Songbirds In Collage

Techniques for creating songbirds in collage. This book features 88 pages of bird inspiration in full color to include, techniques for sketching, underpainting and applying collage. Learn how to paint your own collage paper, simplify shapes, tear with and without white edges, set up a successful studio space, storage solutions, and more!

A journey of discovery of bird life in the city: What songbirds mean to our lives and how we can help birds live with us. Describes how songbirds contribute to urban life and how we can make cities friendlier to birds.

Come voyage through lost roots of the multi-dimensional artistry of collage. This seemingly simple method leads you on an adventure of self discovery, developing your innate abilities for shapes-shifting using paper, scissors and glue. Author and artist Donna Thompson shares her wisdom and stories as she leads you on a journey through time. From caves of old to collaging in your own home, this colorful adventure is an in-depth exploration of humanity’s ancient connections to making art. This triple layered approach is actually three books in one. It begins by guiding you through the mystical Doorway of Color, where you learn the Celtic ways of sensing, gathering and envisioning with images. Next comes the Doorway of Ceremonies, where you unearth indigenous ways of communing with collage. And finally, the Doorway of Dreams, leading to the most ancient ways of remembering who you truly are. Learning to quest with collage is all about playing with colors, signs and synchronicity. It is also a metaphor for the ongoing journey of each human life. You are invited to come along in search of multi-hued elements to weave into an ever unfolding landscape of your own design. Collage Quest is a guide for tracing these deep roots and translating them into modern day materials and language. It is a unique and powerful 21st century tool of co-creation. www.HealingInteriors.com

Contemporary artists investigate the boundaries between animal and human in a world of transgenics and dissolving distinctions; with 65 color images of new works. In an age when scientists say they can no longer specify the exact difference between human and animal, living and dead, many contemporary artists have chosen to use animals in their work—as the ultimate "other," as metaphor, as reflection. The attempt to discover what is animal, not surprisingly, leads to a greater understanding of what it means to be human. In Becoming Animal, 12 internationally known artists investigate the shifting boundaries between animal and human. Their explorations may be a barometer of things to come. The works included in Becoming Animal—which accompanies an exhibit at MASS MoCA—range from the aviary and cabinet of curiosities of Mark Dion to the gun-toting bird collages of Michael Oatman. Nicolas Lampert's machine-animal collages and Jane Alexander's corpse-like humanoids suggest a new landscape of alienation. Rachel Berwick's investigation of the last Galapagos tortoise from the island of Pinto and Brian Conley's humanized mating call of the Tungara frog question the divide between human and animal communication. Patricia Piccinini imagines a bodyguard for a bird on the edge of extinction and Ann-Sofi Siden recreates the bedroom—and paranoia—of psychologist Alice Fabian. Natalie Jeremijenko presents another installment in her ongoing Ooz, reverse-engineering the zoo, and Kathy High's installation of "trans-animals" remembers lab rats who have given their lives for science. Sam Easterson's videos allow us to see from the viewpoint of an aardvark, a tarantula, a tumbleweed; Motohiko Odani's films show a surrealistic genetically modified bestiary. Becoming Animal documents these works with eye-popping full-color images, taking us on a visual journey through an unknown world.

When Eve Springer arrives to join the Songbirds it’s the fulfillment of her lifelong dream. But that dream is soon to become a nightmare. Somebody is murdering the Songbirds, using their own instruments as weapons. Will Eve be next? “Passionate, overwhelming, a classic thriller with a rock rhythm.” — Ernesto Gastaldi, screenwriter of So Sweet… So Perverse "I read this story with ever-increasing interest. The dynamics and tension felt reminiscent of my thriller films from the 70s and 80s, which have been appreciated by many American directors such as Quentin Tarantino. It would make a great film for lovers of the genre. Ottimo intrigo!" — Sergio Martino, director of All the Colors of the Dark and Torso "Intricately plotted in the classic giallo style, with plot twists and murders galore. John Everson has written a thriller that is sure to appeal to devotees of lurid Italian mystery thrillers." — Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films Somebody is murdering the Songbirds… A modern Giallo, Everson's homage to the stylish Italian mystery thrillers. When Eve Springer arrives in Belgium to study with the world-famous Prof. Ernest Von Klein at The Eyrie, an exclusive music conservatory, it’s the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. But that dream is soon to become a nightmare. When the star of the school’s piano program is strangled with a piano wire, the only clue to the killer is a grainy picture of the victim during her final moments, mouth wide and screaming, posted on the girl’s own Facebook account, alongside a classic music video. What does it mean? Eve soon finds herself taking the girl’s place as the enclave’s star pupil, in line for a coveted scholarship and a new member of the famed jazz combo, the Songbirds. When Eve is drugged and another Songbird murdered at a campus party, she suddenly finds herself on the list of suspects. Another picture is posted online of the victim in her final moments, and this time, Eve is sure the hands around the girl’s throat… are hers! Could she have killed the girl while under the influence of whatever someone had slipped in her drink? The police and others at the Eyrie are suspicious; the murders began when she arrived. Her new boyfriend Richard insists that she could not be the killer. But who would want the Songbirds dead? One of the other Songbirds, like Gianna, the snarky sax player who seems to hate everyone? Or Philip, the creepy building caretaker and occasional night watchman? Or could it be Prof. Von Klein himself, who seems very handy with a camera and has a secret locked room behind his office where the light always seems to be on after dark? Whoever it is, Eve knows she needs to figure it out. Because when a dead canary is left as a bloody message on the keys of her piano, she knows her own life may be in deadly danger. FLAME TREE PRESS is the imprint of long-standing Independent Flame Tree Publishing, dedicated to full-length original fiction in the horror and suspense, science fiction & fantasy, and crime / mystery / thriller categories. The list brings together fantastic new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.

Artists have always been recyclers. This gallery of work made from repurposed materials is both a visual delight and "a source of ideas for crafters" (Library Journal). Artists and crafters have always been recyclers at heart, but in recent decades, it's become not only a thrifty choice but a moral imperative for many. 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse contains a cutting-edge collection of the most inventive work being made with reused, upcycled, and already existing materials. Exciting and inspiring, the work in this book ranges from clever and humble personal accessories to unique and important large-scale works of art, including paper art, fashion, jewelry, housewares, interiors, and installations.

Emphasizing the diversity of twentieth-century collage practices, Rona Cran's book explores the role that it played in the work of Joseph Cornell, William Burroughs, Frank O'Hara, and Bob Dylan. For all four, collage was an important creative catalyst, employed cathartically, aggressively, and experimentally. Collage's catalytic effect, Cran argues, enabled each to overcome a potentially destabilizing crisis in representation. Cornell, convinced that he was an artist and yet hampered by his inability to draw or paint, used collage to gain access to the art world and to show what he was capable of given the right medium. Burroughs' formal problems with linear composition were turned to his advantage by collage, which enabled him to move beyond narrative and chronological requirement. O'Hara used collage to navigate an effective path between plastic art and literature, and to choose the facets of each which best suited his compositional style. Bob Dylan's self-conscious application of collage techniques elevated his brand of rock-and-roll to a level of heightened aestheticism. Throughout her book, Cran shows that to delineate collage stringently as one thing or another is to severely limit our understanding of the work of the artists and writers who came to use it in non-traditional ways.

Contains color photographs and illustrations of songbirds from around the world, and includes information about their behaviors, eating habits, and singing, as well as a discussion of the dangers of extinction.