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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Color Choices: Making Color Sense Out of Color Theory

Color Choices: Making Color Sense Out of Color Theory Review

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Internationally renowned artist and best selling author Stephen Quiller shows readers how to discover their own personal "color sense" in Color Choices, a book that offers readers a fresh perspective on perfecting their own color styles.

With the help of his own "Quiller Wheel," a special foldout wheel featuring 68 precisely placed colors, the author shows artists how they can develop their own unique color blends. First, Quiller demonstrates how to use the wheel to interpret color relationships and mix colors more clearly. Then he explains, step by step, how to develop five structured color schemes, apply underlays and overlays, and use color in striking, unusual ways. This book will bring out every artist's unique sense of color whether he or she works in oil, watercolor, acrylics, gouache, or casein.

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ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis (Use R!)

ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis (Use R!) Review

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Provides both rich theory and powerful applications Figures are accompanied by code required to produce them Full color figures

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Creating Dynamic Forms with Adobe LiveCycle Designer

Creating Dynamic Forms with Adobe LiveCycle Designer Review

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Adobe LiveCycle Designer is the form creation tool that comes bundled with
Adobe Acrobat Professional. This is the first and only book that explains
how to use Designer to create interactive and dynamic forms. The book was
written in tandem with the Adobe LiveCycle development team and it has been
thoroughly reviewed by over a dozen Adobe engineers. This book is accessible
enough for a beginner but rich enough for an experienced user. It covers all
of the major topics and includes valuable links to other LiveCycle Designer
documentation and resources.

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Fine Art Printing for Photographers: Exhibition Quality Prints with Inkjet Printers, 2nd Edition

Fine Art Printing for Photographers: Exhibition Quality Prints with Inkjet Printers, 2nd Edition Review

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Today's digital cameras provide image data files allowing large-format output at high resolution. At the same time, printing technology has moved forward at an equally fast pace bringing us new inkjet systems capable of printing in high precision at a very fine resolution, providing an amazing tonality range and longtime stability of inks.

Moreover, these systems are now affordable to the serious photographer. In the hands of knowledgeable and experienced photographers, these new inkjet printers can help create prints comparable to the highest quality darkroom prints on photographic paper.

This book provides the necessary foundation for fine art printing: The understanding of color management, profiling, paper and inks. It demonstrates how to set up the printing workflow as it guides the reader step-by-step through this process from an image file to an outstanding fine art print.

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Acrylic Innovation: Styles and Techniques Featuring 64 Visionary Artists

Acrylic Innovation: Styles and Techniques Featuring 64 Visionary Artists Review

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Acrylic is often used as a substitute for oil paint or watercolor, but the real gold mine is in allowing the medium freedom to do what it does best. This book shows how today’s artists are doing exactly that. It’s loaded with original artwork and valuable insight from 64 artists, incredibly diverse in styles and subjects, each using acrylic in unique ways to create expressive and personal art.

· 64 artists offer their individual ideas, approaches and inspirations for working with acrylic paints

· 29 styles, ranging from photorealism to minimal color field and everything in between, are explored through artist profiles, artwork and boundary-breaking “challenges” that provide dynamic starting points for your own art

· 29 step-by-step demonstrations illustrate acrylic-driven techniques you can take straight to your work, including collage and assemblage, reverse painting, printmaking, accidental stenciling, working with metallic mixtures and more

A follow-up to the best-selling Acrylic Revolution,Acrylic Innovation takes you outside your comfort zone. Dip in whenever you feel the urge to experiment, have fun and see fresh and exciting results.

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Practical 3D Printers: The Science and Art of 3D Printing

Practical 3D Printers: The Science and Art of 3D Printing Review

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So what is a 3D printer? It's a device you can either buy or build to make parts, toys, art, and even 3D images captured by a sensor or modeled in software. Maybe you have one, or maybe you're thinking about buying or building one, but once you have one, what can you do with it?

Practical 3D Printers takes you beyond building the printer to calibrating it, customizing it, and creating amazing models with it, including 3D printed text, a warship model, a robot body, windup toys, and arcade-inspired alien invaders.

