This beautiful box set is drawn from the unrivalled collection of images at the Natural History Museum, London. It includes exquisitely crafted works from some of the most famous natural history artists ever published including Audubon, Gould, MacGillivray and Bauer. They are complemented by Jonathan Elphick's detailed text, which interweaves ornithological science, art history, biography and travel to create a vivid picture of the lives of both the artists and the birds they painted. Jonathan Elphick's book is accompanied by 36 stunning frameable prints (333 x 260 mm), pictured below, which have been reproduced directly from the original artworks held by the Museum.

Learn to paint cute animals and wildlife in this free-and-easy approach to watercolor. Artist Natalia Skatula has a beautiful, whimsical style that will charm you through 12 simple step-by-step projects and over 100 worked examples. Beginning with an overview on materials and equipment, Natalia then covers the general techniques needed to achieve the paintings, along with her top-10 personal tips for success. Projects include a majestic whale, an adorable sloth, elephants, pandas, dogs, llamas, bears, foxes, rabbits and more, with a range of presentation ideas to inspire you to put your finished work on display or gift it. The gallery of examples that follows includes plants, cats, beetles, birds, sealife, jungle creatures and fruits, giving you a treasure-trove of references for your painting.

Eagles hold a unique allure among birds for their combination of power, grace, and predatory prowess. Captivating the human imagination, these raptors have symbolized pride, freedom, and independence of spirit since humankind's earliest times. This book, unlike any previous volume, encompasses each of the world's sixty-eight currently recognized eagle species, from the huge Steller's Sea Eagle that soars above Japan's winter ice floes to the diminutive Little Eagle that hunts over the Australian outback. Mike Unwin's vivid and authoritative descriptions combined with stunning photographs taken or curated by David Tipling deliver a fascinating and awe-inspiring volume. Featuring chapters organized by habitat, the book investigates the lifestyle and unique adaptations of each eagle species, as well as the significance of eagles in world cultures and the threats they face from humans. A gorgeous appreciation of eagles, this book will dazzle both eye and imagination.

A magnificent pictorial document of the flowers grown in the greatest German garden of its time, the Hortus Eystettensis is in a class of its own when it comes to the range of flowers engraved. First published in 1613, the 367 copperplate engravings by Basilius Besler (1561-1629) capture the spectacular diversity of the palatial gardens of Prince-Bishop Johann Konrad von Gemmingen (1593/95-1612) in Eichstatt, Bavaria, Germany. The meticulous illustrations are organized according to the four seasons, and, following the classification system used today, show plants belonging to a total of 90 families and covering 340 genera. The whole collection is regarded as one of the finest treasures of botanical literature; it was described by Carl Linnaeus, the legendary 18th-century botanist and zoologist, as an "incomparable work." Besler's pictorial catalog long outlived the gardens, which were destroyed in 1634 by invading Swedish troops. In auction, the asking price for a first-edition copy of Hortus Eystettensis is now more than half a million dollars. With this edition, TASCHEN opens up the garden to a much wider audience: a rich and beautiful record, destined to keep the garden's beauty in bloom. About the series Bibliotheca Universalis - Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe!

The Golden Age of Botanical Art brings together the stories of the intrepid explorers - some of whom became botanical artists by default - and the many professional artists who recorded the flora that they discovered on their travels and expeditions. From some of the earliest attempts at art to the plant hunters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the images produced in the study of plants have held a fascination for all those who love nature. Truly global in its scope, this beautifully illustrated book moves across centuries and continents looking at the artistry of China and India, delving into the sketchbooks of explorers in the Himalayas and following the voyages of those who discovered new worlds and new species as far apart as Russia and South America. Alongside special features on key figures in the botanical art world, The Golden Age of Botanical Art highlights the work of some of the great names of botanical art, including Ehret and Bauer. Included within is a host of rarely published and previously unpublished images from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, as well as an outline on how what might have been a pastime for some also made a significant contribution to our understanding of the world and the glories of nature.

Introducing the first collection of art books with detachable prints to decorate your walls. Everything you need to create your own private gallery at home!

