Cultural Writing. Art. Essays. MAGICAL SECRETS ABOUT THINKING CREATIVELY: THE ART OF ETCHING AND THE TRUTH OF LIFE by Kathan Brown is a new volume in the Magical Secrets series published by Crown Point Press in San Francisco. What are Magical Secrets? They are ways of setting yourself up for thinking creatively, for a sudden understanding, something like a miracle. Kathan Brown learned the Magical Secrets in this book by helping artists of extraordinary acclaim make etchings. She founded Crown Point Press, now probably the world's most influential etching publisher, in 1962. In this book, you'll meet sixteen artists who will be remembered by future generations. Kathan Brown knows them well, and with pictures and graceful, inviting prose she shares with you their ways of working, thinking, and being.

Why isn’t everyone creative? Why doesn’t education foster more ingenuity? Why is expertise often the enemy of innovation? Bestselling creativity expert Michael Michalko shows that in every ?eld of endeavor — from business and science to government, the arts, and even day-to-day life — natural creativity is limited by the prejudices of logic and the structures of accepted categories and concepts. Through step-by-step exercises, illustrated strategies, and inspiring real-world examples, he shows readers how to liberate their thinking and literally expand their imaginations by learning to synthesize dissimilar subjects, think paradoxically, and enlist the help of the subconscious mind. He also reveals the attitudes and approaches that diverse geniuses share — and anyone can emulate. Fascinating and fun, Michalko’s strategies facilitate the kind of lightbulb-moment thinking that changes lives — for the better.

What happens when six creative girls accidentally open a Secret Door to a Magical Realm? It doesn't take long for adventure -- and danger -- to find them! Upon arriving in the Realm, eleven-year-old Shaylee and her friends learn they are the long-awaited princesses of the Six Kingdoms, and each girl has a unique magical power tied to her creative talents. But the kingdoms are in ruin thanks to an evil force that has drained nearly all of the power from the Wellspring of Magic. As if that wasn't bad enough, the door between the real world and the Realm is stuck! It can't be opened again -- and the girls can't go home -- until the magic is restored to the Wellspring. Shaylee and her friends must work together using their creative abilities, such as dancing, painting, and beading, to channel powers they never knew they had and fight the dark forces threatening to destroy the Realm. Their adventure will bring them face-to-face with gigantic grizzly bears claiming to be their protectors, green-skinned fairy folks, a scaly river dragon, vampire spiders, and killer plants -- things none of the girls expected to face during their summer break. Can they master their new powers in time to turn back the dark forces that want to trap them in the Realm forever? The Creative Girls Enchanted Adventures series is an irresistible mix of crafts, magic, humor, and adventure that will have girls hooked on reading!

The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve. “Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: • Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.

Cultural Writing. Art. Includes a DVD. Brian Shure has expanded and revised his popular CHINE COLLE: A PRINTER'S HANDBOOK to create the fourth book in Crown Point's MAGICAL SECRETS series. In this new edition, Shure gives step-by-step instructions for printing and pasting to a support sheet, and adapts chine colle techniques for working with collage and mounting paper, fabric, and other materials with or without a press. Additional chapters discuss sizing paper or fabric, gold leafing, and scroll mounting. Examples of chine colle prints and step-by-step techniques are illustrated in color.

New York Times Bestseller An exciting--and encouraging--exploration of creativity from the author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: artists, inventors, storytellers-creative and holistic "right-brain" thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't. Drawing on research from around the world, Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others) outlines the six fundamentally human abilities that are absolute essentials for professional success and personal fulfillment--and reveals how to master them. A Whole New Mind takes readers to a daring new place, and a provocative and necessary new way of thinking about a future that's already here.