Bestselling artist and author explains how to use light and shade in watercolour painting to add lifelike detail and create engaging artworks.

Mastering light and shadow is the key to successful watercolour paintings and in this book you can learn how to paint like an expert. The book is packed with Hazel Soan’s colourful and varied paintings, as well as step-by-step exercises and handy hints.

Beginning with how to see the values of light and shade through the eyes of an artist, the book then shows how watercolour is the perfect medium to represent light and shade. Learn how to balance light and shade through compositional design and how to establish the shadow of individual components within the composition. Hazel demonstrates clever techniques such as conserving white paper to show highlights, how to mix the right tonal values and how to balance detail in your painting. Finally, the book looks at using light and shade to create atmospheric effects, tonal patterns to look out for and how to bring it all together to create fantastic artworks.

The classic text on coppicing and woodland crafts, redesigned for a new generation of woodspeople.

If you’re lucky enough to have access to a patch of woodland, this book contains everything you need to set up, manage and profit from a thriving coppice. But even if you don’t, there’s plenty of information on traditional woodland crafts here for you: learn how to work with bought coppiced wood to make all manner of products, from the archetypal besom broom and humble tent pegs to sturdy gate hurdles.

Woodland crafts expert Ray Tabor guides you through a range of heritage woodland conservation methods. He introduces the best tools for each job – the time-honoured woodsman’s billhook being the most important of all – and the devices you’ll need. He shows how to select wood for each purpose, from ash, traditionally used for tool handles, to chestnut for making perfect fences. There’s also an in-depth exploration of the essential art of riving (splitting wooden poles by hand).

Full of invaluable advice, historical information, useful diagrams and evocative photography, this book will help you reconnect to nature and the environment, and gain immense pleasure from creating beautiful crafted products using heritage methods.

A visually stunning and beautifully written celebration of park life around the world.

The pandemic brought into sharp relief what city dwellers already realised: parks are an absolutely essential part of modern life. From the author who brought you Lido, here are 50 of the world’s greatest parks – but not just a list of the examples we already know. Yes, we’ll tell you about those storied greats such as Central Park in New York and Phoenix Park in Dublin, but we’ll also take you to the Philippines, to Australia, to provincial Britain and around the world to show you the most historic and the most interesting, the newest and most cutting-edge that mix the best of nature and architecture. We’ll explore what you can find there, who goes there, why they are important, and how parks respond to their environments, including ones over a road, on old rail lines or in Berlin’s former airport. Examples include:

• Freeway Park, Seattle, USA: a bizarre and brilliant brutalist park over a motorway.

• Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo, Brazil: this one contains amazing galleries and theatres.

• Holyrood Park, Edinburgh, UK: mountains within a city.

• Adelaide’s parks, Australia: unique in that the entire city centre is enclosed by parks.

and many, many more. Illustrated with glorious photographs throughout, this book is a fascinating record of the world’s most interesting and innovative parks, and the people who use them – you’ll want to visit them all.

Lessons, motivation and coaching to make you a better chess player.

In an ideal world, any aspiring chess player, at almost any level, would get better with a coach. If that’s not possible, having chess champion coach Thomas Engqvist’s book at your side is the next best thing. 

In his series of lessons, Engqvist guides you through not only the most important elements of chess to master but also the psychology, how to marry knowledge with imagination, and how to stay motivated.

Suitable for older children through to adults, the lessons are drawn from chess games through history, from the 16th century to Magnus Carlsen and latest Alpha Zero computer chess. It features a range of key players, including Steinitz, Lasker, Nimzowistch, Botvinnik (Soviet chess school), and Fischer. With clear and accessible annotations to give clarity, the games highlight the most important lessons to learn and, just as importantly, how to ‘practise’ chess.

International Master Thomas Engqvist has travelled the world teaching and coaching chess to a very high level for decades – and with this book, he can be your coach too.

A sumptuous celebration of the life of His Majesty King Charles III, published to coincide with the festivities, traditions and pageantry of his Coronation in May 2023.

On 8th September 2022, His Majesty King Charles III, formerly The Prince of Wales, ascended to the throne. As Britain, the Commonwealth and people across the world eagerly await the Coronation of the new monarch, this fascinating account tells the story of the boy born to be King.

Follow his journey, from schoolboy and eligible young bachelor to his time in the armed forces, and from the birth of his sons, William and Harry, to his more recent role as grandfather. This captivating chronicle describes his accession to the throne – lived out in the public eye following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II – and recounts his interest in sport, his royal homes and his life with his wife Camilla, who will be crowned alongside him as Queen Consort. Alongside his dedication to his work as a senior member of the Royal Family, the book explores not only his official and ceremonial duties, both in the United Kingdom and overseas, but also the patronages and passions that he has long held so so dear.

Giving a taste of the tradition and pageantry to be expected from the spectacular Coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey in London, this guide reflects on his previous role as Prince of Wales and looks towards the future in his role as King, giving an insight into the man behind the throne.

