This book is not only for "painters" but for all types of creative individuals who want to experience and play with watercolor, whether their background is mixed-media, textile art, journaling, or paper craft. Unlike the typical watercolor text books, this unique, beautiful volume is a field book of inspiration, creative ideas, how to's, and projects, all from an artist's perspective. Each creative exercise features a technique, shows stepby-step photographs, and includes a clever idea for a gift or project that can be made from the painted samples.

Collaboration The Mind's Eye is a collaboration between the artist's emotional response to the poems and the immediacy of the poet's reaction to nature and personal encounters. The Poet Gail Gowers Cotton is a member of the Poetry Society and the British Haiku Society. Her poems have appeared in the Societies' journals as well as in other specialist magazines. She "scatters" her work by leaving poems on buses, in cafes and tucked into library books. The Mind's Eye is her second book. Her inspiration comes from nature and personal encounters including memories of Ireland, Africa, North Wales and visits to Sydenham Hill Woods, Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Horniman Museum in South London, where she now lives. The Artist Pat Keay graduated as a painter at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1971. She has worked as an artist and designer in Scotland, Kenya and London and now lives in Worthing. Read more on www.patkeay.com. The illustrations come from Pat's spontaneous reaction to the essence, rather than the detail, of a particular Haiku.

Readers discover new insights into the methods of top contemporary watercolor artists with each edition of Splash, now an annual competition with an accompanying book after more than 20 years as a series. Splash 17 will be loaded with more than 125 paintings by more than 100 artists selected from thousands of watercolor and water-media painters across the world invited to submit work for consideration. Each painting will be accompanied by a caption that will show readers something about each artist's processes pertaining to the theme of texture. Entry fee of $30 for the first image and $25 per subsequent image helps defer cost of production; we expect to collect about $40,000 in fees. Call for entries will be promoted in The Artist's Magazine, Watercolor Artist, www.artistsnetwork.com, http://wetcanvas.com and eblasts. Deadline will be December 1, 2014 (earlybird deadline) and December 31, 2014 (final deadline).