Elinor De Wire has been writing about lighthouses and their keepers since 1972. During that time she found that hundreds of lighthouse animals wandered into her research notes and photo collection. This book is the story of all these cold-nosed, whiskered, wooly, hoofed, horned, slithery, buzzing, feathered, and finned keepers of the lights. Where else would a dog learn to ring a fogbell; a cat go swimming and catch a fish for its supper; or a parrot cuss the storm winds rattling its cage? Who other than a lightkeeper would swim a cow home, tame a baby seal, adopt an orphan alligator, send messages via carrier pigeons, or imagine mermaids coming to visit? The Lightkeepers' Menagerie gathers together animal stories from lighthouses all around the world, tales of happiness and sadness, courage and cowardice, tragedy and comedy, even absurdity. Sometimes, fur, feathers, and fins tell the best tales.

From domestic cats and dogs to wild lions and giraffes, best-selling artist and author Jean Haines shows the reader how to bring a vitality of life to their animal artwork. Known for the vibrant colours and exciting, innovative painting techniques that she brings to her work, Jean's latest book invites beginners and more experienced artists alike to share a journey through painting animals from around the world. Painting animals requires a delicacy of touch. Jean starts with simple monochrome artworks and progresses on to more vivid paintings that incorporate exciting textural effects. Using lessons from nature to help bring the reader closer to the animals, Jean shows how to portray the animal's spirit and bring vitality to the reader's artwork. Suitable for all abilities, from first-time painters to experienced artists, Jean shares all the materials and unique techniques she uses, and provides a wealth of expert tips and advice inspired by the animals themselves, helping the reader to progress and find their own path. Scattered throughout the book are dozens of Jean's wonderful paintings, showcasing a veritable Noah's Ark of different animals to inspire the reader on their artistic journey.

The Book of the Tree is a celebration of trees in art featuring works by some of the world's leading artists, photographers and illustrators.

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way." William Blake

From stately old oaks to beautiful forests and woods, trees have provided a source of inspiration for artists throughout history.

This charming gift book presents a selection of some of the most beautiful artworks inspired by trees. Interspersed throughout the illustrations are short texts about the artists and their interest in particular trees, from Egon Shiele's delicate watercolours of chestnut trees, to Rousseau's exotic forests, Claire Cansick's vivid woodlands and Hockney's tree-lined groves.

The Book of the Tree presents a wonderful collection of arboreal art that revels in the enduring beauty of our trees, woodlands and forests. It is the perfect gift for art-lovers, tree-lovers and nature-lovers.

A cosy and delightful book - a real joy to behold.' Daily Mail 'A gorgeous book to be treasured' BBC Countryfile A beautifully illustrated guide to nature through the seasons by much-loved printmaker Angela Harding. The cover of this stunning book has an exclusive triptych printed on the reverse - a perfect collector's item This stunning work, the first book that is solely dedicated to Angela's art, is a celebration of her beautiful prints, and a glimpse into her detailed and meticulous process. A Year Unfolding is a journey through Angela's year in nature watching the seasons unfold in front of her from her studio in Rutland, and giving the reader detail into how nature transforms and evolves over the course of the year. A Year Unfolding also tells the stories behind some of Angela's most popular images, giving context to Angela's celebrated work, as well as new art created specifically for the book. The beautiful illustrations and evocative imagery of the prose make this the perfect book for Angela's fans and readers and art lovers everywhere. Angela has created the covers for many bestselling books, including The Salt Path and The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn, October, October by Katya Balen, English Pastoral by James Rebanks, Christmas is Murder by Val McDermid and RSPB Birds among many others.

This notebook features a beautiful cover illustration by acclaimed nature artist Jane Smith. It contains 192 pages of lined paper, head-and-tail bans, a ribbon marker and band to keep it securely fastened.

Artist Roger Bansemer gets an unexpected invitation to dive two and a half miles down into the Atlantic to the site of one of the most famous shipwrecks in history. Armed with his artist's eye and insight, he embarks on an expedition on a Russian research ship to the "Titanic. In this compelling journal, Bansemer's writing and stunning visual work bring us into the adventure, relaying the colorful characters on the expedition, the history and past grandeur of the "Titanic, and the aching beauty of the ship's underwater remains. "Titanic, as everyone knows, sank when it hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage in 1912. It was not seen again until the mid-80s when technological advances led to the development of sub-mersibles capable of diving to that depth. Bansemer became the 112th person to dive to the "Titanic, the sixth person under the stern, and the first artist to have painted Titanic on site. This book chronicles his journey in a mixture of paintings, photos, and digitally-painted images. Bansemer's fascination with painting people, especially the salty, nautical types, finds full expression. Meet buddy Lowell and diving partner Ralph; various Russian crewmen including Bird Man Pierre, Pirate Skippy, the cooks, the "cowboy" who "rides" the submersible; "Keldysh Captain Gorbach; and many others. Bansemer captures them all in their most characteristic poses. The star is always the "Titanic, majestic even at the bottom of the sea. Bansemer pays tribute to the many people who went down with her, acknowledging her role as their memorial resting place. This book, Roger Bansemer's written and painted journal of his journey to "Titanic, is also offered in their memory.

