations! Learn how to draw even more cute things with these other fun books in the Kawaii Doodle series: Kawaii Doodle Class, Kawaii Doodle Cuties, Mini Kawaii Doodle Class, and Mini Kawaii Doodle Cuties.

Art, Inc.: The Essential Guide for Building Your Career as an Artist


Lisa Congdon - 2014
    Build a career doing what you love. In this practical guide, professional artist Lisa Congdon reveals the many ways you can earn a living by making art—through illustration, licensing, fine art sales, print sales, teaching, and beyond. Including industry advice from such successful art-world pros as Nikki McClure, Mark Hearld, Paula Scher, and more, Art, Inc. will equip you with the tools—and the confidence—to turn your passion into a profitable business.LEARN HOW TO: • Set actionable goals • Diversify your income • Manage your bookkeeping • Copyright your work • Promote with social media • Build a standout website • Exhibit with galleries • Sell and price your work • License your art • Acquire an agent • And much more

The Beginner's Guide to Raising Chickens: How to Raise a Happy Backyard Flock


Anne Kuo - 2019
    From constructing coops to rearing chicks, you’ll learn everything you need to know to make sure your chickens stay happy and healthy all year round.Which breed of chicken is right for you? What’s the best coop-bedding material? What sort of feed should you use? Let expert chicken keeper Anne Kuo answer these questions—and many others—in The Beginner’s Guide to Raising Chickens.The Beginner’s Guide to Raising Chickens includes: All cooped up—Create the perfect home for raising chickens using detailed backyard coop designs and construction guides. From chickens to eggs—Find out how to pick the right breed, raise chicks, collect eggs, keep your birds safe from predators, and more. Learn to speak bird—Start talking the talk thanks to an extensive glossary of common chicken-keeping terms. Get your own flock started in no time—The Beginner’s Guide to Raising Chickens shows you how.

If You Can Doodle, You Can Paint: Transforming Simple Drawings into Works of Art


Diane Culhane - 2017
    Even if you don't consider yourself a doodler, the exercises and techniques in this book will give you a fun way to tap into your personal style.The invitation starts with a pencil as you work through doodle assignments. Eventually, you will learn how to size up and combine these doodles into larger compositions. Then, you will begin mixing it up with watercolor paints and, finally, with acrylic paints.In If You Can Doodle, You Can Paint we will:Dig for treasure/doodleObserve, arrange, and studyMake folded books for doodle-ready surfacesCopy your images with hand/eye coordinationScan and enlarge your doodlesAdd color combinations with colored pencil and acrylic paintCreate compositional grid paintings, andCreate a large complete painting!So what are you waiting for? Grab some pens and paints and get creative!

You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination


Katharine Harmon - 2003
    But maps need not just show continents and oceans: there are maps to heaven and hell; to happiness and despair; maps of moods, matrimony, and mythological places. There are maps to popular culture, from Gulliver's Island to Gilligan's Island. There are speculative maps of the world before it was known, and maps to secret places known only to the mapmaker. Artists' maps show another kind of uncharted realm: the imagination. What all these maps have in common is their creators' willingness to venture beyond the boundaries of geography or convention.You Are Here is a wide-ranging collection of such superbly inventive maps. These are charts of places you're not expected to find, but a voyage you take in your mind: an exploration of the ideal country estate from a dog's perspective; a guide to buried treasure on Skeleton Island; a trip down the road to success; or the world as imagined by an inmate of a mental institution. With over 100 maps from artists, cartographers, and explorers, You are Here gives the reader a breath-taking view of worlds, both real and imaginary.