She'll make your first steps fun and successful!In her trademark style--friendly and encouraging--Claudia will show you how to do a sketch of a subject that actually ends up looking like the subject. And she shares her secrets for turning simple lines and dots into all kinds of lifelike textures, including leaves, glass, hair, fruit, water, clouds, wood grain, grass, fur and feathers.Easy (and fun!) exercises get you started. Step-by-step projects teach techniques as you draw trees, flowers, barns, animals and other subjects--even people! And demonstrations show you how to put all that you've learned together to create a finished picture.So go ahead--grab that pen and have fun! Just follow along with Claudia to get the hang of it, and before you know it you'll be making your own, original pen-and-ink drawings!

    Genny Taylor is a Sidhe, one of the noble fae, and she's unusual, even in present-day London where celebrity vampires, eccentric goblins and scheming lesser fae mix freely with the human population - Genny is a rising star at Spellcrackers.com.

    Filled with a wealth of rare and unseen behind-the-scenes imagery, this book explores the creation of the film as seen through the eyes of the artists, costume designers, and creature creators who gave Labyrinth its distinctive look. Featuring in-depth commentary from the talented crew and cast—including exclusive new interviews with Jennifer Connelly, Brian Henson, Brian Froud, and George Lucas—this deluxe book brings together a wealth of rare sketches, concept art, and candid set photography to form and incredible treasure trove for Labyrinth fans. With stunning visuals and unparalleled insight into the creation of a true modern classic, Labyrinth: The Ultimate Visual History is the perfect companion piece to one of the best-loved fantasy films of all time.

    The Steampunk Bible is the first compendium about the movement, tracing its roots in the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells through its most recent expression in movies such as Sherlock Holmes. Its adherents celebrate the inventor as an artist and hero, re-envisioning and crafting retro technologies including antiquated airships and robots. A burgeoning DIY community has brought a distinctive Victorian-fantasy style to their crafts and art. Steampunk evokes a sense of adventure and discovery, and embraces extinct technologies as a way of talking about the future. This ultimate manual will appeal to aficionados and novices alike as author Jeff VanderMeer takes the reader on a wild ride through the clockwork corridors of Steampunk history.Praise for The Steampunk Bible:"The Steampunk Bible is an informed, informative and beautifully illustrated survey of the subject." -The Financial Times"The Steampunk Bible is far and away the most intriguing catalog of all things steam yet written." -The Austin Chronicle “It’s hard to imagine how VanderMeer and Chambers could have put together a stronger collection. Its publication marks a significant, self-conscious moment in the history of the movement.”—PopMatters.com

    204 pages.

    Author John Britt, who served as Clay Coordinator at the respected Penland School of Crafts, has personally tested many of the recipes, and carefully reviews every one. He offers a thorough examination of glaze materials, chemistry, and tools, and presents the basics of mixing, application, and firing procedures. There’s a wealth of information on various type of glazes, including copper, iron, shino, salt/soda, crystalline, and more. An exhaustive index of subjects and a separate index of glaze recipes will help ceramists find what they need, quickly and easily.

     The Truth About Magic builds on the pains and joys of romance explored in Love Her Wild and the New York Times bestseller, The Dark Between Stars—heartbreaks and falling in love, looking back and looking inwards—by taking a fresh, awakened journey outward. An adventure into the great unknown. It’s about finding ourselves, our purpose, and the simple joys of life. It’s about lavender fields, drinking white wine out of oak barrels on vineyards, laughing until you cry, dancing in old barns until the sun comes up, and making love on sandy beaches. The Truth About Magic is a vibrant, transcendent journey into growth, which will leave you energized and eager to explore the wider world.

    In April 2011, he was arrested and held for more than two months in terrible conditions. The most famous living Chinese artist and activist, Weiwei is a figure of extraordinary talent, courage, and integrity. From the beginning of his career, he has spoken out against the world's most powerful totalitarian regime, in part by creating some of the most beautiful and mysterious artworks of our age, works which have touched millions around the world.Just after Ai Weiwei's release from illegal detention, Barnaby Martin flew to Beijing to interview him about his imprisonment and to learn more about what is really going on behind the scenes in the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party. Based on these interviews and Martin's own intimate connections with China, Hanging Man is an exploration of Weiwei's life, art, and activism and also a meditation on the creative process, and on the history of art in modern China. It is a rich picture of the man and his milieu, of what he is trying to communicate with his art, and of the growing campaign for democracy and accountability in China. It is a book about courage and hope found in the absence of freedom and justice.

