Drawing & Painting Trees in the Landscape

Drawing & Painting Trees in the Landscape Review

Draw & Paint Realistic Trees in All Four Seaons

Bestselling author and naturalist Claudia Nice is back with another studio essential for every landscape artist. Drawing & Painting Trees in the Landscape features Claudia's best tips and techniques for painting trees of all kinds in their natural settings—from the majesty of mountain evergreens to the delicate pink blossoms of cherry trees in spring.

With her inspiring artistic style and in-depth visual instruction, Claudia starts with the basics, showing you how to break down reference photos and open-air vistas into simple shapes, colors and textures. Follow along as she skillfully guides you through every step of creating vibrant compositions anchored by glorious trees and foliage, including:

• Drawing and sketching techniques for mapping out successful compositions
• A variety of basic tree shapes you can reference and copy; featuring more than 40 conifers, hardwoods and deciduous trees
• Proven color mixes for painting an array of vibrant hues—from the many different greens of foliage to the soft pastels of spring blossoms—using watercolor, oil, acrylics or mixed media
• Step-by-step instructions on drawing and painting important details, such as the weathered textures of bark, the sculptural shapes of bare branches in winter, aged mossy trunks and more
• Techniques for working smart in any medium, such as using simple watercolor washes for distant foliage, adding details with pen & ink, and "knife painting" in oils for interesting dimensional effects

Whether your goal is to make accurate field sketches for your journal, paint what you see on your travels through the countryside, or just capture familiar views of your own back yard, Claudia makes the process fun, easy and satisfying. Like a walk in the woods, with every step you'll relax, enjoy and learn something new.

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Cupcakes: From the Cake Mix Doctor

Cupcakes: From the Cake Mix Doctor Review

The cupcake is America’s darling. It’s celebrated in upscale bakeries, on Sex in the City, on the cover of Gourmet, and in thou-sands of classrooms—where every day, it seems, a parent has sent in a batch for the kids to share. The very word conjures up whimsy, coziness, pleasure, nostalgia. Not to mention the fact that their diminutive size means you can eat a lot of them.

Once upon a time, a family had only two recipes for cupcakes—chocolate and vanilla. Not anymore. Now Anne Byrn brings them to the next level. And who better? Recognized as the master of cake-mix baking, Anne is the author of The Cake Mix Doctor and Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor, which have a total of over 1.8 million copies in print. In Cupcakes she offers 135 tempting recipes for children and grown-ups, for special days and everyday, lunch bags, holiday festivities, and an unexpected dinner party dessert.

You’ll never believe these artful little cakes started with a mix. Coconut Snowballs, Jelly Doughnut Cupcakes, Kiss Me Cakes, Warm Chocolate Cupcakes with Molten Centers, Red Velvet Cupcakes with White Chocolate Peppermint Cream Cheese Frosting. There are surprising additions (tuck a chocolate kiss orpiece of cookie dough into the batter). Creative toppings and easy from-scratch frostings (whipped cream spiked with Kahlua; miniature M&Ms; a creamy malted frosting with crushed malted milk balls).Terrific decorating ideas, from glittering golden dragees or elegant chocolate curls to yellow peeps for an Easter cupcake or—for Groundhog’s Day—a groundhog’s face made out of chocolate frosting and jimmies. Includes a 16-page full-color opening essay.

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Outlook 2010 All-in-One For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

Outlook 2010 All-in-One For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) Review

Extensive coverage on using Microsoft Outlook to manage and organize your day

As the number one e-mail client and personal information manager, Microsoft Outlook offers a set of uncomplicated features that maximize the management of your e-mail, schedule, and general daily activities, with the least amount of hassle possible. Comprised of ten minibooks in one and packed with more than 800 pages, this All-in-One For Dummies reference walks you through the convenience of Microsoft Outlook and introduces you to the newest features of the 2010 version.

After a description of how to get started with Outlook 2010, you’ll get complete coverage on e-mail basics, advanced e-mail features, working with the calendar, managing contacts, and working with Business Contact Manager. You’ll learn how to track tasks, take notes, and record items in the journal, as well as customize and manage Outlook and get mobile with Outlook.

• Offers soup-to-nuts coverage of Microsoft Outlook 2010, the newest version of the number one most popular e-mail manager
• Walks you through getting started with Outlook and e-mail basics, and gradually progresses to more advanced features and capabilities of e-mail
• Explains how to work with the Outlook 2010 calendar and manage your contacts
• Addresses tracking tasks, taking notes, recording items in the journal, and working with Business Contact Manager
• Shows you how to customize your Outlook, manage all the information within Outlook, and take Outlook on the road

Get a whole new outlook on Outlook 2010 with this complete guide!

