Using this unique Japanese system, artists can plot and cross-section elements on a matrix diagram to create an infinite number of original characters, creatures, and multiformed beasts. Angels, demons, dragons, monsters, and robots are all included in this book, along with descriptions of costumes and personalities for each.Manga Matrix is unlike any other manga instructional guide and is an invaluable resource for both the budding artist and the polished professional.

    Each spread in the book features a beautiful drawing by one of 8 professional illustrators, with a description and comments by the illustrator as well as a companion exercise. Each exercise includes suggestions for various mediums or mixed-media solutions, advice on how to approach and execute the drawing, as well as professional tips. The book also includes exercises designed to spark new ideas and increase creativity.

    C. Leyendecker captivated audiences throughout the first half of the 20th century. Leyendecker is best known for his creation of the archetype of the fashionable American male with his advertisements for Arrow Collar. These images sold to an eager public the idea of a glamorous lifestyle, the bedrock upon which modern advertising was built. He also was the creator instantly recognizable icons, such as the New Year’s baby and Santa Claus, that are to this day an integral part of the lexicon of Americana and was commissioned to paint more Saturday Evening Post covers than any other artist. Leyendecker lived for most of his adult life with Charles Beach, the Arrow Collar Man, on whom the stylish men in his artwork were modeled. The first book about the artist in more than 30 years, J. C. Leyendecker features his masterworks, rare paintings, studies, and other artwork, including the 322 covers he did for the Post. With a revealing text that delves into both his artistic evolution and personal life, J. C. Leyendecker restores this iconic image maker’s rightful position in the pantheon of great American artists.

    Published to accompany an exhibition held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in 1992-93, the book contains illustrations reproducing paintings, drawings, collages, silkscreens, and constructions, many previously unpublished.

    

    Illustrator, architect, and international workshop instructor and Urban Sketcher Stephanie Bower has collected 101 of her best insider drawing tips, hacks, and techniques and shares them in this fully illustrated, portable book. Learn shortcuts to getting your perspective right, determining your composition, and balancing your light and shadow. This book collects many basic drawing techniques into one handy volume:How to draw a great lineUsing ellipses to draw archesHow towers are like wedding cakesThe importance of your eye level line in sketchingand 97 things more!The book also features beautiful example illustrations from Urban Sketchers around the globe! Whether you are new to sketching or are an experienced artist, this book is chock-full of useful, practical, and clever tips to take your drawing to the next level. The Urban Sketching Handbook series offers location artists expert instruction on creative techniques, on-location tips and advice, and an abundance of visual inspiration. These handy references come in a compact, easy-to-carry format—perfect to toss in your backpack or artist’s tote.

    Work in the spirit of the laws of attraction to visualize the life of your dreams. Follow the journey of twelve artists, each who will set a personal dream or intention. Witness the process that each artist takes, as they create a mixed-media piece that sows the seeds of their intention. Step-by-step techniques for a variety of mixed-media processes accompany each piece of finished art. Read about how their lives changed as a result and learn how to set intentions of your own using the bonus tear-out "dream-prompt" cards.

    Until now. From deleted scenes and altered panels for the epic Kingdom Come saga to proposals for revamping such classic properties as Batgirl, Captain Marvel, and an imagined son of Batman named Batboy, to unused alternate comic book cover ideas for the monthly Superman and Batman comics of 2008-2009, there is much to surprise and delight anyone who thought they already know all of Alex’s DC Comics work. Illuminating everything is Alex’s own commentary, written expressly for this book, explaining his though processes and stylistic approaches for the various riffs and reimaginings of characters we thought we knew everything about but whose possibilities we didn’t fully understand. As a record of a pivotal era in comics history, Rough Justice is a must for Alex’s legion of fans, as well as anyone interested in masterly comic book imagination and illustration.

    This volume, prepared by an expert in the field, is devoted exclusively to just that. With its clear, concise text, its almost 200 excellent illustrations, and its overall life-drawing approach, the book provides valuable guidelines on how best to portray faces, features, and heads. There is probably no better instructor to turn to than George B. Bridgman. He brings to the subject both his expertise as an artist and his fifty years' experience as lecturer and teacher at the Art Students League of New York. Throughout the book, he places as much emphasis on perspective and planes as on anatomy. In this way, you'll develop a more precise understanding of each feature, the head and face in general, the relationship between features, and the relationship between a specific feature and the face or head. Mr. Bridgman's consideration of the head includes such topics as the head at eye level and below eye level; planes of the head; and round and square forms. Four features — eye, nose, mouth, ear — are dealt with in detail. Sections on light and shade, comparative measurements, and principles of cube and oval construction further enhance the scope of the book. The finely executed drawings complement the textual material, illustrating all important concepts.  Of special value is the author's inclusion of the work of famous portrait artists. Vermeer, Hals, Rembrandt, Reynolds, Louise Elisabeth LeBrun — these are the people who made portraiture a master art; and you'll be able to study, up close and at your leisure, the qualities that let their work achieve the status it did.

