A practical and inspirational guide to help embroiderers and textile artists make the most of sketchbooks to inform their creative work.

The artist’s sketchbook offers an exciting platform to explore a host of mixed media techniques. Using a combination of paper, textiles, found objects, pencil, ink and paint, Shelley Rhodes shows how a sketchbook can act as an illustrated diary, a visual catalogue of a journey or experience or as a starting point for more developed work. 

Whether out on location or in the studio, Rhodes explores every stage of the creative process, from initial inspiration to overcoming the fear of a blank page, manipulating paper and images and incorporating ‘found’ objects to build a sketchbook that is both beautiful and inspiring. Sketchbook Explorations is the ideal companion for everyone from the beginner to the more experienced artist looking for exciting techniques to expand their repertoire in mixed media.

The book explores:

• Why work in sketchbooks? The importance and joy of working in a sketchbook.
• Ways of recording and investigating ideas that inspire.
• Techniques in mixed media from found objects and layers to three-dimensional sketching.
• Creating on location.
• Using electronic devices to develop ideas.

This book provides all the paper, templates and instructions you need to start making your own beautiful papercraft – all you need is a scalpel and a cutting board.

Papercutting artist Boo Paterson shows you step-by-step how to craft your own intricate rainforests, jungles and the critters that live in them in this easy-to-follow, illustrative book. Learn how to cut and bring to life a variety of animals, from tigers to sloths, kangaroos to orangutans. This book includes everything you will need to get started – clear instructions, templates for cutting, as well as easy-to-pull-out, high quality art paper in a variety of colours.

This book is perfect for beginners as well as those wanting to develop their skills at papercutting. It starts with a chapter on tools, information on materials and step-by-step images on how to master the basic techniques of papercutting. The rest of the book is packed with projects of varying difficulties, complete with full colour images of the finished work and clear, instructional templates showing you where to cut or bend the paper. There is also advice on how best to frame and present your complete masterpieces.

A practical guide to learn painting in oils, with simple exercises and step-by-step demonstrations.

Bestselling artist and writer Hazel Soan has distilled her art teaching into the things that matter most and can be digested in a short period of time. Learning to paint is one of the life-long aspirations of many of us and the techniques of oil painting can be picked up faster than you think. And, as mistakes can be corrected much more easily in oils than any other painting medium, it is the ideal medium for beginners.

In this concise book, Hazel Soan explains everything you need to know about oils in an accessible way. She advises on the materials you need (keeping things to a minimum), how to mix colours, basic brush techniques and how to use a palette knife. The subjects covered range from still life, flowers, animals, landscapes, figures and portraits.

Filled with easy-to-follow exercises and demonstrations, this is a practical and helpful guide to learning to paint in oils very quickly.

An exploration of the corset as a motif for textile artists, with practical tips and examples.

Used for the last 400 years to contort the female body into a variety of fashionable silhouettes, the corset has become a fascinating and hugely popular motif for modern textile artists who wish to represent the female body using the largely feminine traditions of textile and stitch.
Beginning with a step-by-step guide to constructing a simple fabric corset, the book goes on to explore more contemporary and experimental approaches to construction, from using unusual materials such as lace, metal, paper and found fibres to up-cycling or repurposing existing garments to make a statement.
This practical guide is full of exercises for creating intimate garments and wearable art in two- and three-dimensions and is packed with inspiring work and installations by other contemporary artists.

A practical guide to using gouache in botanical painting, by a leading botanical painter.

Gouache is an opaque water-based medium, often called body colour, that produces crisp and vibrant paintings, and is becoming increasingly popular in botanical painting. Leading botanical painter, Simon Williams, specializes in painting in gouache and this is his first book.

Botanical Painting in Gouache is full of practical advice on all aspects of using the exciting medium of gouache and contains many step-by-step demonstration paintings. In addition to the sumptuous flower paintings there are also sections on painting butterflies, birds and exotic and unusual plants from the rainforest.

A highly entertaining read for anyone with even a passing interest in art and art history.

This myth-busting book takes you on a great ride through the lives of starving (and not so starving) artists, unusual exhibitions and painting blunders throughout history. In the intriguing, outrageous and often provoking world
of the visual arts, nothing is quite as it seems.
From the world’s first intance of photobombing in 1843 to the Damien Hirst spot painting that landed on Mars, the destruction of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers during World War II and the £3,500 sheet of paper crumpled into a ball, Everything You Know About Art is Wrong will confound your assumptions about the world of art – and perhaps even the place of art in the world.

An ancient Chinese proverb suggests, “They are wise parents who give their children roots and wings – and a map.”

