Calligraphic Drawing, written and illustrated by artist Schin Loong, is a step-by-step guide to the pictorial side of calligraphy. Learn how to make calligraphic flourishes, then apply the technique to draw 15 different flourished animals. You'll also find instructions for embellishing letters and drawing ornamental cartouches. In the past, masters of penmanship advertised their copperplate skills by shaping their calligraphy and flourishes into elaborate pictorial designs. Now the art of the flourish is back! With her fresh approach to this age-old art form, Schin will take you confidently through each step, from choosing your pen, nib, and ink, to creating calligraphic animals that express your own imagination and artistry. The basic steps for the strokes are simple, but as you learn each new pattern and stroke, you'll watch your drawings develop into ever more complex and beautiful compositions. By following the step-by-step instructions, you can create stunning drawings of a pigeon, swan, crane, rooster, jellyfish, goldfish, peacock, parrot, owl, raccoon, elephant, puppy, rabbit, fox, and zebra. Each exercise includes a photo of the animal, followed by an illustration and written guidance for each numbered step. You'll find helpful tips and encouragement throughout. At the back, a gallery showcase provides examples of Schin's own artwork to inspire you in your own flourishing pursuits. Whether you're a designer, calligrapher, doodler, or just picked up a pen, this guide to drawing with flourishes will enlighten and inspire.
In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist's palette, Victoria Finlay takes us on an enthralling adventure around the world and through the ages, illuminating how the colors we choose to value have determined the history of culture itself. How did the most precious color blue travel all the way from remote lapis mines in Afghanistan to Michelangelo's brush? What is the connection between brown paint and ancient Egyptian mummies? Why did Robin Hood wear Lincoln green? In Color, Finlay explores the physical materials that color our world, such as precious minerals and insect blood, as well as the social and political meanings that color has carried through time. Roman emperors used to wear togas dyed with a purple color that was made from an odorous Lebanese shellfish-which probably meant their scent preceded them. In the eighteenth century, black dye was called logwood and grew along the Spanish Main. Some of the first indigo plantations were started in America, amazingly enough, by a seventeen-year-old girl named Eliza. And the popular van Gogh painting White Roses at Washington's National Gallery had to be renamed after a researcher discovered that the flowers were originally done in a pink paint that had faded nearly a century ago. Color is full of extraordinary people, events, and anecdotes-painted all the more dazzling by Finlay's engaging style. Embark upon a thrilling adventure with this intrepid journalist as she travels on a donkey along ancient silk trade routes; with the Phoenicians sailing the Mediterranean in search of a special purple shell that garners wealth, sustenance, and prestige; with modern Chilean farmers breeding and bleeding insects for their viscous red blood. The colors that craft our world have never looked so bright.
A groundbreaking and endlessly surprising history of how artisans created America, from the nation's origins to the present day.
At the center of the United States' economic and social development, according to conventional wisdom, are industry and technology-while craftspeople and handmade objects are relegated to a bygone past. Renowned historian Glenn Adamson turns that narrative on its head in this innovative account, revealing makers' central role in shaping America's identity. Examine any phase of the nation's struggle to define itself, and artisans are there-from the silversmith Paul Revere and the revolutionary carpenters and blacksmiths who hurled tea into Boston Harbor, to today's "maker movement." From Mother Jones to Rosie the Riveter. From Betsy Ross to Rosa Parks. From suffrage banners to the AIDS Quilt. Adamson shows that craft has long been implicated in debates around equality, education, and class. Artisanship has often been a site of resistance for oppressed people, such as enslaved African-Americans whose skilled labor might confer hard-won agency under bondage, or the Native American makers who adapted traditional arts into statements of modernity. Theirs are among the array of memorable portraits of Americans both celebrated and unfamiliar in this richly peopled book. As Adamson argues, these artisans' stories speak to our collective striving toward a more perfect union. From the beginning, America had to be-and still remains to be-crafted.
A Guide Book of Collectible Postcards "takes you on a unique trip into the past. Inside this book, you'll find cards of high society and lowbrow humor, natural disasters, social, political, and religious movements, popular artists' illustrations, newspaper comics, circus animals, early movie stars, athletes, planes, trains, automobiles, and the corner general store--and much more! Authors Q. David Bowers and Mary L. Martin share decades of experience in buying, selling, and collecting. They guide you from the earliest postcards of the 1870s to the Golden Age of the 1890s through the Great War, and to the modern chrome postcards found on store racks today."--Publishers website.
my heart my mind all folds into a million little pieces of nonsense and aggravation - it's a process and it needs decoding but nobody can decode it
What's the most fun way to add new creative touches to your living space? As followers of Laure Farion's brand PapierPapierPapier know, the answer is paper! Here are 15 stylish, joyful paper projects to decorate every room in the house. Take advantage of paper's inexpensive charms and Laure's lighthearted designs to make your spaces more stylish, more creative, and more colorful. With this book, your favorite papers, and a few basic household items like scissors and a ruler, you can add beautiful touches to the kitchen, the kids' rooms, adults' bedrooms, the office, and even the yard or balcony. Make a paper headboard for your bed and a sweet coin bank for the kids' room; create a cuckoo clock or an amazing paper houseplant. A tropical cabin nestled in a potted fern? Why not! Every craft lover will find that with these 15 basic patterns, and Laure's tips and tricks for getting the 3-D effects just the way you want them, the paper-crafting future is unlimited.
The idea of the book was central throughout the western European and the eastern Mediterranean world in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. From the beginning, the word for 'book'--sefer in Hebrew, biblia in Greek, and liber in Latin--was identified with sacred writings--the Holy Scriptures of Jews and Christians, who were known as 'people of the book'. The centrality of the book to medieval thought is reflected materially in the countless images of books that appear in the manuscripts of the era, be they in the most treasured, highly decorated, sacred texts or in devotional and secular works as well. In Penned & Painted, Lucy Freeman Sandler, one of one of the world's most respected authorities on medieval art, takes us on a personal but highly insightful exploration of some of the British Library's most precious manuscript holdings and describes the many uses and meanings of these 'books in books'. Through the fascinating face-to-face discovery of 60 manuscripts, she investigates the various types and forms of books as depicted in the era. Penned & Painted is presented in full-color throughout and includes a high number of images specially photographed for this volume.
This comprehensive guide to pop-up design and paper mechanics is a delightful introduction to the intriguing aspects of a fascinating craft. This new and accessible approach to pop-up theory and practice distills the numerous mechanisms into a logical set of 18 underlying shapes and explains the techniques for building these shapes.