Each book contains a curated selection of twenty-one high-quality reproductions that can be easily removed from the book, framed in a standard-size frame, and displayed in the home. Step-by-step tips for grouping the works to create a harmonious gallery add an interior designer’s touch to the ensemble. Graphic, colorful, or abstract; paintings, engravings, or drawings―each work of art is explained on the back of the print. Interesting details about the style of painting, the particular work of art, and biographical information about the artist are accompanied by a “frameable fact” that helps you understand the context of that particular work in the history of art. In addition, suggestions for where you can go to see additional examples of the artists’ works allow the reader to expand their experience and learning.

Plays on light and color from Japanese woodblock prints to Rothko’s white cloud on a brilliant orange background. Artists include John Constable, Claude Monet, Paul Signac, Edgar Degas, Nicolas de Staël, Hermione Carline, Eugène Delacroix, René Magritte, Helen White, and Mark Rothko.

Flowers by Rosie Sanders is a large-format book that showcases over 80 of her finest flower paintings in exquisite detail. Often compared to the artist Georgia O'Keeffe, Rosie Sanders's botanical paintings lie at the extreme end of botanical art - they exude dynamism and sensuality in every brushstroke and their richness of colour sets her apart from her contemporaries. In this beautifully illustrated book, Rosie exhibits a selection of flowers, from tulips to orchids, roses to irises, anemones to amaryllis, and illuminates them with fascinating and skillful uses of perspective and light. This large-format book showcases her finest paintings in exquisite detail and they are accompanied by excellent and accessible scientific commentary. Also included is an introduction by renowned Swiss botanist Dr. Andreas Honegger. This book is perfect for artists want to get a closer look at a master's brushstrokes, textures and colour in paintings, or readers who are interested in contemporary botanical art. Chapters include: 1. Diversity in the Garden 2. Dark Flowers: the Magic of Night 3. A Fascination of Orchids 4. Lilies in Spring 5. Varieties of Belladonna 6. In Search of the Black Iris.

This fresh and fun introduction to watercolour teaches beginner artists to create their own botanical-inspired paintings. Start by learning how to select paper, paint and brushes and then dive into lessons and exercises on creating a palette, blending colours and adding dimension and detail. Once these essential techniques have been mastered, there are lessons on learning to paint cacti, popular houseplants and individual flowers, including roses, peonies, lavender and more.

Up to fifty percent of the world's flower species could be are threatened with extinction. Each year, numerous flowers disappear from the face of the Earth without ever being documented. Indeed, many of these natural beauties remain as yet unknown to humankind. Photographer Richard Fischer can be regarded as the ambassador for flowers. For many years, he has staged graceful and endangered floral specimens in his photo studio, capturing the uniqueness and transience of each flower. In collaboration with the world's leading botanical gardens, his strikingly original images provide the flowers with an aesthetic framework in which their power of expression and majesty remain intact. Fischer's precise, yet delicate floral compositions record the unique color, form, and texture of each flower, while signaling to the extraordinary beauty, diversity, and fragility of the natural world. Fischer's inimitable flower photographs have bestowed him with exhibitions around the world: In Paris, London and Tokyo, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, and the renowned China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. Richard Fischer prints are much sought after collector's items in the art photography market and calendars of his flower images appear annually. Now, for the first time, Richard Fischer brings together his best pictures spanning 15 years in one flower photography book, showcasing his artwork and little-known floral exotica. Throughout the volume, the photographs are accompanied by informative and captivating texts, leading the reader through an unknown and dwindling world of flowers.

This stunning new series of pocketbooks from Kew offer a snapshot into the diverse and beautiful world of plants. Each book lavishly showcases choice examples from individual plant groups or collections, beginning with the popular plant groups Palms and Cacti. The Library, Art and Archives at Kew is one of the most extensive botanical libraries in the world, with the oldest item dating back to the 1370s. In this new pocketbook series from Kew, each book presents 40 botanical paintings from the collection, illustrating the variety within each plant group, as well as the diversity of the collection and artistic styles. An introductory chapter by a Kew expert provides an overview of palms, and extended captions accompany each painting. The luxury finish on these books make them a must-have gift item, printed on uncoated paper and with a cloth and foil finish.

