Award-winning artist Qu Lei Lei offers an inspirational view of art from the Chinese perspective. Instead of looking at the sketch as an end in itself, he focuses on the work as personal fulfillment for the artist and as a valued meditation. All the essential techniques are here--from choosing and using materials to mixing the ink to mastering brushstrokes. With the natural world as his subject, Lei Lei pulls out key features--water, trees, landscapes--and focuses on practical ways of depicting their different varieties. A master class covers techniques for capturing pets at play, and for conveying the spirit of all living creatures

The author provides all the essential Chinese techniques you need to produce finished sketches of faces and figures, birds and animals, and the world of nature. He introduces the sketchers' art from the Chinese perspective and focuses on the sketch as personal fulfilment for the artist.

Combining the best of Eastern philosophy with the best of Western technique, this book is the first in a three-part series that offers inspiring and empowering advice for artists and creators of all levels. 100 color illustrations.

Whether Taoism is a nature philosophy or simply pantheism, it is clearly one of the world's oldest and most important philosophies of life. In The Tao of Art, Ben Willis brings together two widely disparate fields of thought, art and philosophy, and shows the unity between them in Taoism. A recent major exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago confirmed what Willis makes clear: that most historical Chinese art was heavily influenced by the cosmic concepts of the philosophical Taoists. Through a brilliant synthesis of the procedures and values of art with the inner meaning of the Tao, Willis establishes compelling reasons to believe that both art and creativity are imbued with a universal spirituality. The Tao of Art is a valuable contribution to art theory, as well as a benefit to readers interested in spiritual development and a broader understanding of Taoism. Well researched, with 18 B&W reproductions of beautiful Chinese watercolors.

A celebration of Taoist art traces the influence of philosophy on the visual arts in China.

You are ready, grasshopper. Ready to draw fantastic martial arts comics. Let Sensei Steve Miller guide you. Kung Fu Hustle. Kill Bill. Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan. The martial arts are all around us--and millions of children and adults prove that every day, by taking classes in karate, tae kwon do, kickboxing, kung fu, and other martial arts. NowSteve Millershows how to turn that interest in the martial arts to the visual arts.Hi-Yah! How to Draw Fantastic Martial Arts Comicsshows how to capture authentic, accurate martial arts poses on paper. Even beginners can learn how to turn the bodies of their characters into living weapons that kick, punch, throw, block, and chop their way onto the page. A brief history of martial arts around the world and an overview of the tao of drawing are followed by detailed step-by-steps on fluid anatomy, pressure points, punching and hand strikes, jumping, kicks, blocks, throws, weapons, warriors, drawing convincing confrontations and superpowerful combatants. • Huge potential market: Millions of children and adults in the U.S. study martial arts • Simple enough for beginners, detailed enough for advanced comics artists • Authentic poses from different martial arts

From the acclaimed author of Taipei, a bold portrait of a writer working to balance all his lives—artist, son, loner—as he spins the ordinary into something monumental. An engrossing, hopeful novel about life, fiction, and where the two blur together. In 2014, a novelist named Li leaves Manhattan to visit his parents in Taipei for ten weeks. He doesn't know it yet, but his life will begin to deepen and complexify on this trip. As he flies between these two worlds--year by year, over four years--he will flit in and out of optimism, despair, loneliness, sanity, bouts of chronic pain, and drafts of a new book. He will incite and temper arguments, uncover secrets about nature and history, and try to understand how to live a meaningful life as an artist and a son. But how to fit these pieces of his life together? Where to begin? Or should he leave society altogether? Exploring everyday events and scenes--waiting rooms, dog walks, family meals--while investigatively venturing to the edges of society, where culture dissolves into mystery, Lin shows what it is to write a novel in real time. Illuminating and deeply felt, as it builds toward a stunning, if unexpected, romance, Leave Society is a masterly story about life and art at the end of history. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL