Created in the 1890s by George Washington Vanderbilt, a member of one of America's wealthiest families, the estate combined a 250-room French Renaissance-style chateau with 125,000 acres of gardens, forests, and working farms. Biltmore House served as Vanderbilt's primary residence for almost 20 years. After Mr. Vanderbilt's death in 1914, life at Biltmore continued for his wife Edith and daughter Cornelia. In 1930, Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil and her husband, Hon. John Francis Amherst Cecil, opened Biltmore House--the largest private home in the United States--to the public, firmly establishing the Asheville area as a major tourist destination.

    Authors James Watkins and Paul Wandless, along with a group of distinguished artisans, demonstrate in detail how to build low-cost, low-tech, yet high-quality kilns. The plans range from an easy, affordable, and versatile Raku Kiln to a unique wood-fueled Downdraft Stovepipe Barrel one. These clever devices make it possible to produce rich surface effects from alternative reduction firing techniques. In addition to showing the basic procedures for using each kiln, easy-to-follow directions for many fast-fire methods unfold in color photographs: You’ll see how to achieve terra sigillata surfaces with direct chemical application, and how to do traditional crackle-glaze raku and smoke finishes.

    How did the Old Masters create their masterpieces? What kind of education allowed these great artists to create such beautiful work, and how can an artist learn these lessons today? Traditional Oil Painting answers those questions and many more. This comprehensive sourcebook explores the most advanced levels of oil painting, with full information on the latest scientific discoveries. Author and distinguished artist Virgil Elliott examines the many elements that let artists take the next step in their work: mental attitude, aesthetic considerations, the importance of drawing, principles of visual reality, materials, techniques, portraiture, photographic images versus visual reality, and color. Traditional Oil Painting helps artists master the secrets of realistic painting to create work that will rival that of the masters.

    The book features detailed knitting patterns, schematics, and basic animal hat-making techniques—plus how-to instruction for adding a fleecy hat-lining for extra coziness. There are patterns for every animal-lover. Animals included are cat, dog, chicken, rabbit, pig, frog, penguin, cow, elephant, fox, koala, monkey, panda, lion, and mouse. Patterns offer both child and adult sizes, so family members can each have their own hat.

    Color photos accompany detailed step-by-step instructions for transforming the original square pattern into rectangles, triangles, and circles with eight wonderful designs. Featuring seven unique projects—including an afghan, a basket, a table runner, a hat, and a scarf—this creative manual illustrates how this perfect, two-round stitch offers versatility of color because of its unique, textured color overlap.

    Encouraging you to make journaling a part of your daily routine, Keeping a Nature Journal is full of engaging exercises and stimulating prompts that will help you hone your powers of observation and appreciate new aspects of nature’s endlessly varied beauty.

    Japan, meanwhile, was trying to reinvent itself as a more cosmopolitan, modern state, ultimately transforming itself, in the course of twenty-five years, from a feudal backwater to an international power. This great wave of historical and cultural reciprocity between the two young nations, which intensified during the late 1800s, brought with it some larger-than-life personalities, as the lure of unknown foreign cultures prompted pilgrimages back and forth across the Pacific.In The Great Wave, Benfey tells the story of the tightly knit group of nineteenth-century travelers—connoisseurs, collectors, and scientists—who dedicated themselves to exploring and preserving Old Japan. As Benfey writes, “A sense of urgency impelled them, for they were convinced—Darwinians that they were—that their quarry was on the verge of extinction.”These travelers include Herman Melville, whose Pequod is “shadowed by hostile and mysterious Japan”; the historian Henry Adams and the artist John La Farge, who go to Japan on an art-collecting trip and find exotic adventures; Lafcadio Hearn, who marries a samurai’s daughter and becomes Japan’s preeminent spokesman in the West; Mabel Loomis Todd, the first woman to climb Mt. Fuji; Edward Sylvester Morse, who becomes the world’s leading expert on both Japanese marine life and Japanese architecture; the astronomer Percival Lowell, who spends ten years in the East and writes seminal works on Japanese culture before turning his restless attention to life on Mars; and President (and judo enthusiast) Theodore Roosevelt. As well, we learn of famous Easterners come West, including Kakuzo Okakura, whose The Book of Tea became a cult favorite, and Shuzo Kuki, a leading philosopher of his time, who studied with Heidegger and tutored Sartre.Finally, as Benfey writes, his meditation on cultural identity “seeks to capture a shared mood in both the Gilded Age and the Meiji Era, amid superficial promise and prosperity, of an overmastering sense of precariousness and impending peril.”

    Today, museums are staging exhibitions of encaustic art, workshops in the technique are thriving, and art collectors and dealers are assimilating encaustic art into their collections and galleries. The word encaustic is taken from the Greek and means “to burn in.” In the encaustic process, pigmented wax is applied and then fused to a surface with heat. The result is a broad range of surface effects and a luminous translucency that is unique to the encaustic medium. Encaustic Art is a complete resource for artists who wish to learn to create fine art with wax. It features step-by-step techniques with easy-to-understand instructions and detailed illustrations, stunning examples of encaustic works of art (including sculpture), along with practical advice and thoughtful aesthetic observations from more than 60 professional artists working in the encaustic medium.

