Zen Buddhist priest Shunmyo Masuno understands that today's busy world leaves little time or space for self-reflection, but that a garden--even in the most urban of spaces--can provide some respite. In his words, "The garden is a special spiritual place where the mind dwells." With this in mind, Masuno has designed scores of spectacular Japanese gardens and landscapes with the aim of helping people achieve a balanced life in the 21st century. This book explores Masuno's design process and ideas, which are integral to his daily Zen training and teachings. It features 15 unique gardens and contemplative landscapes completed in six countries over as many years--all thoughtfully described and documented in full-color photos and drawings. Readers will also find insights on Masuno's philosophy of garden design and a conversation between the designer and famed architect Terunobu Fujimori. Zen Garden Design provides an in-depth examination of Masuno's gardens and landscapes--not just as beautiful spaces, but as places for meditation and contemplation.

A look at the painting traditions of northwestern India in the eighteenth century, and what they reveal about the political and artistic changes of the era In the long eighteenth century, artists from Udaipur, a city of lakes in northwestern India, specialized in depicting the vivid sensory ambience of its historic palaces, reservoirs, temples, bazaars, and durbars. As Mughal imperial authority weakened by the late 1600s and the British colonial economy became paramount by the 1830s, new patrons and mobile professionals reshaped urban cultures and artistic genres across early modern India. The Place of Many Moods explores how Udaipur's artworks-monumental court paintings, royal portraits, Jain letter scrolls, devotional manuscripts, cartographic artifacts, and architectural drawings-represent the period's major aesthetic, intellectual, and political shifts. Dipti Khera shows that these immersive objects powerfully convey the bhava-the feel, emotion, and mood-of specific places, revealing visions of pleasure, plenitude, and praise. These memorialized moods confront the ways colonial histories have recounted Oriental decadence, shaping how a culture and time are perceived. Illuminating the close relationship between painting and poetry, and the ties among art, architecture, literature, politics, ecology, trade, and religion, Khera examines how Udaipur's painters aesthetically enticed audiences of courtly connoisseurs, itinerant monks, and mercantile collectives to forge bonds of belonging to real locales in the present and to long for idealized futures. Their pioneering pictures sought to stir such emotions as love, awe, abundance, and wonder, emphasizing the senses, spaces, and sociability essential to the efficacy of objects and expressions of territoriality. The Place of Many Moods uncovers an influential creative legacy of evocative beauty that raises broader questions about how emotions and artifacts operate in constituting history and subjectivity, politics and place.

100 Japanese Gardens is an ambitious attempt to profile the finest gardens in Japan, while also highlighting lesser known, but equally accomplished landscapes in less-visited parts of the country. A celebration of Japanese landscape design, this book features gardens from Kyoto and Tokyo, as well as from the sub-arctic island of Hokkaido and the semi-tropical islands of Okinawa. Author Stephen Mansfield travelled the length and breadth of Japan on a quest to identify the most impressive gardens in this vast and culturally varied archipelago. His erudition and love of the Japanese garden shines through on every page, making this the perfect primer for travel to Japan or an enjoyable armchair read for gardening enthusiasts. Mansfield's insightful descriptions of each garden examine design concepts and principles, space management, compositional elements, and the iconographic and metaphysical role of Shinto and Buddhist influences. Through his exquisite visuals and engaging stories, we experience Japanese garden designs not merely as landscapes, but as large-scale art installations.

A paleoartist is an illustrator who specialises in the science and art of reconstructing ancient animals and their world. In Dinosaur Art, ten of the top contemporary paleoartists reveal a selection of their work and exclusively discuss their working methods and distinct styles. Filled with breathtaking artwork - some never before seen - and cutting edge paleontology, this is a treasure trove for dinosaur enthusiasts, art lovers and budding illustrators.

Flower fans and nature enthusiasts will fall in love with this charming art book from Instagram sensation Flora Forager featuring the best of her unique floral compositions created with botanical materials. Flora Forager creates images out of flower petals, leaves, stones, twigs, and other natural materials that she finds in her garden and in urban wild areas in her neighbourhood. This intimate, lovely book collects her best pieces, including 20% new, exclusive art, along with a peek into her unique creative process. Featured pieces include scenes, mandalas, animals, birds, fish, insects, mythical creatures, iconic women, old masters, and more. Each artwork is accompanied by explanatory text on a facing page including piece name, materials used, and a short, evocative description of the artist's process and inspiration.

