His life is infused with bizarre moments: a surreal journey oscillating between fact and fiction that he always conducted as the straight-faced bowler-hatted man. The events of Magritte's childhood played an important part in creating the surrealist, but it was his popular culture borrowings from crime fiction, advertising and postcards that has made his work instantly recognisable. The often unreliable nature of Magritte's accounts of his own life have transformed his public image into a kind of fictional character rather than a 'real person'. He would shape his own life story to be its own surreal work of art. This Is Frank Lloyd Wright brings his projects and persona into vivid focus. Wit and visual punch have been the hallmarks of the This Is series to date; the first architectural title in the series will give readers an up-close look at Wright's progress from difficult childhood, to struggling apprenticeship, to early success, through mid-life setbacks and on to late-life comeback. Beautiful specially commissioned illustrations documenting the important events in his life sit alongside photographs of Wright's most iconic buildings (including Fallingwater and New York's Guggenheim Museum).

    Originally a paper/collage-based art form, ATCs have caught on with crafters working in a range of mediums and are now just as popular among fabric and mixed-media artists. ATCs are mini art works, the size of a playing card, often created as limited editions. The back of each card contains the artist's name and contact information. The idea behind the cards is to make them and then give, trade, or share them with others. This collection inspires with 1,000 original cards in a beautiful pageant of color, composition, and creative use of materials. The book also includes a special section devoted to explaining what ATCs are, how to get started, and includes some exciting technique information. Curated by Patricia Bolton, founder and editor-in-chief of two of the most exciting creative magazines on the newsstands, the book meets the Quarry Books mission of offering artistic and challenging new ideas to traditional paper artists, scrapbookers, mixed-media artists, and quilters by merging paper, fabric, and surface embellishment through experimentation and discovery.

    

    Now in The Zentangle Untangled Workbook, you'll get enough Zentangle instruction and inspiration to last all year long. Filled with dozens of new tiles and four never-before seen tangles designed especially for this book, you'll be using Zentangle in ways you never dreamed. Create shapes, letterforms, borders, even Zendalas as you master each new tangle, all while reducing stress through the intentional act of creating repetitive patterns. Perfect for artists of all levels, this workbook will immerse you in a daily meditation of Zentangle. Insides you'll find: Seven step-by-step demonstrations to help you get started. Inspiration and guidance on how to use those tangles to create unique and beautiful tiles throughout the year. More than 400 blank or partially started tiles so you can practice all year inside this book and without the fear of the blank page. It's time to tangle!

    Ever wonder how David Mack does his artwork? How his pages and covers go from sketches and drawings to finished art? How he uses models and figure drawings? It's all in here with tons of extras Collects Kabuki Reflections #5-10.

    Written with clarity and passion by a leader in the field, it covers all the popular techniques, the fundamentals of setting up a studio, and 14 fabulous projects. The various styles range from traditional cloisonné, champlevé, and plique-à-jour to experimental techniques such as firing enamel onto mesh forms. Even more creative possibilities await in the firing: use copper oxide to create cool color variations or try raku firing for unique effects. All the well-photographed projects, from a vibrantly toned flower ring to an elegant set of buttons with a delicate leaf pattern, encourage novices to use their skills and imagination.

    Even today remembered primarily as the mentor and lover of Robert Mapplethorpe, the once infamous photographer, Wagstaff, in fact, had an incalculable—and largely overlooked—influence on the world of contemporary art and photography, and on the evolution of gay identity in the latter part of the twentieth century.  Born in New York City in 1921 into a notable family, Wagstaff followed an arc that was typical of a young man of his class. He attended both Hotchkiss and Yale, served in the navy, and would follow in step with his Ivy League classmates to the "gentleman's profession," as an ad executive on Madison Avenue. With his unmistakably good looks, he projected an aura of glamour and was cited by newspapers as one of the most eligible bachelors of the late 1940s. Such accounts proved deceiving, for Wagstaff was forced to live in the closet, his homosexuality only revealed to a small circle of friends. Increasingly uncomfortable with his career and this double life, he abandoned advertising, turned to the formal study of art history, and embarked on a radical personal transformation that was in perfect harmony with the tumultuous social, cultural, and sexual upheavals of the 1960s.Accordingly, Wagstaff became a curator, in 1961, at Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum, where he mounted both "Black, White, and Gray"—the first museum show of minimal art—and the sculptor Tony Smith's first museum show, while lending his early support to artists Andy Warhol, Ray Johnson, and Richard Tuttle, among many others. Later, as a curator at the Detroit Institute of Arts, he brought the avant-garde to a regional museum, offending its more staid trustees in the process.After returning to New York City in 1972, the fifty-year-old Wagstaff met the twenty-five-year-old Queens-born Robert Mapplethorpe, then living with Patti Smith. What at first appeared to be a sexual dalliance became their now historic lifelong romance, in which Mapplethorpe would foster Wagstaff's own burgeoning interest in contemporary photography and Wagstaff would help secure Mapplethorpe's reputation in the art world. In spite of their profound class differences, the artistic union between the philanthropically inclined Wagstaff and the prodigiously talented Mapplethorpe would rival that of Stieglitz and O’Keefe, or Rivera and Kahlo, in their ability to help reshape contemporary art history.Positioning Wagstaff's personal life against the rise of photography as a major art form and the simultaneous formation of the gay rights movement, Philip Gefter's absorbing biography provides a searing portrait of New York just before and during the age of AIDS. The result is a definitive and memorable portrait of a man and an era.