The fifty-two paintings gathered here reveal as never before the wild beauty of Little St. Simons, an undeveloped barrier island on the Georgia coast. In showing us the island's marshes and tidal creeks, shrub lands and forests, and dunes and beaches, artist Philip Juras helps us understand the natural and historical forces continually at work on this unique place. The Wild Treasury of Nature continues Juras's exploration of the presettlement wilderness of the American South as the earliest naturalists would have encountered it. Strikingly composed and executed, Juras's island paintings are based on extensive research and many hours spent at the sites he documents. From the contours of a pristine landscape down to the shape and colour of its smallest plant, each scene is a historically and ecologically credible rendering of a place that has remained miraculously unspoiled. The writings that accompany Juras's paintings describe the natural history and unique cultural past of Little St. Simons in particular and the southern barrier islands in general, place the artwork within the American landscape painting tradition, and underscore the importance of vigilant stewardship for the island and the few remaining American places like it.

Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) was one of the leading British landscape painters of the 19th century. Inspired by his mentor, the artist and poet William Blake, Palmer brought a new spiritual intensity to his interpretation of nature, producing works of unprecedented boldness and fervency. Pre-eminent scholar William Vaughan-who organized the Palmer retrospective at the British Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005-draws on unpublished diaries and letters, offering a fresh interpretation of one of the most attractive and sympathetic, yet idiosyncratic, figures of the 19th century. Far from being a recluse, as he is often presented, Palmer was actively engaged in Victorian cultural life and sought to exert a moral power through his artwork. Beautifully illustrated with Palmer's visionary and enchanted landscapes, the book contains rich studies of his work, influences, and resources. Vaughan also shows how later, enthralled by the Pre-Raphaelite movement, Palmer manipulated his own artistic image to harmonize with it. Little appreciated in his lifetime, Palmer is now hailed as a precursor of modernism in the 20th century.

An intriguing and richly illustrated analysis of the symbolic imagery found in gardens throughout history, this work features dedicated mailing to targeted art and gardening related media and organisations. This superbly illustrated volume presents readers with an intelligent and engaging analysis of the constituent elements of gardens - both real and imagined - that uncovers their often-hidden symbolic meanings. It uses over 380 paintings to provide a continuous visual record of the myriad and ephemeral form of the garden, with salient details being drawn to the reader's attention for closer examination. The first half of "Gardens in Art" examines the main types of garden throughout history, from the humble medieval enclosure for devotions, through the magnificent gardens celebrating the power of popes and kings, to the great public parks of the 19th century. The second half focuses on the decorative elements - including topiaries, statues, grottoes, and labyrinths - and discusses how they provide clues to their importance in particular cultures.

Whether you need to draw a cat, a flying squirrel, or a sea horse, How to Draw Almost Every Animal is your ultimate go-to guide! Not sure how to start your drawing of a flamingo or slippery slug? Boggled by how to draw an antelope, an armadillo, or a cheetah? How to Draw Almost Every Animal is here to help! Need to draw a hippopotamus? A lazy, brown dog? A quick, red fox? Then this collection of over 75 adorable animals to draw and doodle is just the book for you! This teaching tool does more than just show you completed pictures of the animals. Each illustration is broken down with step-by-step diagrams and helpful tips to truly teach you how to draw. Plus, we've included extra images to teach you how to draw animals relaxing in their natural habitats and on the move. A helpful how-to section includes valuable coloring tips and techniques for mastering fur and feather, spots, stripes, scales, spines, and everything else animals are covered in. Each book in the Almost Everything series offers readers a fun, comprehensive, and charmingly illustrated visual directory of ideas to inspire skill building in their creative endeavors.

"Have you ever experienced the peace of walking through the woods or the excitement of a storm gathering on a beach? Artwork provides the ability for us to capture those moments and share them with others."

"Drawing Nature for the Absolute Beginner" offers a great beginner's course on drawing nature. In their fun and friendly teaching style, Mark and Mary Willenbrink show you how to realistically capture the world around you.

All you need to get started are some simple supplies, basic techniques, and inspiration. From field to forest, beach or mountain, begin with a structural sketch, apply values and textures, and, before you know it, you'll be drawing everything you see. You'll even learn how to render favorite wildlife such as chipmunks, deer and eagles

• Follow along with easy step-by-step demonstrations to draw rocks, seashells, butterflies and even more developed nature scenes.
• Gain a working understanding of key concepts such as perspective, value and composition.
• Discover simple tools and tips you can use right away to improve your art.

Your artistic journey can be as pleasant as your final destination with drawing instruction meant for everyone.