Over the course of his photography career, Daniel Kariko came to realise that many of his most stunning subjects could be found in his own home. Kariko utilises a combination of a Scanning Electron Microscope and optical Stereo Microscope to achieve a portrait-like effect for insects and arthropods. Vibrant in colour and surprising in personality, these images reveal such details as the glittering eyes of a horsefly, the strong legs of a centipede and the fetching smile of a honeybee. Each photograph comes with a full-body illustration from artist Isaac Talley and character descriptions from entomologist Tim Christensen. Blurring the lines of art and science, Aliens Among Us is a guidebook for anyone interested in putting a face to the creepy-crawlies under the couch.

Following the success of A Dog a Day (Pavilion, 2017), Sally Muir returns with a sea of new, but crucially old, faces. Several years ago Sally Muir began a Facebook project, 'A Dog a Day', posting dog art daily. Through the project she was introduced to endless people and their dogs, and the distinct personalities and complex emotions that owners attribute to them. More recently, Sally's project changed focus and she asked the public to send in photographs of their old dogs. Featuring grey muzzles, milky eyes and wobbly legs, as well as tender anecdotes picked up from a whole lifetime of companionship, Sally Muir's paintings of our more senior canines are collected here for the first time. Sally Muir is well known for her portrayal of dogs, with Elderly Dog featuring in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2018 and Hound following up in the Summer Exhibition in 2019. The popularity of Elderly Dog has fuelled Sally's desire to continue to paint older dogs, and celebrate the ageing process of our favourite pets in grace and style. From loose sketches and lithographs to potato prints and oil paintings, Old Dogs includes a range of mediums that Sally has become known for, and embraces dogs of all shapes and sizes: big, small, pedigree and cross breed.

This inspiring sketchbook is part of the new "20 Ways "series from Quarry Books, designed to offer artists, designers, and doodlers a fun and sophisticated collection of illustration fun. Each spread features 20 inspiring illustrated examples of 45 themes - tree, tulip, shell, owl, peacock feather, mushroom, cloud, and much, much more-over 900 drawings, with blank space for you to draw your take on "20 Ways to Draw a Tree."This is not a step-by-step technique book--rather, the stylized flowers, trees, leaves, and clouds are simplified, modernized, and reduced to the most basic elements, showing you how simple abstract shapes and forms meld to create the building blocks of any item that you want to draw. Each of the 20 interpretations provides a different, interesting approach to drawing a single item, providing loads of inspiration for your own drawing. Presented in the author's uniquely creative style, this engaging and motivational practice book provides a new take on the world of sketching, doodling, and designing.
Get out your favorite drawing tool, and remember, there are not just "20 Ways to Draw a Tree"

True beauty is found in nature, making this the perfect sketch book for your art inspiration! As if being responsible for dazzling sunsets and the aurora borealis were not enough, nature is also guardian to the universal principals of design. With mathematical perfection, its recurring structures seem to magically adapt as they show up in hundreds of ways: the radial star at the center of snowflakes, fruits and flowers, and the arms of starfish; spirals at the heart of nautilus shells, unfurling plants, and swirling storm systems. Borrowing the beauty of nature's forms can help you create beautiful artwork. Observing the structure of nature's forms can help you to be a better designer. The inspiration is limitless. Nature's design magic is a balancing act found in its perfect ratios. The sections of this sketchbook--Star, Branch, Spiral, and Fan--focus on four of those disceptively simple design principles and why they work. Author/artist Yellena James uses her own nature-based drawings to guide readers toward looking closely at each design form and the places where it occurs. Readers will discover ways to use each form in their own artwork, realistically, abstractly, or as motifs in repeat borders and patterns. In a non-academic fashion, the text explains nature's beautiful balances, and the art of using them when you draw and design.

This text is a collection of 50 watercolours commissioned & approved by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II & Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Painted by wildlife artist James Alder, the subjects are selected from their Majesties personal favourite birds & flowers.

