Just about everyone's familiar with the Venus flytrap...but did you know that there are pitcher plants that can-and do!-digest an entire rat? Or that there are several hundred species of carnivorous plants on our planet? Full-color photographs of the plants at work and play, plus everything you need to know to successfully grow your own Little Shop of Horrors.Awards1999 American Horticultural Society Book Award Winner ReviewsHow to get kids interested in gardening? The San Francisco Chronicle recommends The Savage Garden, "because there's nothing children like better than catching insects and feeding them to their houseplants."

    We are very pleased to be the first U.S. publisher to offer Ediths timeless watercolors.

    How to Draw and Paint Fairies confronts the fairy labor shortage directly, explaining all the techniques needed to bring fairy art to life. For beginners, explanations of basic techniques and easy-to-follow constructional drawings, plus information on materials, sketching, forms, and color make starting out easy and pleasant. As artists progress, the book offers detailed descriptions and beautiful illustrations of little people--from flower, water, and moon fairies, to nymphs and sprites, to sirens. Basic to advanced techniques on watercolor and mixed media are covered step-by-step, and finished images from leading fairy artists provide inspiration. This beautiful book will make every artist believe in fairies.

    Zenspirations dangles are a unique form of patterning...and although they look complicated, they are actually easy to create. If you enjoyed Joanne's first book, Zenspirations Paterns & Lettering then you'll love Zenspiration Dangle Designs.

    It is an inexhaustible mine of anecdotes, quotations, images, curious facts and useless information, oddities, serious science, jokes and memories, all concerned with the interplay between the verbal and the visual, and the limitless resources of the human mind. Loosely arranged in 72 chapters, all this material is presented in a wonderfully inventive series of pages that are themselves masterly demonstrations of the expressive use of type, space, color and imagery.This book does not set out to teach lessons, but it is full of wisdom and insight collected from all over the world. Describing himself as a visual jackdaw, master designer Alan Fletcher has distilled a lifetime of experience and reflection into a brilliantly witty and inimitable exploration of such subjects as perception, color, pattern, proportion, paradox, illusion, language, alphabets, words, letters, ideas, creativity, culture, style, aesthetics and value.The Art of Looking Sideways is the ultimate guide to visual awareness, a magical compilation that will entertain and inspire all those who enjoy the interplay between word and image, and who relish the odd and the unexpected.

    In composition, it recognizes the separate but equally important identity of both a shape and its background.Since their introduction in the West, the intriguing exercises associated with Notan have produced striking results in every branch of Western art and design. This book, by two American artists and teachers who made an intensive study of Notan, was the first basic book on the subject in the West, and it remains one of the definitive texts. Through a series of simple exercises, it places the extraordinary creative resources of Notan easily within the grasp of Western artists and designers.Clearly and concisely, the authors demonstrate Notan's practical applications in six problems of progressive difficulty — creative exercises that will fascinate artists and designers of every calling and level of expertise. Along with these exercises, the book includes many illustrations of the principle of Notan, among them images as diverse as a sculpture by David Smith, a Samoan tapa cloth, a Museum of Modern Art shopping bag, New England gravestone rubbings, Japanese wrapping paper, a painting by Robert Motherwell, a psychedelic poster, and a carved and dyed Nigerian calabash. Painters, sculptors, potters, jewelry, and textile designers, architects, and interior designers all will discover — or rediscover — in these pages an ancient principle of composition that can help them meet creative challenges with fresh new perspective.

    You can gather materials from just about anywhere, glue them down on a surface and magically create a work of art. There are no mistakes, only discoveries. What could be more exciting?In Collage Discovery Workshop, acclaimed collage artist Claudine Hellmuth shares 15 of her favorite collage techniques and invites you to play with basic collage materials in new and imaginative ways. Along the way, Claudine guides you with friendly advice on how to develop your artistic voice and turn an ordinary collage into something special.Learn how to:Overcome "blank canvas" syndrome with recipes for four luscious backgroundsCombine words and images to capture a mood or tell a story in your collageIncorporate buttons, old photos, game pieces and other found objects in your artExplore the magical appeal of collaging with beeswaxLayer patterns and images in your collages with amazing transfer techniquesHonor a special friend with a personal keepsake collageUse a written journal to grow as an artistDon't wait another day to express yourself with collage. You never know what surprising discoveries await!

    Pencil Drawing Techniques brings together six of today's best artists, all of whom are incredibly fine instructors as well.The artists show you how to develop your skill and ability in handling pencil technique. Ferdinand Petrie shows you how to handle pencils and produce a controlled variety of lines, values, and textures. Then he shows you exactly how to use these techniques to draw landscapes in a range of styles and compositions.Rudy De Reyna explains pencil basics, and explores perspective, size relationships, form, and structure. Douglas grave teaches you how to begin drawing portraits by building a drawing step-by-step. Norman Dams and Joe Singer demonstrate how you can use the pencil to produce spectacular drawings of animals. John Blockley and Richard Bolton show you how pencil drawings can capture the essence of a subject and help you work out a plan for painting it. Finally, Bet Borgeson teaches you all the secrets of colored pencil work and demonstrates a whole new dimension. The book is divided into seven sections: how to handle a pencil, fundamentals of drawing, drawing landscapes, drawing portraits, drawing animals, drawing for watercolors, and handling color pencils. The copious illustrations show in detail how the artists use their techniques. For the artist who uses the pencil, Pencil Drawing Techniques is an an excellent instructional book of ideas for using the pencil creatively.