    What followed was a whirlwind childhood spent among art and artists in the heyday of Abstract Expressionism. Gabrielle grew up in a home full of the most celebrated artists of the day: Rothko, de Kooning, Tinguely, Giacometti, and Christo, among others.Poignant and candid, Unstill Life is a daughter’s memoir of the art world and a larger-than-life father known to the world as Mr. Modern Art. Selz offers a unique window into the glamour and destruction of the times: the gallery openings, wild parties and affairs that defined one of the most celebrated periods in American art history. Like the art he loved, Selz’s father was vibrant and freewheeling, but his enthusiasm for both women and art took its toll on family life. When her father left MoMA and his family to direct his own museum in California, marrying four more times, Selz’s mother, the writer Thalia Selz, moved with her children into the utopian artist community Westbeth. Her parents continued a tumultuous affair that would last forty years.Weaving her family narrative into the larger story of twentieth-century art and culture, Selz paints an unforgettable portrait of a charismatic man, the generation of modern artists he championed and the daughter whose life he shaped.

    An otherworldly mixture of surreal drawings, photographs of invented and actual objects, fake documents, altered engravings, and fictions, it follows the post-death journey of Non, the museum's curator, as he gathers together artists and collectors - narrating and analysing their lives - in a desperate attempt to escape Purgatory and enter either Heaven or Hell. Bold, brilliant, and profound, The Museum at Purgatory is yet another shining example of Bantock's unique gift for combining word and stunning image to craft an extraordinary tale. Chronicle Books will publish The Artful Dodger: The Art of Nick Bantock in Fall 2000.

     This book asks you to do the opposite of what you have been taught. Think of it as your own personal rumpus room. A place to let loose, to trash, to spew, to do the things you are not allowed to do in the "real world." It's time to make a mess. The only three rules you'll find in this book: 1. Do not try to make something beautiful. 2. Do not think too much. (There is no "wrong.") 3. Continue under all circumstances.

    These pages, lavishly illustrated with the award-winning art of Magic: The Gathering™, are your entry into a world beset by terrible evils on all sides and betrayed by the hope it held most dear. Tread lightly as you follow the heroic Planeswalkers of the Gatewatch as they investigate these dark mysteries, for the nightmare they will uncover is a threat to the whole Multiverse. The mysteries of Innistrad—its peoples, provinces, and monsters—await your arrival. But be careful as you peer into the darkness, for you might find something staring back.

    Now Muratyan presents his unique observations in this delightful book, featuring visually striking graphics paired with witty, thought-provoking taglines that celebrate the special details of each city. Paris versus New York is a heartfelt gift to denizens of both cities and to those who dream of big-city romance.

    Combining practical, theoretical, and historical, this book is a must for graphic artists, editors, or anyone working with the printed page using digital or traditional methods.Having established itself as a standard in its field The Elements of Typographic Style is house manual at most American university presses, a standard university text, and a reference work in studios of designers around the world. It has been translated into italian and greek, and dutch.

    . . and the mythology behind the man.“Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot. So my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible. . . . I shall become a bat!” So declared millionaire industrialist Bruce Wayne, orphaned as a boy by a murderous thug and driven as a man to battle the scourge of crime by becoming Batman. Batman swooped into popular culture in 1939–and for nearly seventy years has thrilled audiences in countless comics, live-action and animated television programs, and seven feature films. Prowling the darkened rooftops of Gotham City, roaring through the teeming streets in the sleek, high-powered Batmobile, and leaping into action when the iconic Bat-Signal pierces the night sky, the Caped Crusader is a larger-than-life legend. And now, for the first time in more than thirty years, everything there is to know about Batman–from the beginning to the present, and from A to Z–is collected in one comprehensive new sourcebook. More than 500 pages of entries and illustrations include:• fascinating details and the complete background on Batman’s origins • biographies of every major character in the Batman universe–including his closest allies, from Robin the Boy Wonder and faithful butler Alfred Pennyworth to Commissioner Gordon; and his countless enemies, from the Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, and the Riddler to Scarecrow, Two-Face, Ra’s al Ghul and Poison Ivy• classic black-and-white comic book artwork throughout• two sixteen-page full-color artwork insertsEven an all-access pass to the Batcave couldn’t rival former DC Comics editor and Batman scholar extraordinaire Robert Greenberger’s exhaustive ultimate archive. The Essential Batman Encyclopedia is a must for every Batman fan’s bookshelf.BATMAN, the DC Logo, and all related names, characters and elements are trademarks of DC Comics © 2008. All rights reserved.