Jake Winkle’s loose, fresh and spontaneous style of painting is very popular.  His paintings are full of light and movement and a key feature of his technique is that he doesn’t work in the traditional way of light to dark but by placing the darks first.  In Light and Movement in Watercolour, his first book, he demonstrates how to paint watercolours in a loose, direct way by step-by-step demonstrations and practical projects.

Watercolours are often spoiled by a desire to be entirely truthful to the subject matter, which can lead to a painting that is overworked and tight.  Jake’s loose approach avoids those problems.  He looks at subject simplification and shows how to focus on shapes rather than objects and, by painting what you see and not what you know, demonstrates how to capture the essence of the scene with freshness and clarity.

The main topics in this book are:  Understanding Watercolour; Building Confidence; What to Paint; Shapes, Tones and Colours; Dark to Light and Freshness and Clarity.  Jake considers each topic in detail and shows the reader how to create paintings that glow with life, interest and spontaneity.

Nordic Baby Crochet includes easy to follow crochet patterns to create beautiful baby clothes and accessories without the need for arduous assembly. 

Nordic Baby Crochet features 35 patterns for adorable clothing and accessories for babies. With accessible step-by-step guides, the patterns are suitable for experienced crocheters as well as for those just starting with crochet. Here are patterns for cardigans, dresses, bibs, blankets, hats and more. All projects are assembly-free and achieve a modern Scandinavian look with simple patterns and elegant colours of your choosing.

Crochet has a somewhat unfair reputation for being uncomfortable and tight. However, Charlotte Kofoed Westh, with her individual crochet technique, smart choice of patterns and the right yarn ensures that the pieces in this book are snug, elastic and comfortable. This is crochet in a whole new way, a far cry from the rigid designs that many associate with crochet.

Capture the wonders of nature in watercolour with this quick guide to wildlife painting, packed with techniques and inspiration. 

Bestselling author Hazel Soan demonstrates how to paint a variety of wildlife, from garden favourites to exotic wild beasts. With easy-to-follow instructions and step-by-step exercises, it has never been easier to capture the likeness of an animal, in your chosen medium, in a few quick strokes.

The book covers all the key skills you need, including techniques for speed, capturing pose and proportion, advice on painting fur, feathers, hair, hides and markings, working with colour and light, and adding background and setting, as well as further work that can be completed in the studio.

From cats, big and small, birds and foxes to magnificent elephants, lions and zebras, Hazel’s simple tips, practical demonstrations and beautiful paintings can be applied to any moving subject and will help you master the art of capturing animals – in watercolour, oils, pencils or pastels – in no time at all.

Word count: 10,000 words

Inside Ukraine is a compelling visual portrait of the real Ukraine, lovingly put together by Ukrainians in the years leading up to the current war. 

The product of five years and 100,000km of travel around the country by the volunteers of Ukraïner, an organisation that aims to explain Ukraine to its inhabitants and promote it to the wider world, this unique book is a beautiful celebration of the land and its people. It captures the true variety of this vast country, the second largest in Europe, from picturesque forest villages to large urban housing projects, stunning mountain and estuarine scenery to industrial quarries and medieval fortresses.

It introduces the people of Ukraine and their stories, with a huge cast of characters including traditional carol singers, wild honey farmers, potters and railwaymen, artists and sheep-breeders and broom-makers. The natural world is represented too, with its populations of wild pelicans, roaming herds of buffaloes and the charming inhabitants of a bear sanctuary.

Also included are a wealth of QR codes that can be scanned to unlock longer articles on the Ukraïner website, along with more images and videos, giving a whole new dimension to the book.

With over 350 evocative images accompanied by illuminating text, this book will educate, surprise and enchant you, providing a fascinating insight into the side of Ukraine we don’t often see.

Fully illustrated with beautiful photographs, this special commemorative book by royal biographer Brian Hoey – who had the privilege of meeting Diana on several occasions – pays tribute to the life of this remarkable young woman.

Diana, Princess of Wales was admired throughout the world for her vitality, compassion, determination and beauty. When she first came on the scene, she brought a new dimension to the Royal Family and quickly became regarded as one of the most glamorous women in the world.

Yet she remained very much her own person: tough but touchingly vulnerable, self-willed but compassionate to a degree that was unprecedented in one of her generation and background. Her tragic death in 1997, in the prime of her life, shocked the world and unleashed a tide of public grief rarely seen. More than a quarter of a century later, her worldwide popularity remains as strong as ever: she is the unforgettable Diana.

Hazel Soan’s Watercolour Rainbow is an inspiring yet practical book on colour. She sets out to encourage and inspire all watercolour artists to make really radiant and colourful paintings. Hazel takes each main colour in the palette in turn and shows how to use the pigments to their maximum effect with lots of practical hints and tips throughout, as well as projects to show how the colours work in practice. 

All artists, whatever their level, seek advice on how to improve their paintings and this exciting book will inspire all watercolourists to use their palette to the maximum effect.

The book includes: Colour Rules; The Pigments; Transparency and Opacity; Mixing Colours; The Yellows, The Reds, The Blues, The Greens, The Browns, The Blacks and Greys, The Whites; The End of the Rainbow.