    You’ll discover how to draw all types of dragons using nothing but a pencil. Drawing Dragons shows how to bring to life fierce warriors and bearded ancients as well as baby hatchlings and protective mothers. It also features a special section on adding claws, scales, horns, jewels and other unique details to your dragons.Learn to draw:• Ferocious, attacking dragons•Graceful sea dragons•Fire-breathing flying dragons•Wise, thoughtful dragons

    Get in the spooky spirit with this guide to your best Halloween yet! With this collection of 23 Halloween Crafts for Kids: Homemade Halloween Costume Ideas and Spooky Décor, you can:•Design frightfully fun homemade Halloween costumes•Share laughs with your little ones as you make kids’ Halloween crafts•Create homemade Halloween decorations to make your home spook-tacularAnd so much more! This is your year to be the most festive haunted house on the block, so grab this eBook and start preparing for a bewitching Halloween.

    Anyone who can hold a pen can create a Zentangle®.  Created by Rick Roberts & Maria Thomas for people who need to relax, Zentangle® here is brought to a whole new level with rich colors!

    For those who have always wanted to or tried and failed to learn to draw it provides simple step-by-step instruction, plus easy-to-follow practice exercises, and provides the motivation and inspiration readers need to be successful. For those who already draw, Everyday Sketching and Drawing offers another technique to add to their drawing arsenal.Why do so many adults come to view drawing as difficult or fraught with anxiety? Traditional art instruction is often bogged down with jargon, rules, and admonishments that unintentionally stifle the joy of drawing for its own sake.Steven Reddy's new and easy approach to drawing instructs sketchers to document their unique and compelling lives in realistic yet playful sketches that record the places, spaces, and objects that help define them as individuals. He reminds artists to slow down, notice, and attend to the sketch-worthy scenes and subjects that are unstaged and always there in our everyday lives. He offers a versatile technique that can lead to a skill that fills sketchbooks with the visual details that differentiate one life from another. This approach is a meditative, relaxing alternative to academic concerns about perspective, proportion, and accuracy. Reddy encourages artists to capture in whimsical but detail-specific illustrations their unique, subjective interpretation of their visual surroundings.Steven Reddy's drawing method produces extremely detailed and realistic scenes of objects and scenes in everyday life in a relatively short period of time (60 minutes to 3 hours or more, depending on the sketcher's preference). Modifying a technique utilized by Old Master oil painters, the drawings pass through 5 clearly articulated stages where each step focuses on one visual concept at a time.

    Halo: The Essential Visual Guide delves even deeper into the phenomenon that is Halo. Covering material from Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo Wars, and the latest game, Halo: ODST, the book provides amazing images and insightful information making you feel as if you yourself are part of the game! (c)2011 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

    Found everywhere from wine labels and high-end bar accessories to major motion pictures (Teacher's Pet, the upcoming Pink Panther), the visibility of this dynamic work has rapidly increased in the last few years to worldwide recognition and acclaim. Weirdo Deluxe is the first significant manifesto of the genrea riotous blend of pop culture, street culture, pop art, and surrealismand includes profiles of and interviews with 23 leading artists and hundreds of outrageous examples of their work. Special features include an expansive timeline, and peeks at the artists' collections and influences. Weirdo Deluxe is at once a primer and lowbrow art sourcebook as well as a visual homage to pop culture.

    Chain mail, also known as chainmail, maille, or chainmaille is a great hobby for any age that doesn't involve just making armor.You can make almost anything from chainmail. Below are just a few examples of what you can make:• Jewerly (Bracelets, Necklaces, Anklets, Earrings, Rings)• Clothing (Bikini tops, Belts, Shirts, Ties)• Art• Armor• Inlays (pictures in your maille)• And much, much more!In this beginner's book you'll learn the following:• A short history of chain mail• Different rings used and the kinds of metals• How to open and close rings correctly• Tools used like pliers and different kinds• An overview of the family of chainmail weaves• How to weave 7 of the more common, simpler weaves shown in 3D graphics• Resources for purchasing rings and tools3 Starter Projects:• Women's Choker Necklace• Men's Flat Bracelet• Pouch or Dice Bag Chainmail is neither difficult to learn nor expensive. All it takes is a willingness to try something new no matter your age, education, or income! Scoll up and click the "Look Inside" feature on the top left hand side of this page to see what's included in this book.A Personal Note From The Author:This beginner's guide blends 10 years of my personal experience chainmailling. When I first started chainmailling, I knew nothing about it except what I'd seen online or in movies; chainmail armor. Not very exciting for the average person but the idea of weaving metal rings into something I could create without any special skills appealed to me. I stumbled across The Ring Lord, a site that sells all kinds of rings in all kinds of sizes, colors, and metals, and I was hooked!Now ten years later after creating all sorts of projects from maille, some things I wouldn't have thought possible, I wanted to share what I've learned with someone just starting out. This first volume is not meant to cover everything about chainmailling nor does it include dozens of projects. It's meant for someone who's never mailled before or who's only dabbled a little but now wants a simple-to-follow guide with clear instructions and pictures on how to get started mailling immediately with the most common weaves applied to a couple starter projects.

    Writers Tony Scherman and David Dalton disentangle the myths of the great pop artist from the man he truly was, and offer a vivid, entertaining, and provocative look at Warhol’s personal and artistic evolution. Drawing on brand new sources—including extensive new interviews and insight from those who knew him best—Pop offers the most dynamic, comprehensive portrait ever written of the man who changed the way we see the world.