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Mastering AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 (Autodesk Official Training Guides)

Mastering AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 (Autodesk Official Training Guides) Review

A complete tutorial and reference for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013

Autodesk's Civil 3D is the leading civil engineering software, and this reliable training guide has been thoroughly revised and updated to offer a fresh perspective on this powerful engineering package. Filled with illustrative examples, new datasets, and new tutorials, this book shows how elements of the dynamic engineering program work together and discusses the best methods for creating, editing, displaying, and labeling all of a civil engineering project's elements.

The book's straightforward explanations, real-world examples, and practical tutorials focus squarely on teaching vital Civil 3D tips, tricks, and techniques. The authors' extensive real-world experience and Civil 3D expertise allows them to focus on how the software is used in real-world professional environments and present topics and techniques that are not documented elsewhere.

• Offers an overview of key concepts and the software's interface
• Discusses the best methods for creating, editing, displaying, and labeling all of a civil engineering project's elements
• Features in-depth, detailed coverage of surveying, points, alignments, surfaces, profiles, corridors, grading, LandXML and LDT Project Transfer, cross sections, pipe networks, visualization, sheets, and project management, as well as Vault and data shortcuts
• Offers help for the Civil 3D Certified Associate and Certified Professional exams

This book is the only complete, detailed reference and tutorial for Autodesk's extremely popular and robust civil engineering software.

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Watercolor (Dover Art Instruction)

Watercolor (Dover Art Instruction) Review

From one of America's favorite artists comes one of the most popular watercolor books ever written. Drawing upon a lifetime of perfecting the craft he loves, Pike provides artists at all levels of expertise with information on everything from choosing a brush to producing a variety of washes. Abundantly illustrated with 166 paintings.

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Oil Painting For Dummies

Oil Painting For Dummies Review

Oil Painting For Dummies Feature

• Dimensions: 9.2 in. H x 7.46 in. W x 0.78 in. D
• Weight: 1.27 ounces
• Made in CN

Nobody ever said that oil painting was easy. But it gets much easier and a lot more fun when you follow a step-by-step approach that starts you off on the right foot, helps you build your skills one at a time, and gives you plenty of exercises to develop your craft. That’s what you’ll find in Oil Painting For Dummies.

Completely free of arty jargon, this full-color guide has all the hands-on instruction you need to master the basics. You’ll see how to plan a painting, build an image in layers, mix colors, and create stunning compositions. You’ll also find everything you need to know about oil paints, solvents, and pigments; brushes, palettes, and painting surfaces; and how to keep costs down at the art supply store. Discover how to:

• Choose the right supplies
• Set up your studio and care for your equipment
• Handle your materials safely
• Develop your design and composition skills
• Make practice sketches and studies
• Use broken stroke, dry brush, glazing, scraffito and other brush strokes
• Try out different compositions
• Mix any color you want
• Simplify tricky still-life subjects
• Paint landscapes and common objects out doors
• Paint portraits and the human form

Complete with handy color chart, basic materials list, and a very useful viewing square, Oil Painting For Dummies is the fun and easy way to discover your inner artist!

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Practical Computing for Biologists

Practical Computing for Biologists Review

Increasingly, scientists find themselves facing exponentially larger data sets and analyses without suitable tools to deal with them. Many biologists end up using spreadsheet programs for most of their data-processing tasks and spend hours clicking around or copying and pasting, and then repeating the process for other data files.

Practical Computing for Biologists shows you how to use many freely available computing tools to work more powerfully and effectively. The book was born out of the authors' own experience in developing tools for their research and helping other biologists with their computational problems. Although many of the techniques are relevant to molecular bioinformatics, the motivation for the book is much broader, focusing on topics and techniques that are applicable to a range of scientific endeavors. Twenty-two chapters organized into six parts address these topics and more:

• Searching with regular expressions
• The Unix command line
• Python programming and debugging
• Creating and editing graphics
• Databases
• Performing analyses on remote servers
• Working with electronics

While most of the concepts and examples apply to any operating system, the main narrative focuses on Mac OS X. Where there are differences for Windows and Linux users, parallel instructions are provided in the margin and in an appendix. The book is designed to be used as a self-guided resource for researchers, a companion book in a course, or as a primary textbook. Practical Computing for Biologists will free you from the most frustrating and time-consuming aspects of data processing so you can focus on the pleasures of scientific inquiry.

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