First you'll learn about the different types of popular 3D printer models and the similarities and differences among them. You'll see how the MakerBot works, and how it's different from RepRap printers like the Huxley and Mendel as well as the whiteAnt RepStrap printer featured in the Apress book Printing in Plastic. You'll then learn how to find and create 3D models, and even how to create a 3D model from a 2D image. Next, you'll walk through building multi-part models with a steampunk warship example, working with meshes to build your own action heroes, and creating an autonomous robot chassis. Finally, you'll find all sorts of bonus projects to build, including wind-up walkers, faceted vases for the home, and a handful of useful upgrades to improve your 3D printer.

In Practical 3D Printers, Brian Evans, the author of Beginning Arduino Programming, takes this topic deeper than any other 3D printing book with an discussion of various types of popular 3D printers, how to customize and calibrate them, and how to design and create models to put your printer to work. Whether you have the MakerBot, the Mendel, the whiteAnt, or any other 3D printer, with Practical 3D Printers, you'll be able to create amazing things with your printer.

What you’ll learn

• The various types of 3D printers, what they have in common, and what sets each one apart
• The printer toolchain, including controllers and printer interfaces
• The art of calibrating your printer
• How to find and create 3D models to print, including using Google Sketchup
• How to create multipart models and meshes
• How to upgrade both the mechanical and electronic parts in your printer

Who this book is for

Electronics enthusiasts, tinkerers, artists, and everyone who wants to use their 3D printer to do more than make more 3D printers.

Table of Contents

Ch. 1: A World of 3D Printers

Ch. 2: 3D Printer Toolchain

Ch. 3: Calibrating Your Printer

Ch. 4: 3D Models From The Cloud

Ch. 5: 3D Haiku

Ch. 6: Steampunk Warship

Ch. 7: Action Hero Mashups

Ch. 8: Mini Sumo Projetcs

Ch. 9: Bonus Round 1: More Projects

Ch. 10: Bonus Round 2: Upgrades

Appendix A: Troubleshooting

Appendix B: Resources

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Creating a Website: The Missing Manual (English and English Edition)

Creating a Website: The Missing Manual (English and English Edition) Review

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Think you need an army of skilled programmers to build a website? Think again. With nothing more than an ordinary PC, some raw ambition, and this book, you’ll learn how to create and maintain a professional-looking, visitor-friendly site. This Missing Manual gives you all the tools, techniques, and expert advice you need.

• Plan your site. Create web pages by learning the basics of HTML and HTML5.
• Control page design with CSS. Format text, images, links, tables, and other elements.
• Attract visitors. Ensure that people can find your site through popular search engines.
• Build a community. Add forums, fresh content, and a feedback form to encourage repeat visits.
• Get smart. Use free tools to identify your site’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Create your own blog. Post your musings with a free blog-hosting service.
• Bring in cash. Host Google ads, sell Amazon’s wares, or push your own products.
• Add pizzazz. Include audio, video, interactive menus, and more.

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The Painterly Approach: An Artist's Guide To Seeing, Painting And Expressing

The Painterly Approach: An Artist's Guide To Seeing, Painting And Expressing Review

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Create paintings with feeling

The Painterly Approach bridges the gap between what you see as an artist, and what you feel. More than painting an appealing landscape, it's about making your viewer feel the wind, experience the dance of shadows and sunlight, and admire the wondrous intermingling of colors that attracted you to your subject in the first place.

In this gorgeously illustrated book, Bob Rohm shows you how to see the world from a painterly perspective and translate it into expressive, poetic paintings that elicit an emotional response from your viewer.

• Clearly illustrates how to choreograph color, value, composition, texture and other fundamental elements to achieve those elusive qualities of mood and emotion
• Features 9 step-by-step demonstrations (in oil, pastel and acrylic) on capturing a vivid sense of time and place
• Covers brushstrokes, painting with a palette knife, edge control, shadows and other advanced art techniques

This book focuses primarily on landscape painting but offers valuable lessons for approaching any subject in a personal and engaging way.

