Sketches From Nature

An elderly caretaker at a large outdoor exhibition, called Art in Nature, finds that a couple have lingered on to bicker about the value of a picture; he has a surprising suggestion that will resolve both their row and his own ambivalence about the art market. A draughtsman's obsession with drawing locomotives provides a dark twist to a love story. A cartoonist takes over the work of a colleague who has suffered a nervous breakdown only to discover that his own sanity is in danger. In these witty, sharp, often disquieting stories, Tove Jansson reveals the fault-lines in our relationship with art, both as artists and as consumers. Obsession, ambition, and the discouragement of critics are all brought into focus in these wise and cautionary tales.

In straightforward text complemented by step-by-step illustrations, dozens of exercises lead the hand and mind through creating accurate reproductions of plants and animals as well as landscapes, skies, and more. Laws provides clear, practical advice for every step of the process for artists at every level, from the basics of choosing supplies to advanced techniques.

Have you ever experienced the peace of walking through the woods or the excitement of a storm gathering on a beach? Drawing Nature for the Absolute Beginner will help you capture these moments in artwork and share them others. In their fun and friendly teaching style, Mark and Mary Willenbrink offer a great beginner's course on drawing nature, showing you how to realistically capture the world around you. All you need to get started are some simple supplies, basic techniques, and inspiration. From field to forest, beach or mountain, begin with a structural sketch, apply values and textures, and, before you know it, you'll be drawing everything you see. You'll even learn how to render favorite wildlife such as chipmunks, deer and eagles! • Follow along with easy step-by-step demonstrations to draw rocks, seashells, butterflies and even more developed nature scenes. • Gain a working understanding of key concepts such as perspective, value and composition. • Discover simple tools and tips you can use right away to improve your art.

In his time, Thomas Hill, a British-born painter who worked extensively in the American West during the second half of the nineteenth century, earned favorable comparison with Albert Bierstadt in the East Coast press, and received highest honors for landscape painting at the Philadelphia Centennial. By the late 1860s, his monumental canvases of Yosemite commanded five thousand dollars apiece and attracted national critical acclaim. Hill is generally associated with those paintings of Yosemite and other grand landscapes and his The Driving of the Last Spike. These large-scale compositions, however, incompletely represent Thomas Hill's talents and enthusiams. Some of the artist's finest achievements are realized in smaller paintings, classified as oil sketches, of subjects as diverse as Newport, Rhode Island, Lake Tahoe in California, and the Pacific Northwest. These modest works attest to Hill's powers of observation, his abilities to render immediate descriptions of his subjects, and his enchantment with his motifs. Oil sketches - usually made on board or paper and under sixteen-by-twenty inches - comprise a significant portion of Thomas Hill's work. Spontaneously executed, they capture the artist's direct responses to nature. As a body they offer immediacy and visual delight, as well as insights into the artist's broad interests and the cultural context in which he worked. And because they represent, in many cases, the only surveying evidence of larger-scale paintings made from them, the oil sketches are key to documenting Hill's career. - excerpted from the essay by Janice T. Driesbach. -- from front cover flap.

This sketchbook helps kids look more closely at nature and capture what they discover with pencil, pen, and paint. The Nature Explorer's Sketchbook inspires exploration, creativity and observation, with beautiful sketchbook illustrations, ideas and tips, and plenty of space for kids to draw. 20 [ages of instruction andcolor illustrations followed by blank pages, with more hints and examples every ten pages. A perfect tool for home schoolers, environmental education programs, STEAM programs, or to give as a gift to young artists and nature lovers. Ages 10+

Thirty-five poems, in two parts.