Ranunculus offers advice on how to care for and propagate these colourful cultivated members of the buttercup family. Naomi Slade explores a wide range of ranunculus species and cultivars, all beautifully photographed by Georgianna Lane in their technicolour glory from palest pink to deep burgundy via white, orange, red and yellow. Pert as a rosebud and blousy as a dahlia, Ranunculus asiaticus is the flower of the moment. From ancestors that grew wild in the eastern Mediterranean, these Persian buttercups have been bred and selected to create fully double blooms; with layers of delicate, tissue-paper petals sculpted to perfection and available in a range of colours to suit any occasion. The buttercup family is a huge and diverse one, however, and the genus Ranunculus contains not just these exotic florists' darlings, but a whole range of their close relatives too. Some are familiar: when fields and lawns are sprinkled with golden meadow buttercups, we can be sure that spring has arrived. Yet there are also rare mountain blooms, perched on crags and fed by the melting snow, and forms of Ranunculus that thrive in pond margins or flourish in fast-flowing streams. Naomi Slade explores the world of buttercups, from their wild origins to their most successfully cultivated and most popular forms. Some are easy to grow, some less so, and this book offers tips and advice to help the reader embrace not just those near-wild forms that lend themselves to naturalistic planting schemes, and the exquisite, collectible alpines, but also the brilliant, desirable, Persian buttercups that are so perfect for cutting and arranging.

Image-transforming techniques such as close-up, time lapse, and layering are generally associated with the age of photography, but as Florike Egmond shows in this book, they were already being used half a millennium ago. Exploring the world of natural history drawings from the Renaissance, Eye for Detail shows how the function of identification led to image manipulation techniques that will look uncannily familiar to the modern viewer. Egmond shows how the format of images in nature studies changed dramatically during the Renaissance period, as high-definition naturalistic representation became the rule during a robust output of plant and animal drawings. She examines what visual techniques like magnification can tell us about how early modern Europeans studied and ordered living nature, and she focuses on how attention to visual detail was motivated by an overriding question: the secret of the origins of life. Beautifully and precisely illustrated throughout, this volume serves as an arresting guide to the massive European collections of nature drawings and an absorbing study of natural history art of the sixteenth century. "

Do you recognise these ingredients? 35 recipes as you've never seen them before. A gorgeous gift book as well as a cookery title, Dinner Deconstructed features 35 recipes as you've never seen them before, broken down into their individual ingredients and photographed in stylish still-life arrangements. Serried rows of vegetables and small heaps of flour turn into a comforting cauliflower bake, the ingredients of steak bernaise boil down to meat, peppercorns, eggs, butter and herbs, and key lime pie looks mesmerising before the ingredients are magically melded together in the kitchen. And after you've feasted your eyes on the dishes in their natural and aesthetically pleasing state, simply turn to the back of the book to get the recipes themselves, so you can turn the raw ingredients into the delicious dishes they were destined to be. Word count: 7,000

Now available in paperback! Andrew Forkner's book provides you with all you need to paint a range of birds in acrylics; taking in birds of prey, songbirds and waterbirds from all over the world. It contains information on the materials and preparation you will need to capture the delicacy and majesty of the subjects.

This beautiful guide to indoor plants is a comprehensive compendium of succulents, cacti, flowering and foliage plants, with detailed instructions on how to care for each, alongside stunning full-page watercolour illustrations of each plant. Whether you are looking to cultivate an entire indoor garden, or simply wish to know more about your single cactus, you can be sure to find the right information for you amongst the more than seventy plants in this stylish guide. And the best bit? All the plants are easy to maintain so even the most timid of gardeners can enjoy turning their hand to this green-fingered pastime. Driven by the beautiful artwork of the phenomenally talented Maaike Koster, alongside insightful text from Emma Sibley, co-founder of London Terrariums, each entry offers a concise but complete guide to these plants, telling you their origins, how to care for them and where in your home they will thrive. Each plant is rendered in considered detail, taking up a full double page spread, with half of this space allotted to the illustration, facing a paragraph on the plant itself, care tips and any information about fellow species. The accessible text and simple instructions make this book just as well suited to those with no gardening experience as to those with years of practice. These plants can be grown in any in-door space and are easy to maintain, so you no longer need a large garden or hours of free time to maintain a vibrant collection of greenery in your home. These plants add interest, tranquility and colour to every corner of our lives, so embark on a verdant adventure with this beautiful and comprehensive guide!

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.

A visually stunning, photographically driven celebration of bird migration-one of the great marvels of the natural world The vast transcontinental journeys made every year by millions of feathered migrants were not known to naturalists before the late nineteenth century. Even today, while cutting-edge technology such as geolocators and isotope analysis helps us map these journeys in detail, much of the science remains poorly understood. In this luxuriously illustrated volume, celebrated nature writer Mike Unwin and award-winning photographer David Tipling highlight sixty-seven different species of birds from around the world and explore how each has adapted to its migratory cycle. As they bring to life the drama of the Bar-headed Goose's journey over the Himalayas and the amazing sixty-thousand-mile annual round trip taken by the Arctic Tern between the United Kingdom and Antarctica, Unwin and Tipling offer deep insights into the science, mysteries, and wonders of migration.

Illustrating the dominant features of many common species - elm, maple, willow, apple, birch, pine and more - the author offers two portraits of each in various mediums, from pencil to water colour wash.