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Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists

Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists Review

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It has been more than twenty years since desktop publishing reinvented design, and it's clear that there is a growing need for designers and artists to learn programming skills to fill the widening gap between their ideas and the capability of their purchased software. This book is an introduction to the concepts of computer programming within the context of the visual arts. It offers a comprehensive reference and text for Processing (www.processing.org), an open-source programming language that can be used by students, artists, designers, architects, researchers, and anyone who wants to program images, animation, and interactivity. The ideas in Processing have been tested in classrooms, workshops, and arts institutions, including UCLA, Carnegie Mellon, New York University, and Harvard University. Tutorial units make up the bulk of the book and introduce the syntax and concepts of software (including variables, functions, and object-oriented programming), cover such topics as photography and drawing in relation to software, and feature many short, prototypical example programs with related images and explanations. More advanced professional projects from such domains as animation, performance, and typography are discussed in interviews with their creators. "Extensions" present concise introductions to further areas of investigation, including computer vision, sound, and electronics. Appendixes, references to additional material, and a glossary contain additional technical details. Processing can be used by reading each unit in order, or by following each category from the beginning of the book to the end. The Processing software and all of the code presented can be downloaded and run for future exploration.Includes essays by Alexander R. Galloway, Golan Levin, R. Luke DuBois, Simon Greenwold, Francis Li, and Hernando Barragán and interviews with Jared Tarbell, Martin Wattenberg, James Paterson, Erik van Blockland, Ed Burton, Josh On, Jürg Lehni, Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn, Mathew Cullen and Grady Hall, Bob Sabiston, Jennifer Steinkamp, Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt, Sue Costabile, Chris Csikszentmihályi, Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman, and Mark Hansen.Casey Reas is Associate Professor in the Design Media Arts Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. Ben Fry is Nierenburg Chair of Design in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University, 2006-2007.

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Photo Finish and Shooting Digital Set

Photo Finish and Shooting Digital Set Review

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Mikkel Aaland's Shooting Digital is a classic, full-color guide for anyone who's making the switch from film to digital. Photo Finish is a must-have book for all photographers looking to take control of their output, showing how to optimize images for print, the Internet, galleries, and on-line retail. Together, they provide a start-to-finish solution for beginning to intermediate digital photographers looking to take their images to the next level.

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AutoCAD: Professional Tips and Techniques

AutoCAD: Professional Tips and Techniques Review

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Build Your Skills with Hundreds of Helpful Ideas from Two AutoCAD Superstars

Two AutoCAD experts distill years of combined experience into hundreds of the most useful AutoCAD tips and techniques you'll ever find. Fun, easy to read, and packed with information, this beautiful guide equips you with inside tricks on critical AutoCAD features and functions--all in fast, easy-to-digest nuggets. Discover keyboard shortcuts and little-known system variables or punch up your style with expert tips on visualizing, publishing, and 3D modeling. No matter what your experience level, you're sure to increase productivity and master professional-level techniques with this lively, practical book.
* Tweak Windows(r) and AutoCAD to get the UI you want
* Handle layers and select objects like a pro
* Create dimensions, hatch patterns, and text correctly the first time
* Comprehend the complexities of Sheet Sets and Paperspace
* Unleash the power of dynamic blocks
* Get visualization tips from the experts
* Plot or publish in the background while you keep drawing
* Take control of AutoCAD with customization techniques
* Master the friendly new world of 3D in AutoCAD 2007

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Mastering AutoCAD 2008 and AutoCAD LT 2008

Mastering AutoCAD 2008 and AutoCAD LT 2008 Review

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Mastering AutoCAD 2008 and AutoCAD LT 2008 offers a unique blend of tutorial and reference that includes everything you need to get started and stay ahead with AutoCAD. Rather than just showing you how each command works, this book shows you AutoCAD 2008 in the context of a meaningful activity. You'll learn how to use commands while working on an actual project and progressing toward a goal. Experienced author George Omura provides a foundation on which you can build your own methods for using AutoCAD and become an AutoCAD expert. Coverage includes everything from the basics of AutoCAD to programming in AutoLISP and VBA to installing and setting up AutoCAD. Whether you're an AutoCAD newbie or AutoCAD all-star, Mastering AutoCAD 2008 and AutoCAD LT 2008 has something for you.

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