John James Audubon is arguably America's most widely recognized and collected artist. His Birds of America has been reproduced often, beginning with the double elephant folio printed by Havill in England, followed by a much smaller "Octavo" edition printed in Philadelphia and sold by subscription. After Audubon's death, his family arranged with the New York printer Julius Bien to produce another elephant folio edition, this time by the new chromolithographic process. It too would be sold by subscription, but the venture, begun in 1858, was brought to an abrupt end by the Civil War. Only 150 plates were produced, and the number remaining today is slight; they are among the rarest and most sought after Audubon prints. Bound in cloth with a full cloth slipcase, this beautifully produced book is the first complete reproduction of Bien chromolithographs and will become the centerpiece of any bird lover's library.

"Forget ordinary stationery! teNeues, the luxury German publisher, transforms notecards, journals, puzzles and even clipboards into works of art, with its latest lineup highlighting paintings by celebrated names such as Vincent Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Claude Monet." - Life & Style Magazine Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and a founding member of the Vienna Secession movement. His paintings, characterised by luxurious, radiant colour, mosaic-like patterns, abstract floral motifs, and expressive lines, are among the most popular and celebrated works of the Art Nouveau style. Our QuickNotes boxed notecards are full colour, collectable greeting / notecards that are blank inside and can be used to convey personal greetings, thank-yous and invitations. This QuickNotes notecard box holds 20 full colour cards with and 20 classic white envelopes. 4 notecard styles are included, all wrapped up in a keepsake box with magnetised lid.

Julia Rothman's best-selling illustrated Anatomy series takes a deep dive into the wonders of the sea with Ocean Anatomy. Follow Rothman's inquisitive mind and perceptive eye along shorelines, across the open ocean, and below the waves for an artistic exploration of the watery universe. Through her drawings, discover how the world's oceans formed, why the sea is salty, and the forces behind oceanic phenomena such as rogue waves. Colorful anatomical profiles of sea creatures from crustacean to cetacean, surveys of seafaring vessels and lighthouses, and the impact of plastic and warming water temperatures are just part of this compendium of curiosities that will entertain and educate readers of all ages. Also available in this series: Nature Anatomy, Farm Anatomy, Food Anatomy, and Nature Anatomy Notebook

The Watercolour Sourcebook is a compilation of four selected titles from the What to Paint series, chosen specially to illustrate the wide range of scenes and subjects that can be captured in watercolour. The works of four master watercolourists - Geoff Kersey, Terry Harrison, Peter Woolley and Wendy Tait - are brought together in a collection of 60 beautiful, detailed projects on the subjects of trees, woodlands and forests; landscapes; hills and mountains and flowers respectively. Each project results in a full painting that is accompanied at the end of the book by a full-size outline that can be copied and applied to the artist's own watercolour paper using tracedown paper and pencil. The Watercolour Sourcebook aims to provide a wealth of inspiration to the painter who struggles to decide upon their subject matter, and arms the artist with everything they need to know about what they're about to paint, from colour palette to useful techniques.

These delightful Halloween decorations are eye-popping examples of the best made, including pristine pieces from the Beistle Company archives, shown in over 395 color photographs. The text presents comprehensive information for collectors, including detailed descriptions and little-known-facts, release and production dates, materials, makers' marks, and values. Party games, hats, and masks appear as well as lanterns, shades, and die-cuts. They seem to jump off the pages to excite you. Lots of wonderful suggestions are made throughtout the book for interesting uses for displaying the decorations today. Their artistic beauty will make you smile, remembering youthful Halloween stories, and want to add to your own collection.

Playing cards that feature beautiful hummingbird photography This gorgeous deck of playing cards, put together by award-winning nature photographer Stan Tekiela, features 54 striking photographs of North America's hummingbirds, including the Ruby-throated, Black-chinned and Rufous hummingbirds. Anyone who appreciates birds will love having these cards for playing their favorite games.