A lavishly illustrated look at how evolution plays out in selective breeding Unnatural Selection is a stunningly illustrated book about selective breeding--the ongoing transformation of animals at the hand of man. More important, it's a book about selective breeding on a far, far grander scale-a scale that encompasses all life on Earth. We'd call it evolution. A unique fusion of art, science, and history, this book celebrates the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's monumental work The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, and is intended as a tribute to what Darwin might have achieved had he possessed that elusive missing piece to the evolutionary puzzle-the knowledge of how individual traits are passed from one generation to the next. With the benefit of a century and a half of hindsight, Katrina van Grouw explains evolution by building on the analogy that Darwin himself used-comparing the selective breeding process with natural selection in the wild, and, like Darwin, featuring a multitude of fascinating examples. This is more than just a book about pets and livestock, however. The revelation of Unnatural Selection is that identical traits can occur in all animals, wild and domesticated, and both are governed by the same evolutionary principles. As van Grouw shows, animals are plastic things, constantly changing. In wild animals the changes are usually too slow to see-species appear to stay the same. When it comes to domesticated animals, however, change happens fast, making them the perfect model of evolution in action. Suitable for the lay reader and student, as well as the more seasoned biologist, and featuring more than four hundred breathtaking illustrations of living animals, skeletons, and historical specimens, Unnatural Selection will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in natural history and the history of evolutionary thinking.

In this colourful journal, writer-illustrator Barbara Bash has re-created her chronicles of meditation and contemplative wandering during a series of solitary country retreats. Combining journal notes in calligraphy watercolour-and-pencil drawings, she captures exquisite moments of magic in the natural environment: a dragonfly's brief pause, a surprised deer in tall grass, a lumbering skunk's visit, the woods at twilight. Nature lovers, gardeners, and anyone who enjoys solitary country walks will recognise in Barbara a kindred spirit and will find hours of pleasure in these pages.

Horses are very rare in Africa. The few to be found west of Sudan, from the lands of the Sahara and Sahel down to the fringes of the tropical forests, belong to the king, the chief warrior and to notable persons. Due to the dense humidity of the tropical rainforest and the deadly tsetse fly, only restricted numbers of horses survive. And yet rider and mount sculptures are common among the Dogon, Djenne, Bamana, Senufo and the Yoruba people. The Akan-Asante people of Ghana and the Kotoko of Chad produced a good deal of small casting brass and bronze sculptures. Some of the artists could barely even have caught a glimpse of a horse. This visually stunning book presents a wealth of African art depicting the horse and its rider in a variety of guises, from Epa masks and Yoruba divination cups to Dogon sculptures and Senufo carvings. In Mali, the Bamana, Boso and Somono ethnic groups still celebrate the festivals of the puppet masquerade. The final chapter of this book is dedicated to the art and cult of these festivals, which are still alive and well. It is not the habit of the African artist to provide intellectual statements for his work, yet his unique creative dynamic and far-searching vision does not conflict with that of his Western counterpart. It is fair to state that the African, who though not educated in Western art history, contributed his fair share to the shaping of modern art. Features works from museums in both Africa and Europe, including the Musee Royal de L'Afrique Central, Tervuren in Belgium; Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal, Netherlands; Musee du quai Branly, Paris; Museum Rietberg, Zurich; The British Museum, London; Museu National de Antologia, Lisbon and National Museum, Lagos, Nigeria.

In 365 Days of Art in Nature, Lorna Scobie, invites the reader to take a closer look at the natural world - whether that's outside on location, or inside their own home - reminding us all that regardless of whether we live in the city or the countryside, wildlife is just on our doorstep.

Observe the slow, constant pace of the nature that surrounds you every day, and use it to inspire you in your art and creativity. Activities may include visiting a particular tree, four times in the year and drawing it. How has it changed? Study the colours you find in autumn leaves. Explore drawing them in different materials.

Featuring nature-inspired quotes, breakaway activities to get you outdoors and plenty of supportive prompts and tips, this book will spark your imagination and help you to open your eyes and appreciate the natural beauty in our world.