    With specific how-to techniques and creative prompts on using an artist's sketchbook in a new way, these pages provide a gentle push to help you discover and integrate your creative passions through sketchbooks, workspaces, and mixed media. Through beautiful full-color imagery, you’ll learn in each chapter how your collections, scraps, ideas, and doodles can lead directly to, and fuel ideas for, creating individual works of art.Using her own materials and methods as a source of motivation, Sarah Ahearn Bellemare provides an inside look at her personal creative processes, sharing her use of her favorite resources alongside tips and tricks for making art – all the while encouraging you to explore, play, and make mistakes as part of the journey. At the end of each chapter, Sarah takes you to visit the studios and sketchbooks of some of her fellow artists – including Shanna Murray, Christine Chitnis, Stephanie Levy, and others – for behind-the-scenes glances into their creative work.Become inspired to build upon your own artistic style and discover the beauty in everyday life with Painted Pages!

    Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites readers to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses. Robin Wall Kimmerer's book is not an identification guide, nor is it a scientific treatise. Rather, it is a series of linked personal essays that will lead general readers and scientists alike to an understanding of how mosses live and how their lives are intertwined with the lives of countless other beings, from salmon and hummingbirds to redwoods and rednecks. Kimmerer clearly and artfully explains the biology of mosses, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating organisms have to teach us.Drawing on her diverse experiences as a scientist, mother, teacher, and writer of Native American heritage, Kimmerer explains the stories of mosses in scientific terms as well as in the framework of indigenous ways of knowing. In her book, the natural history and cultural relationships of mosses become a powerful metaphor for ways of living in the world.Gathering Moss will appeal to a wide range of readers, from bryologists to those interested in natural history and the environment, Native Americans, and contemporary nature and science writing.

    It provides a wealth of advice on the choice of subject; it tells what to look for and aim for, and explains the mysteries of color, atmospheric conditions, and other phenomena to be found in nature. Through his profound understanding of the physical nature of landscapes and his highly developed artistic sense, John Carlson is able to explain both the whys and the hows of the various aspects of landscape painting. Among the subjects covered are angles and consequent values (an insightful concept necessary for strong overall unity of design), aerial and linear perspective, the painting of trees, the emotional properties of line and mass in composition, light, unity of tone, choice of subject, and memory work. In the beginning chapters, the author tells how to make the best of canvas, palette, colors, brushes, and other materials and gives valuable advice about texture, glazing, varnishing, bleaching, retouching, and framing. Thirty-four reproductions of Mr. Carlson's own work and 58 of his explanatory diagrams are shown on pages adjoining the text. As Howard Simon says in the introduction: "Crammed into its pages are the thoughts and experiences of a lifetime of painting and teaching. Undoubtedly it is a good book for the beginner, but the old hand at art will appreciate its honesty and broadness of viewpoint. It confines itself to the mechanics of landscape painting but, philosophically, it roams far and wide. . . . This is a book to keep, to read at leisure, and to look into for the solution of problems as they arise, when the need for an experienced hand is felt."

    But now what? Whether you want to use her in an animated film, television show, video game, web comic, or children's book, you're going to have to make her perform. How a character looks and is costumed starts to tell her story, but her body language reveals even more. Character Mentor shows you how to pose your character, create emotion through facial expressions, and stage your character to create drama. Author Tom Bancroft addresses each topic with clear, concise prose, and then shows you what he really means through commenting on and redrawing artwork from a variety of student apprentices. His assignments allow you to join in and bring your drawing to the next level with concrete techniques, as well as more theoretical analysis. Character Mentor is an apprenticeship in a book.Professional artists from a variety of media offer their experience through additional commentary. These include Marcus Hamilton (Dennis the Menace), Terry Dodson (X-Men), Bobby Rubio (Pixar), Sean Cheeks Galloway (Spiderman animated), and more. With a foreword by comicbook artist Adam Hughes, who has produced work for DC, Marvel Comics, Lucasfilm, Warner Bros. Pictures, and other companies.

    Yet when it comes to fungi, culinary uses are only the tip of the iceberg. Throughout history fungus has been prized for its diverse properties—medicinal, ecological, even recreational—and hasspawned its own quirky subculture dedicated to exploring the weird biology and celebrating the unique role it plays on earth. In Mycophilia, accomplished food writer and cookbook author Eugenia Bone examines the role of fungi as exotic delicacy, curative, poison, and hallucinogen, and ultimately discovers that a greater understanding of fungi is key to facing many challenges of the 21st century.Engrossing, surprising, and packed with up-to-date science and cultural exploration, Mycophilia is part narrative and part primer for foodies, science buffs, environmental advocates, and anyone interested in learning a lot about one of the least understood and most curious organisms in nature.

    From Baby Blue Eyes to Silver Bells, from Abelia to Zinnia, every flower tells a story. Gardening writer Diana Wells knows them all. Here she presents one hundred well-known garden favorites and the not-so-well-known stories behind their names. Not for gardeners only, this is a book for anyone interested not just in the blossoms, but in the roots, too.

    This lush, visual book is a must-have volume for both beginning and experienced art journalers. Each chapter presents crucial, basic information for how to get started, and is layered with in-depth sidebars and activities covering advanced techniques, approaches to working, as well as interviews with well-known journaling artists. The book comes with a beautiful blank journal in a take-along size (made from paper upcycled from the printing process), ready to catch your daily inspirations.