From author: “The film “Endangered Species” was created especially so this book could be  written. It may seem a quite extraordinary statement for an author to make - that they created an entire film simply to write a book - yet this is basically what I have done. Without the film, this book could never have been written. But then again, without an amazing, magical, diversely enchanting world of animation which has existed for almost 100 years now, the film could never have been made in the first place!”

The Guideways through Mountains and Seas (Shanhaijing) is a unique and enduring record of a wide range of beliefs held by the ancient Chinese about their world, encompassing religion, mythology, geography, flora, fauna, minerals, and medicine. An encyclopedic cosmography mostly compiled from the Warring States period to the Western Han dynasty (c.4^th -c. 1st cent. B.C.E.), it has been repeatedly hand-copied, reprinted, and re-edited through the centuries into our own time... Since the nineteenth century, it has also attracted the attention of foreign scholars and in recent years has been translated into at least five different languages...

In this section you are introduced to the basic techniques of watercolour painting. At this stage you will be carefully guided along the way, while you become familiar with your materials. The essential groundwork is covered here, including such topics as application of paint, mixing colours, using tone to maximum effect, and building up a painting gradually. The importance of keeping your painting methods simple is stressed and you are also shown compositional techniques which, if applied as demonstrated, will add power and appeal to your work.

This book is written from an artist’s point if view – an artist with a love of structures, and a fascination for textures and how to recreate them in watercolour. I am not an architect, and have had no training in architecture – I simply respond as an artist might, to the environment within which I find myself and the visual stimulus that I seek is often to be found tucked away in the streets of villages, towns and cities.

Did you wonder why you picked up this made you do it? Could it have been the title, the cover image, a recommendation from a friend, or just simple curiosity? Or might you have been guided by an unseen force that seemed to urge you to visit another world? Deep in our psyches most of us have a sense that magic can happen and that the veil between two worlds can be i fled, just as it sometimes is in dreams.

If you are excited by color, then you should be painting flowers. If you are really turned on by a brilliant Pink, a vivid Orange or muted Blues, Lavenders and Greens, then you should be painting flowers. Whether painting very realistic flowers or flowers of pure fantasy, I can think of no other subject matter where there are so few color limitations. And color is really what it is all about!

Chinese Ink painting depicts the grape vine with fruit. The sumi painting with saturated black and light gray ink tones is mounted with bright yellow silk, which heightens the elegance of this brush painting.

Make your point - visually and in a funny way - by creating cartoons. If you can put an idea or observation across in a drawing then you can be a cartoonist. Here’s how not only to sharpen your illustrative skills, but also to convey humor, satire, and the emotions of your characters.

It is no so long ago  that books on airbrushing were practical unobtainable simply because publishers did not think there was an adequate demand. However, the continued and increasing need for highly finished, quality illustrations in every area of graphic design has brought an awareness of airbrushing to a wider audience, even though the techniques themselves may still be elusive to many.

This book is your complete reference for mastering more than 50 fabulous strokes. Inside you’ll find visual, step-by-step instruction divided into two sections that detail techniques for working with both round and flat brushes in acrylics.