Maps That Changed the World features some of the world’s most famous maps, stretching back to a time when cartography was in its infancy and the ‘edge of the world’ was a barrier to exploration. The book includes details of how the Lewis and Clark Expedition helped map the American West, and how the British mapped India and Australia. Included are the beautifully engraved Dutch maps of the 16th century; the sinister Utopian maps of the Nazis; the maps that presaged brilliant military campaigns; charted the geology of a nation; and the ones that divided a continent up between its European conquerors.

Organised by theme, the book shows the evolution of map-making from all corners of the globe, from ancient clay maps, to cartographic breakthroughs such as Harry Beck’s map of the London underground. There are also famous fictional maps, including the maps of the lost continent of Atlantis and Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

With an introduction written by acclaimed cartographic historian Jeremy Black.

In this ground-breaking art book, leading artist Mike Bernard reveals every aspect of working with collage, paint and other mixed-media approaches. Everything from the initial inspiration for a painting through to design, colour, surface qualities and finishing touches is covered. With detailed information and advice on collage techniques, the book demonstrates how you can develop original results by starting with paper collage and then working freely with paint and other materials.

The book includes numerous illustrations covering every step of the working process, as well as a wide selection of subject matter, location sketches, watercolour studies and striking finished paintings. Mike Bernard’s work is known for exciting textures, strong colour and the effects of light; all combined into original semi-abstract images of landscapes, still life and figure compositions. His techniques, particularly paper collage, are important ones for all artists looking to expand their repertoire.

The plant world has always been appreciated for its visual appeal, but its true beauty can be revealed when you look under the electron microscope. This collection unearths some of the most wonderful microscopic images of flowers, trees and grasses ever created, now made possible by technology. We get to see the wonder of pollen, seeds, petals, algae and leaves. The images are as beautiful as any art. 

This stunning collection of images can be enjoyed purely as a visual voyage but also as a way to understand more of the science behind the image. Whether it’s the work of a lavender leaf oil gland, the inside of a pine pollen, flower stamen sculptures deep inside a tree bark, or the wonderful patterns of lichen. Each image will include the scale of the photography as well as the scientific details in layman’s terms.

Our understanding of disease and the powers of medicine today are unparalleled, and their documentation has increased signficantly. Science is Beautiful collects the most fascinating microscopic photographs of our diseases along with the medicines we use to treat them. These photographs are profoundly fascinating – and also beautiful.

Featured are some of the most illuminating microscopic images of bacteria, viruses and cancers ever captured, now made possible by electron micrograph technology. Potentially fatal diseases such as cancer and Ebola are included, and minor complaints such as Staphylococcus bacteria and dental plaque are shown for their surprising beauty. Other photographs reveal what human cells look like when suffering from Alzheimer’s, from osteoporosis, or from HIV. It also uncovers some diseases specific to animals. But there are also dazzling images of the crystals, powders and potions that we take to cure ourselves, including magnified versions of aspirin, insulin, morphine and caffeine.

This collection of images, as beautiful as any artwork, can be enjoyed purely as a visual voyage but also as a way to understand more of the science behind the image, whether it’s the work of a meningitis virus, our chromosomes in a cancer cell or the breakdown of painkillers. Each image includes the scale of the photography as well as the scientific details in layman’s terms.

100 Documents That Changed the World brings together the most important written agreements, declarations and statements in history. The documents included here have changed the course of history by rewriting laws, granting freedoms and laying out constitutions. But as well as official charters and presidential proclamations, there are also the hand-written documents that have gone on to shape the way we think, the scrawled notes that mark breakthroughs in the worlds of science and technology, and the annotated manuscripts that have become literary landmarks.

Documents included: Magna Carta (1215); Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623); Declaration of independence (1776); Constitution of the United States (1787); Louisiana Purchase (1803); Darwin’s Evolutionary Tree (1837); Gettysburg Address (1863); Treaty of Versailles (1919); German Surrender (1945); Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have A Dream” speech (1963); First Website (1991); Edward Snowden Files (2013).

A highly entertaining read for anyone interested in English history and culture, this great myth-busting book takes you on a great ride through history and the national character. Think we’re the land of Punch and Judy and Morris Dancing? Think again as both traditions started in southern Europe. Love Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches? Well, they were recorded by an actor.

Packed with details on real English history, the book explodes a range of national myths from bluebirds in Dover (they are not indigenous European birds) to the origin of the Cornish pasty (they might have been invented in London), from our stiff upper lip (an Americanism) to where you can spend a Scottish bank note. English arts, entertainment, food, drink, kings and queens, traditions as well as politics are all covered to give you a fascinating insight into the true England.

Includes an additional chapter on Scottish, Welsh and Irish myths that we’ve been peddling in England for decades and need to be laid to rest.