George Stubbs (1724-1806), now recognized as one of the greatest and most original artists of the eighteenth century, stands out from other practitioners in the field of animal painting. His most frequent commissions were for paintings of horses, dogs, and wild animals, and his images invariably arrest attention and frequently strike a deeply poetic note. Stubbs did not emerge as a painter until he was in his mid-thirties, but then his genius flowered astonishingly. He steadily celebrates English sporting and country life and reveals himself-in his "incidental" portraits of jockeys and grooms, for example-as a perceptive observer of different levels of social behavior. Among his many experiments with technique were his chemical experiments with painting in enamels, first on copper and later on earthenware "tablets," manufactured for him in Wedgwood's potteries. This is the first full catalogue of Stubbs's paintings and drawings. Along with the full catalogue entries, the book offers a lengthy study of Stubbs's art and career.

This is the story of the Reeves Collection of botanical paintings, the result of one man's single-minded dedication to commissioning pictures and gathering plants for the Horticultural Society of London. Reeves went to China in 1812 and immediately on arrival started sending back snippets of information about manufactures, plants and poetry, goods, gods and tea to Sir Joseph Banks. Slightly later, he also started collecting for the Society but despite years of work collecting, labelling and packing plants and organising a team of Chinese artists until he left China in 1831, Reeves never enjoyed the same degree of recognition as other naturalists in China. This was possibly because he had a demanding job as a tea inspector. Reeves himself never claimed to be a professional naturalist and the plant collecting and painting supervision were undertaken in his own time. Furthermore, fan qui (foreign devils) were restricted to the port area of Canton and to Macau, so that plant-hunting expeditions further afield were impossible. Furthermore, Reeves never published an account of his life in the country, unlike Clarke Abel and Robert Fortune, but he left us some letters, notebooks, drawings and maps. The Collection is held at the Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Library in Vincent Square, London. It is a magnificent achievement. Not only are the pictures accurate and richly coloured plant portraits of plants then unknown in the West, but they stand as a record of plants being cultivated in nineteenth-century Canton and Macau. In John Reeves: Pioneering Collector of Chinese Plants and Botanical Art, Kate Bailey reveals John Reeves' life as an East India Company tea inspector in nineteenth-century China and shows how he managed to collect and document thousands of Chinese natural history drawings, far more than anyone else at the time.

Let Jerry Yarnell teach you how to paint acrylic landscapes

You can master landscape painting with the help of popular painter Jerry Yarnell. Jerry starts by exploring different areas of landscape painting that often create problems for beginning and intermediate artists. He'll walk you through individual studies, so you can practice and explore new techniques without worrying about ruining a complete painting, then he'll show you how to apply those techniques to create finished works of art.

Learn how to:

• Work with the right materials
• Master all essential techniques
• Choose, mix and apply color

This title is the IP Book Awards 2007 Gold Medal winner for Outstanding Book of the Year - Most Original Concept. Never before seen SEM images are unique to the book. It will appeal to scientists, artists and photographers alike. The extraordinary beauty and structure of pollen grains invisible to the naked eye. This book is the result of the shared fascination of an artist and a scientist with the perfect design of organisms too small to be seen without a microscope. Pollen is ubiquitous; its tiny forms have fascinated the scientifically curious since the seventeenth century. Its tiny grains are enclosed beyond the accessible beauty of the flower until the moment of release, when they are carried by wind, water or animal vectors to achieve their purpose, which is procreation. A clear explanation of the structure and form of pollen, the remarkable events from pollination to fertilization, and the many ways in which pollen impacts unseen on our lives is interwoven with a dazzling array of original images created especially for the book.

Throughout the centuries women have made significant contributions to natural history art, science and education. This stunning collection celebrates the work and lives of women artists spanning the last four centuries and is illustrated with a selection of exquisite artworks from the unrivalled collections held in the Library of the Natural History Museum. The book features specially selected artworks by women from the seventeenth century onwards. The artists share a fascination and enthusiasm for the natural world and together their work combines to cover a broad range of different techniques and subject matters.There are fine butterfly drawings by accomplished natural history illustrator Margaret Fountaine, vivid illustrations of Indian natural, cultural and social history by Olivia Tonge, and detailed bird images by Elizabeth Gould, who married highly regarded ornithologist John Gould and produced over 600 illustrations for her husband's publications. Featuring celebrated artworks and rarely-seen gems, this book serves up a visual feast of the never ending wonders of the natural world and the significant role that women have played in observing and documenting it.