Thread, Paint & Inspiration — the Sky’s the Limit! • Create unique and impressive landscape quilts from photos you take — includes tips on taking good pictures, how to combine elements of several photos into one design, and how to use color effectively • Yes, you can create stunning pictorial effects using step-by-step techniques! • Learn how to paint your own fabrics and create striking silhouettes Let your inner artist out! Capture the glory of a sunrise or sunset, the stark outline of a tree against the sky, the placid surface of the ocean. Gloria has assembled a repertoire of techniques to give all your pictorial quilts breathtaking impact, from working with photographs to painting fabric, creating silhouettes, constructing backgrounds, and embellishing with stitching. Try one of three projects, or use the techniques in your own designs.

How to paint your world in watercolor…and have fun doing it! The day Sterling Edwards watched an artist paint an entire sky with three deft brushstrokes was the day he committed to trading his tiny oil brushes and photorealistic style in favor of big, bold strokes of watercolor. In the years since, he's developed not only a wonderfully fresh, luminous painting style, but also an approach that takes the intimidation out of this beautiful but often-mystifying medium. In this book, he shares both. • Initial chapters lay the foundation for successful paintings, from choosing the right brushes to achieving vibrant colors, interesting textures and strong compositions. • Step-by-step demonstrations illustrate techniques for painting rocks, skies, trees, foliage, buildings, water and other landscape elements. • An easy-to-follow, four-step painting process makes for easier starts and stronger finishes, complete with rich darks and sparkling highlights. • Eight complete painting projects cover a range of breathtaking scenes and seasons. Whether you're dipping into the medium for the first time or you're a watercolor devotee on a quest for clearer color and more personal statements, this book will help you make the most of the time you spend with brush in hand.

Discover the luminous landscape paintings of Lisa Mee that capture the mysteries and essences of the natural world. She looks for places and themes that evoke and inspire her dialogue with nature.There is a mood of elegy in her work, which reflects her deep concern for a threatened and fragile ecosystem. Her paintings celebrate a world full of light, movement, gentle highlights and vibrant colors. There is power without overstatement and deep feeling without sentimentality.

Award-winning Expressionist Nature Painter and Mackinac Island summer resident Maeve Croghan presents a collection of her work and describes how summers on the island as a child fostered her deep love of nature. Quiet, meditative scenes and the ever-changing water and sky are integral parts of the Mackinac experience reflected in her oil paintings of amazing places. While the artist's appreciation for the natural world is rooted in the limestone rock of the island, Maeve explains how she honed her unique style when she moved to the West Coast and was inspired by the long views of California where wild open fields flow into the Pacific Ocean. The scenes instill an emotional response in Maeve just like the view across the Straits of Mackinac. It's a feeling like there's nothing holding her back. Possibilities are endless. Throughout "The Essence of Nature," Maeve shares paintings of some of her favorite Mackinac Island spots as well as inspiring scenes in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Canada, California, Hawaii, Italy and France. May this collection give readers the same sense of peace and connectedness to nature Maeve feels when she paints.

This book includes thirteen essays on landscape photography by master photographer Alain Briot. Topics include practical, technical, and aesthetic aspects of photography to help photographers build and refine their skills. Also covered is how to be an artist in business. Alain Briot is one of the leading contemporary landscape photographers. He received his education in France and currently works mostly in the southwestern part of the United States. This book starts with the technical aspects of photography; how to see, compose, find the right light, and select the best lens for a specific shot. It continues by focusing on the artistic aspects of photography with chapters on how to select your best work, how to create a portfolio, and finally concludes with two chapters on how to be an artist in business.

Here, readers can discover how to add dramatic depth to their landscape applique quilts using easy-to-follow techniques from master quilter Gloria Loughman."

To celebrate Saskatchewan's centenary, internationally renowned master photographer Courtney Milne has returned home to celebrate his first love-Saskatchewan. The breathtaking images in Saskatchewan: The Luminous Landscape pay homage to the beauty of the province's prairies, hills, forests, lakes and skies. From the Cypress Hills in the southwest to Selwyn Lake and the Crackingstone Peninsula in the far north, Saskatchewan: The Luminous Landscape transports viewers from iconic images of the prairie to the seldom seen vistas of the north. The 225 images-coupled with personal notes, stories and journal entries-reveal why, like all prairie natives, Courtney Milne's world travels always leave him longing for his cherished province. "It comes as no surprise," he notes, 'that we become spoiled by the dazzling displays of light-sunsets, sundogs, harvest moons, northern lights, not to mention thunder clouds, rainbows, hoarfrost, blue spring ditches and fields painted canola-yellow, mid-July green, or ripened gold."