     Based on linguistic science and proven techniques, this book guides you through a series of Chapters taking 5-10 minutes each, progressively introducing new characters and pronunciation rules so you come away reading 9 words of Korean in 60 minutes. Set your stopwatch, progress through the lessons, and come away reading Korean in less than the time it takes to watch a movie. Leave your time in the comments as a review to prove the skeptics wrong! More than 10 thousand students have learned to read Korean with us, and now it’s your turn. • 5 Chapters: 5036 words, additional review exercises, bonus notes, mneomnic devices and full explanations • Free Online Learning: Blog posts, vocabulary, and lessons at www.90daykorean.com/blog To learn more visit 90daykorean.com. WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS ARE SAYING: “I'm just soooooooooooooo thankful! You're AMAZING! The challenge was incredible. I never thought that learning Hangul was so easy! -Sarah Son, France" THE 90 DAY KOREAN SATISFACTION GUARANTEE: Feel confident with a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee backed for 30 days. If you are not happy with the guide, simply contact us for a full refund. WANT AN EASIER WAY TO READ KOREAN? EASILY MEMORIZE, GET PAST YOUR STICKING POINTS, STOP USING ROMANIZATION, SPEED UP YOUR STUDIES, AND GET STARTED LEARNING KOREAN by adding the new book "Learn to READ KOREAN: The Ultimate Crash Course to LEARNING HANGUL Through Psychological Associations to your bookshelf TODAY!

    The featured work ranges from lettering expert Jill K. Berry's beautifully calligraphied travel journals to Jeannette Sclar's whimsical gardening books, and the techniques include everything from toner-based transfer to stitching with fabric and paper. With over 200 inspirational photos to guide them, even beginners can create works of art right from the start.

    In Draw Your Day, Baker guides you through her inspirational practice and provides guidance for starting your own. Part instructional guide and part encouraging manifesto about how making art--even art that's not museum-worthy--can make your life more mindful and meaningful, Draw Your Day is ideal for both seasoned artists looking for fresh inspiration, as well as aspiring artists who need a friendly nudge to get started.

    Mercurial, versatile, inexpensive, and wildly colorful, alcohol inks are one of the newest mediums to hit the art community. Pigments of Your Imagination is your essential guide for working with alcohol inks, from choosing which inks to use for each project to learning how to maximize your artistic potential with a wide variety of fascinating techniques. Using an assortment of materials and tools, learn how to work on a variety of surfaces, including paper, glass, metal, fabric, and plastic. Find inspiration for your own masterpieces in the step-by-step demos and guest artist gallery. From the beginning craftsperson to the professional artist, Pigments of Your Imagination offers a broad insight into the expansive world of alcohol inks. Explore the limits of your artistic ingenuity with alcohol inks. Jump start your creativity!

    You choose whether to let the sun blaze or the rain pour, to move a maple tree here or make the trail wind over there, to subdue a hillside with quiet greens or make a forest glow with dazzling golds and reds. It's not only a matter of what to paint, but how to go about painting it.This book examines, one at a time, the three major elements of landscape painting: water, sky and land. You will be encouraged to try numerous ways of painting each one. Then you can choose the methods that best express how the outdoors speaks to you.Let this reliable collection of tips, techniques, ideas and lessons be your companion on a sure path to creative fulfillment and better watercolor landscapes.

    This one is huge! Over 160 pages of easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to DO tips that will make you a better photographer!If you are tired of being the runner-up in all the local photography contests and want to start hearing "Ooohs" and "Aaahs" when people look at your photos, this one is for YOU!To give you an idea of what is included, here is the table of contents...Introduction:The Basics Of Photography:Key 1: Photography SimplifiedKey 2: Aperture And Shutter SpeedKey 3: Master Your Camera - Fast!Key 4: The Photographer's Secret WeaponKey 5: Creativity Can Be LearnedKey 6: A New Vantage PointKey 7: Put the "Wow" Factor In Your Photos!Key 8: Tell A StoryKey 9: Exposure - How Your Meter Works!Key 10: How To Shoot In Black And White Eliminate Camera Shake:Key 11: Your Shooting StanceKey 12: Tripod TipsKey 13: Use A Tripod Like A MonopodKey 14: How To Use A MonopodKey 15: Hands Off The Button!Key 16: Mirror, Mirror…Using On Camera FlashKey 17: The Ten Foot RuleKey 18: Intensify The Colors In Your PhotosKey 19: Eliminate "Red Eye!"Outdoors/Landscape PhotographyKey 20: Create Better Landscape PhotosKey 21: Shooting In Bad WeatherKey 22: Two Horizon Photo TipsKey 23: More On Level HorizonsKey 24: Stunning City Skyline PhotographyKey 25: Shoot Better sunset PhotosKey 26: How To Get Intense Sunset Photo ColorsKey 27: Filters To The RescueKey 28: The Indispensable Rubber BandKey 29: Recovering The GroundKey 30: Amazing WaterfallsKey 31: Making Clouds "POP!"Key 32: To Buy Or Not To Buy Colored FiltersKey 33: Storing Your FiltersKey 34: Using Kodak Yellow!Key 35: Fireworks And Lightning - Part 1Key 36: Fireworks And Lightning - Part 2Key 37: Flowers And Spider Webs - Part 1Key 38: Flowers And Spider Webs - Part 2Key 39: Turn AroundPet PortraitsKey 40: Pet Portraits - Great For Camera MasteryKey 41: Better Pet Portraits In 3 Easy StepsKey 42: In Pet Portraits The Ears Matter!Key 43: Problem AnimalsPortrait PhotographyKey 44: Tips For Improving Your PortraitsKey 45: 2 Easy Portrait Photography TipsKey 46: The "Photographic Ground Modification System!"Key 47: Visually Lose Weight!Key 48: The Ultimate Portrait Photography Tip!Key 49: Size MattersKey 50: Basics Of Lighting Portrait PhotographyAdditional Training:

    For advanced crafters, this book instructs on features such as modes and functions, and teaches how to create with color, texture, and dimension. A cutting guide teaches the perfect settings to cut every type of material. A separate chapter introduces the new features of Cricut Expression™ 2 and explains how it differs from the original Expression machine. More than 50 creative projects inspire ideas for home décor, gifts, parties, cards, and scrapbook layouts.