Nature's Explorers celebrates the individuals who made great personal endeavours in order to document the natural world. Their findings revolutionised our understanding of nature and gave birth to the modern fields of geography, evolutionary biology, oceanography and anthropology. From ground-breaking theorists such as Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace to evocative artists like Ferdinand Bauer and John James Audubon, these explorers shared an ambition to illuminate new worlds and each embodied the spirit of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution.

Concise and beautifully illustrated, this guide provides invaluable instruction on the art of pencil drawing. It covers the basics of holding the pencil, applying different strokes, shading, perspective, and the rendering of different textures, as well as the finer points of pictorial composition and drawing from nature.
Based on the author's years of experience teaching art students at all levels, this book is ideal for home or class use. Its thirty-six evocative sketches range from English castles to American bridges, with a few detailed close-ups showing how to surmount some of the problems of depicting rocks, roofs, standing water, or leafy tree branches. The accompanying text describes how artists at every level of experience can develop their own pencil technique by employing fundamental rules.

Artists wishing to capture the excitement and power of the sea in their artwork will find this book invaluable. Judith Yates uses a mix of traditional and more experimental techniques to create her dynamic seascapes, all of which are explained in clear, step-by-step sequences, annotated examples and Judith's stunning artworks. With sections on colour, composition, and creating atmosphere, this book is a comprehensive approach to painting the tumultuous ocean with a mix of acrylics, watercolour and acrylic inks. Judith's varied, mixed media approach gives this book wide appeal to watercolour and acrylics artists looking to expand their creative horizons. This book demystifies all aspects of painting the sea, including details on the form and anatomy of a wave; bringing light, atmosphere and drama into the sky; and choosing colours to create a mood. It also provides a great source of inspiration to artists who are drawn to the sea as a subject for their own paintings.

5 simple step-by-step instructions teach you how to draw all kinds of animals Perfect for beginner artists of all ages-both kids and adults! Practices pages included alongside each drawing If you're aspiring to be an artist, this book will help you learn fast! Do you want to learn the secrets of becoming a great artist? All it takes is following the five simple steps within the pages of this book! Connect shapes, follow the lines, and before you know it, you'll be developing your artistic talent. Each of the sixty images included has step-by-step, easy-to-follow directions to help you learn to create each of these cool illustrations. Whether it is a dog, cat, lion, tiger, bear, giraffe, lizard, or owl you'll quickly become a pro at drawing them all with ease. You can either trace the images using the original image or hone in on your freehand skills by using the facing practice page included after each sheet of instructions. There is even a colored sample to give you an idea how to put the finishing fluorescent touches on your illustrations! How to Draw Animals also has the added bonus of more than 30 scenic background pages that leave room for you to doodle images and practice your newly acquired skills. Each coloring image provides space for you to sketch an image from the dozens of animals that you've learned from this book. Sharpen your pencils and get ready to spring your illustrations to life. This book will teach you how embrace your inner Picasso and have fun doing it!

A beautifully illustrated anthology of 26 of Australia's most fascinating animals from CBCA Honour Book author/illustrator Jennifer Cossins. From the award-winning creator of A-Z OF ENDANGERED ANIMALS comes a stunning non-fiction picture book for children with a love of animals and a thirst for all things encyclopaedic. This exquisite full-colour picture book is packed with interesting facts and is perfect for young conservationists and students with a keen interest in the world around us. On this expedition through the alphabet, you will encounter some of Australia's rare and enchanting animals, from the gorgeous azure kingfisher and the sleepy koala, to the shy numbat and the friendly zebra finch. Come on an illustrated journey through Australia's unique wildlife with Tasmanian artist Jennifer Cossins. 'For... children who have an enquiring mind and a thirst for knowledge, any book by Tasmanian author and artist Jennifer Cossins is ideal.' Kids' Book Review

A passionate advocate of craftsmanship over mass-production, William Morris (1834– 1896) designed a huge variety of objects, but it is his highly original carpet, fabric and wallpaper patterns that have continued to capture the imagination and exert their influence on the decorative arts. Around 600 such designs are attributed to Morris, of which the vast majority are based on natural forms, including trees, plants and flowers.