    Simple and bold or capable of the most exquisite effects of tonal gradation, this elegant black-and-white artwork sustains no loss in reproduction and is a perfect complement to typography. 1,419 clear wood engravings present, in natural, lifelike poses, over 1,000 species of animals. Included are many different versions of the familiar animals most wanted and used by commercial artists and craftsmen. Arranged according to the following seven categories, the illustrations portray mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, and other invertebrates. Selected for their visual impact and usability by artist-collagist Jim Harter, these illustrations form one of the most extensive, royalty-free pictorial sourcebooks of animals ever assembled for the specific use of illustrators, graphic designers, craftspeople, decoupeurs, and collagists. Captions give modern common-name identifications, and a thorough index provides immediate access to individual animal pictures. Because of the accuracy and detail of most of the renderings, naturalists will also enjoy browsing through this volume and using it for illustrative purposes.

    The exciting pieces come from an international array of artists, each with a unique perspective. The stylishly varied collection has a little bit of everything: the cups range from handbuilt to wheel-thrown, practical to sculptural, round to square. Benjamin Schulman's "Stacked Teacup Set" takes a strictly functional approach, while Heather O'Brien's "Dessert Cups on Stand" focuses on aesthetic form rather than usefulness. Annette Gates' "Espresso Shot Cups with Rubies" has a surface design of simple abstract lines and dots of glaze and jewels. Some are whimsical, others starkly conceptual. Every one is a treat for the eye.

    Brandon Graham (born 1976) was widely acclaimed for his book "King City," with "Publishers Weekly" calling Graham "one of the most inventive action cartoonists working." "Walrus," his first art book, serves as a handbook to his visual and verbal world, a punning, humorous and sexy metropolis comprised of machines, logos, women and bumbling men, all cast in an alternate sci-fi universe.

    Through his street roots in graffiti, Basquiat helped to establish new possibilities for figurative and expressionistic painting, breaking the white male stranglehold of Conceptual and Minimal art, and foreshadowing, among other tendencies, Germany's Junge Wilde movement. It was not only Basquiat's art but also the details of his biography that made his name legendary--his early years as "Samo" (his graffiti artist moniker), his friendships with Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Madonna and his tragically early death from a heroin overdose. This superbly produced retrospective publication assesses Basquiat's luminous career with commentary by, among others, Glenn O'Brien, and 160 color reproductions of the work.Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Puerto Rican mother and a Haitian father--an ethnic mix that meant young Jean-Michel was fluent in French, Spanish and English by the age of 11. In 1977, at the age of 17, Basquiat took up graffiti, inscribing the landscape of downtown Manhattan with his signature "Samo." In 1980 he was included in the landmark group exhibition The Times Square Show; the following year, at the age of 21, Basquiat became the youngest artist ever to be invited to Documenta. By 1982, Basquiat had befriended Andy Warhol, later collaborating with him; Basquiat was much affected by Warhol's death in 1987. He died of a heroin overdose on August 22, 1988, at the age of 27.

    Minutes to Midnight is the ambitious photographic record of that adventure, in which Parke presents a proud but uneasy nation struggling to craft its identity from different cultures and traditions. Minutes to Midnight merges traditional documentary techniques and imagination to create a dark visual narrative portraying Australia with a mix of nostalgia, romanticism and brooding realism. This is not a record of the physical landscape but of an emotional one. It is a story of human anxiety and intensity which, although told from Australia, represents a universal human condition in the world today.

    Rothko also wrote a number of essays and critical reviews during his lifetime, adding his thoughtful, intelligent, and opinionated voice to the debates of the contemporary art world. Although the artist never published a book of his varied and complex views, his heirs indicate that he occasionally spoke of the existence of such a manuscript to friends and colleagues. Stored in a New York City warehouse since the artist’s death more than thirty years ago, this extraordinary manuscript, titled The Artist’s Reality, is now being published for the first time. Probably written around 1940–41, this revelatory book discusses Rothko’s ideas on the modern art world, art history, myth, beauty, the challenges of being an artist in society, the true nature of “American art,” and much more. The Artist’s Reality alsoincludes an introduction by Christopher Rothko, the artist’s son, who describes the discovery of the manuscript and the complicated and fascinating process of bringing the manuscript to publication. The introduction is illustrated with a small selection of relevant examples of the artist’s own work as well as with reproductions of pages from the actual manuscript.The Artist’s Reality willbe a classic text for years to come, offering insight into both the work and the artistic philosophies of this great painter.