Hugh Morton has seldom been seen in his adult life without a camera around his neck. Much to the benefit of his beloved home state, he has crisscrossed North Carolina, from highlands to lowlands, recording nearly every step along the way. While many of his photographs of the state's people, places, and events were collected in Hugh Morton's ""North Carolina"", this new book showcases a generous collection of his signature wildlife and nature photography and includes a few of the photographer's favorite pictures of people and events that were not included in the first volume. The scenic and nature photographs are organized geographically, from the mountains to the coast. Revealing Morton's curiosity about and love of the natural world, photographs feature woodland creatures, waterfalls, beaches, and more. Some images will be familiar to those who live or travel in North Carolina. Many of the photographs here have been recovered from deep within Morton's personal archive, bringing to print some long-hidden treasures. Consisting of 162 photographs, this collection is a rich and rewarding display of North Carolina's natural bounty as it has evolved before the eyes of one of the state's most popular photographers.

As a young boy, renowned Norwegian photographer Bjornar Ovrebo often played along the inaccessible and unknown banks of Oslo's longest river, the Alna. Memories of this time inspired his latest book. For four years he photographed the hidden sides of the gloaming forestal landscape, which is often overlooked by most. His large-format photographs convey the unique beauty found in these mystic water meadows. The accompanying text by Torgeir Rebolledo Pedersen, one of Norway's foremost poets, further enhances the fascinating and wondrous river Alna - even for those who have yet to see it for themselves. Text in English and Norwegian.

This stunning series of pocketbooks from Kew offers a snapshot into the diverse and beautiful world of plants. Kew Pocketbooks: Carnivorous Plants lavishly showcases 40 botanical paintings of these deadly beauties. Carnivorous plants are deadly beauties that trap, kill and consume everything from insects, spiders and crustaceans to lizards and mice, luring their prey in with specialised hairs, sweet nectar, bright colours, or the convenience of a toilet. 40 stunning botanical pairings of this extraordinary group are showcased here, including the famous Venus flytrap, as well as pitcher plants and sundews.

This stunning series of pocketbooks from Kew offers a snapshot into the diverse and beautiful world of plants. Kew Pocketbooks: Wildflowers lavishly showcases a meadow's worth of familiar plants in 40 botanical paintings. Kew Pocketbooks: Wildflowers is a celebration of the natural bounty around us, offering a meadow's worth of familiar plants including foxgloves, poppies, dandelion, ivy, daisy, bluebells and orchids, and many more. 40 delightful botanical paintings from the Kew archives depict these classic plants.

Adults and children alike find Julia Rothman's best-selling illustrated guide to the natural world, Nature Anatomy, irresistible, with colorful drawings that awaken curiosity - and invite imitation. With this companion volume, Rothman leads fans deeper into nature observation with her specially designed record pages for tracking daily nature sightings throughout the seasons. Her step-by-step technique tutorials for drawing a flower, a dragonfly, a robin, and much more, along with blank sketchbook pages, will inspire nature lovers and art enthusiasts of all ages to take up their own coloured pencils or favourite pens and create their own unique Nature Anatomy Notebook.

Hudson River School artists shared an awe of the magnificence of nature as well as a belief that the untamed American scenery reflected the national character. In this new work, color reproductions of more than 115 paintings capture the beauty and illuminate the aesthetic and philosophical principles of the Hudson River School painters. The pieces included in this volume reflect a period (1825-1875) when American landscape painting was most thoroughly explored and formalized with personal, artistic, cultural, and national identifications. Judith Hansen O'Toole reveals the subtleties and quiet majesty of the works and discusses their shared iconography, the ways in which artists responded to one another's paintings, and how the paintings reflected nineteenth-century American cultural, intellectual, and social milieus. Different Views is also the first major study to examine closely the Hudson River School artists' practice of creating thematically related pairs and series of paintings. O'Toole considers painters' use of this method to express different moods and philosophical concepts. She observes artists' representations of landscape and their nuanced depictions of weather, light, and season. By comparing and contrasting Hudson River School paintings, O'Toole reveals differences in meaning, emotion, and cultural connotation. Different Views in Hudson River School Painting contains reproductions of works from a range of prominent and lesser-known artists, including Jasper Francis Cropsey, Sanford Robinson Gifford, Asher B. Durand, Frederic Edwin Church, Albert Bierstadt, John Frederic Kensett, and John William Casilear. The works come from a leading private collection and were recently exhibited at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art.

In 1788, nearly fifteen-hundred people on eleven sailing ships came ashore at Port Jackson in Australia after a gruelling eight month journey from England. This collection of vessels later became known as the First Fleet, and those who sailed in them were the community who established the first European colony in Australia. The Art of the First Fleet depicts the natural history of this extraordinary land, the people and culture of the local indigenous population and the events that marked these initial formative years. The collection, now housed in the Natural History Museum, provides an invaluable record of the wildlife and environment, people and events, as seen through the eyes of the colonists who laid the foundations for the European settlement of Australia. The artists' drawings of the people and culture of the Eora people, the local indigenous population of the area, provide the only lasting visual record of their lives. While images of plants and animals were not always technically accurate, they made a significant contribution to the development of science, allowing experts in Britain to be able to identify and name a large number of new species. They remain an invaluable record of the artists' attempts to make sense and order of this new land.

This fun and easy-to-use nature drawing and watercolor guide is perfect for anyone inspired by nature to draw, doodle, ink, and paint colorful flora and fauna. Artist, author, and popular art instructor Peggy Dean presents this nature drawing guide that teaches you how to master drawing and watercolor techniques from sketching and shading to washes and blending. With Peggy's easy and energetic lessons, absolutely anyone--regardless of ability--can learn to draw the natural world. Beginning with delicate cherry blossoms, wildflowers, and lacy ferns, lessons build to composing stunning bouquets of flowers and majestic landscapes. You'll also discover how to draw animals such as colorful fish and birds in flight, as well as mammals like stoic camels and the mighty polar bear. Through the lessons on technique combined with clear, detailed instructions, you'll gain the expertise and confidence that will allow you to quickly build your skills, discover your own personal style, and achieve beautiful botanical and animal illustrations.