This beautifully designed, accessibly priced gift book offers a wealth of designs by Morris in which flowers are the principal motif, bringing together not only completed patterns but also working drawings in pen and watercolour, and examples of his pearwood, floral-pattern printing blocks. It also explores examples of the sources that inspired Morris’s flower-based designs: his own gardens at the Red House in Kent, Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire and elsewhere; 16th- and 17th-century herbals; illuminated medieval manuscripts; late medieval and Renaissance tapestries; and a range of decorated objects, particularly from the Islamic world, that Morris studied at the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A). Authored by Rowan Bain, curator at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, north London, and lavishly illustrated with almost 100 colour illustrations, this exquisite book will both inform and delight

A longtime favourite getaway for America's most influential families, Cumberland Island, off the Atlantic coast of Georgia, offers breathtaking white-sand beaches, rolling dunes, old-growth oak forests, and salt marsh tidal estuaries. At the centre of it all is a population of horses that has thrived, untouched for generations, within this serene sanctuary. In Wild Horses of Cumberland Island, photographer Anouk Masson Krantz has captured the dramatic scenery and majestic horses as they have never been seen before. Her images show the remarkable animals in their naturally diverse ecosystems. A lone horse on a distant beach; four creatures peacefully grazing; a shy animal peering over its shoulder from a brushy thicket - Krantz's portfolio, built over the last decade, is an intimate reflection not only of Cumberland Island's exceptional beauty and spirited horses, but of the history and the safekeeping that have allowed both to flourish. This second edition includes many new images and showcases Krantz's expansive body of work that reflects the remarkable majesty of these horses as they continue to roam across this remote island landscape.

Explore the deserts, mountains and souks of the Middle East, with best-selling author and artist David Bellamy. Following on from David's highly acclaimed Arctic Light, this book provides an intriguing and often entertaining insight into South Arabia and the Swahili Coast, Jordan, Lebanon and Oman. It describes the history, culture, customs and geography of the region and the daily life of its inhabitants, as viewed through the eyes of a world-renowned watercolour artist and life-long adventurer. Filled with personal anecdotes and humour, David Bellamy's unique account shines a light on the Middle East and highlights the incredible beauty and fascinating culture of this much-neglected region. David's stunning artwork, that he painted during his various expeditions, features throughout the book and captures perfectly the diverse and majestic nature of the region. Watercolourists will be inspired by the author's awe-inspiring ability to depict sweeping vistas and create a sense of space in his paintings, and to capture the very essence of a place through his art.

A beautifully illustrated and informative anthology of coastal wildlife throughout the year. They say that no one in the British Isles lives more than an hour or two from the coast, a coastline of contrasts with scenery that changes from estuaries, shingle beaches, saltmarshes and sand dunes, to rocky shores, rugged cliffs, machair and bustling harbours. Our shores are teeming with wildlife, be it in the water, on the tideline, clinging to cliffs or in the skies above them, and this beautiful book you can learn more about familiar and favourite coastal species and some intriguing lesser-known marine creatures. Season by season, Celia Lewis's wonderful illustrations show the flowers, birds, animals, fish and insects found at that time of year. Her craft projects, using driftwood, pebbles and shells, are suitable for all ages and will encourage you to put beachcombed mementos to surprising uses. Or get creative with food and work some foraged ingredients into tasty recipes by Celia and many of our best seafood chefs. We all love spending time near the water's edge, so next time you feel like stretching your legs along a coastal path, fancy a day trip to the seaside or are planning balmy summer holidays, dip into An Illustrated Coastal Year and be inspired by the incredible diversity of wildlife to be found around our little archipelago.

A book of deeply personal and lush photographs, drawings, and writing, Blue Violet is Cig Harvey's celebration of the natural world and the senses. Blue Violet is a vibrant meditation on the procession of seasons, sensory abundance, and the magic in everyday life. Part art book, botanical guide, historical encyclopedia, and poetry collection, Blue Violet is a compendium of beauty, color, and the senses. Plants, flowers, and our experience of the natural world are the threads that tie this unique book together. Exploring the five senses, Blue Violet takes the reader on a personal journey through nature and the range of human emotions. As with her previous three titles - You Look At Me Like An Emergency, Gardening at Night, and You an Orchestra You a Bomb - this book invites the reader to pause, laugh, cry, create, and become more aware of the natural world. Images and text in a variety of forms (prose poetry, recipes, lists, research pieces, diagrams) focus on immediate experience to understand the vibrancy of the senses on memory and feelings.