Nuno Oliveira began his riding career with maestro Jonquin Gonzales de Miranda, Master of the Horse to the King of Portugal. In the 1940's he opened his own riding school and soon became an international name in the world of classical equitation. In the 1950s and 1960s he gave exhibitions in Geneva, Brussels, Paris and London, followed by clinics in Saumur, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Australia and the USA. His pupils include the most talented dressage riders, officers of the Cadre Noir, and riders of the Portuguese School. First published in France in 1957, it was translated into English by Phyllis Field in 1976. Times change but classical principles remain. Over 30 years may have passed, but this book remains one of the most relevant descriptions of Nuno Oliveira's work.

Throughout history, especially from the 18th century to the beginning of World War II, artists have produced a remarkable wealth of graphic representations of fruit. This volume includes paintings by American artists, including the Peale family, Grant Wood, and Thomas Hart Benton, engravings and lithographs by major printmaking companies like Currier and Ives, botanical illustrations, and excerpts from vintage nursery catalogs. Find hundreds of illustrations, chosen to arouse physical and aesthetic appetites. These include still lifes, photographs, and amusing antique postcards, as well as expert botanical and historical information. Fruit you know and some you may not are illustrated here in unique works of art or artifacts. They include standards like apples, cherries, and grapes, tropicals such as bananas, mangoes and avocados, biblical fruits, including pomegranates, dates, and olives, and rare delicacies like medlars, persimmons, prickly cactus pears, and pawpaws. Fruit has never looked this good.

Learn how to paint adorable animals, flavorful fruits, lively plants, and more 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! This book also includes 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. This book also makes the perfect gift for artists of all ages, especially plant and animal lovers. Find the inspiration and technique to start your watercoloring adventures with this beautiful guide!

Each year between 1819 and 1825, John Constable (1776-1837) submitted a monumental canvas to the Royal Academy of Arts in London for display in the annual Exhibition. These so-called six-footers vividly captured the life of the River Stour in Suffolk, where Constable grew up and where he returned to paint each year. The Leaping Horse, the last of these, now a major work in the Academy's collection, is the subject of this fascinating new book. Humphreys explores Constable's often avant-garde working methods, as well as his struggle to gain full acceptance within the art establishment of the early nineteenth century. With reproductions of his full-scale preliminary sketches as well as brand new photography of the painting itself, this book is the ideal companion for art lovers who seek a deeper appreciation of Constable's iconic depictions of the English countryside.

Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was a German-born biologist, naturalist, evolutionist, artist, philosopher, and doctor who spent his life researching flora and fauna from the highest mountaintops to the deepest ocean. A vociferous supporter and developer of Darwin's theories of evolution, he denounced religious dogma, authored philosophical treatises, gained a doctorate in zoology, and coined scientific terms which have passed into common usage, including ecology, phylum, and stem cell. At the heart of Haeckel's colossal legacy was the motivation not only to discover but also to explain. To do this, he created hundreds of detailed drawings, watercolors, and sketches of his findings which he published in successive volumes, including several marine organism collections and the majestic Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature), which could serve as the cornerstone of Haeckel's entire life project. Like a meticulous visual encyclopedia of living things, Haeckel's work was as remarkable for its graphic precision and meticulous shading as for its understanding of organic evolution. From bats to the box jellyfish, lizards to lichen, and spider legs to sea anemones, Haeckel emphasized the essential symmetries and order of nature, and found biological beauty in even the most unlikely of creatures. In this book, we celebrate the scientific, artistic, and environmental importance of Haeckel's work, with a collection of 300 of his finest prints from several of his most important tomes, including Die Radiolarien, Monographie der Medusen, Die Kalkschwamme, and Kunstformen der Natur. At a time when biodiversity is increasingly threatened by human activities, the book is at once a visual masterwork, an underwater exploration, and a vivid reminder of the precious variety of life. About the series TASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program-now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.

The reptiles and amphibians surrounding us are more than 17,000 species of fascinating and beautiful wildlife that many of us usually ignore. In this colorfully illustrated book, 20 artists have taken those cold-blooded animals as inspiration and transformed them into pieces of art that change the way we perceive our world. The unusual shapes, glittering colors, and perfectly adapted bodies of chameleons, turtles, snakes, frogs, and even dinosaurs offer us new ways to see and be inspired, in media ranging from fiber to glass and from paper to gold.

A distinctly Indigenous form of landscape representation is emerging among contemporary Indigenous artists from North America. For centuries, landscape painting in European art typically used representational strategies such as single-point perspective to lure viewers-and settlers-into the territories of the old and new worlds. In the twentieth century, abstract expressionism transformed painting to encompass something beyond the visual world, and, later, minimalism and the Land Art movement broadened the genre of landscape art to include sculptural forms and site-specific installations. In Shifting Grounds, art historian Kate Morris argues that Indigenous artists are expanding and reconceptualizing the forms of the genre, expressing Indigenous attitudes toward land and belonging even as they draw upon mainstream art practices. The resulting works evoke all five senses: from the overt sensuality of Kay WalkingStick's tactile paintings to the eerie soundscapes of Alan Michelson's videos to the immersive environments of Kent Monkman's dioramas, this art resonates with a fully embodied and embedded subjectivity. Shifting Grounds explores themes of presence and absence, survival and vulnerability, memory and commemoration, and power and resistance, illuminating the artists' engagement not only with land and landscape but also with the history of representation itself.

In Neo-Impressionism and Anarchism in Fin-de-Siecle France, Robyn Roslak examines for the first time the close relationship between neo-impressionist landscapes and cityscapes and the anarchist sympathies of the movement's artists. She focuses in particular on paintings produced between 1886 and 1905 by Paul Signac and Maximilien Luce, the neo-impressionists whose fidelity to anarchism, to the art of landscape and to a belief in the social potential of art was strongest. Although the neo-impressionists are best known for their rational and scientific technique, they also heeded the era's call for art surpassing the mundane realities of everyday life. By tempering their modern subjects with a decorative style, they hoped to lead their viewers toward moral and social improvement. Roslak's ground-breaking analysis shows how the anarchist theories of Elisee Reclus, Pierre Kropotkin and Jean Grave both inspired and coincided with these ideals. Anarchism attracted the neo-impressionists because its standards for social justice were grounded, like neo-impressionism itself, in scientific exactitude and aesthetic idealism. Anarchists claimed humanity would reach its highest level of social and moral development only in the presence of a decorative variety of nature, and called upon progressive thinkers to help create and maintain such environments. The neo-impressionists, who primarily painted decorative landscapes, therefore discovered in anarchism a political theory consistent with their belief that decorative harmony should be the basis for socially responsible art.

'Chris Beetles' book is a joy, an inspiration and as thorough a document into understanding the life and times of Louis Wain as one could hope to read' - Benedict Cumberbatch 'Louis Wain invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world'. Broadcast in 1925 by H.G. Wells, these words characteristically foretold the future of the Wain cat which has, once more, become the century's most recognisable image in cat art. During their heyday, in the time before the First World War, Louis Wain's cats, dressed as humans, portrayed that stylish Edwardian world having fun: at restaurants and tea parties, going to the Race and the Seaside, celebrating at Christmas and Birthdays, and disporting themselves with exuberant games of tennis, bowls, cricket and football. This is a titillating world of cats at play, uninhibited and slightly dangerous, with most group activities likely to turn into mishap, mayhem and catastrophe. This is Wain's world, funny, edgy and animated: a whole cat world. The first comprehensive exhibition of Wain's work was held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1972 and, since then, Louis Wain has steadily become more fashionable, and collected worldwide. This biography contains 300 plates of richness and variety, all of which are reproduced faithfully from the original artwork.

"If you're a lover of wildlife imagery, this is worth adding to your wishlist" -Amateur Photographer "...an amazing new photobook on the giants of the animal kingdom..." -Examiner USA "This is the type of book that makes a handsome gift for any wildlife lover. But you'll want to look at every photo before giving it away." -Inhabitat "This book marvelously lives up to its title, not just in size... but in subject matter: big animals, from lions to sharks to grizzly bears, all stunningly photographed by two highly accomplished wildlife photographers who decided to combine their work for this wondrous portfolio." -Air Mail When we encounter an animal in nature, it triggers something in us; we feel a certain emotion in the presence of the other creature: amazement, adoration, fascination, and indeed, in some situations, fear and apprehension. But a brush with a deer, wild boar, or hare is no comparison to a rendezvous with a grizzly, lion, shark, or pod of whales. Amos Nachoum and Marko Dimitrijevic have experienced this hundreds of times in their combined 70 years as wildlife photographers. Now, for the first time, they are combining their award-winning photographs with previously unpublished photographs of the world's largest animals in one book. The two photographers, who are also friends, tell us what it is like to be out in the wild and look the world's biggest animals right in the eye. The structure of the book's chapters is arranged based on human emotions such as amazement, admiration, fear, and love. In their book, Nachoum and Dimitrijevic bring us closer to the giant animals of our planet, and allow us to share what these two men feel during these encounters, helping us learn about ourselves when we do so. Text in English and German.