Watercolours of the Staffordshire Countryside

For many a year, pursuing the art of watercolour painting, attending art school and gaining practical and theoretical knowledge of the technicalities of using the difficult medium and becoming more adept, the idea of writing and illustrating a watercolour book was something I aspired to, and using these skills to reveal the beauty of the Staffordshire countryside, I wanted to portray this in landscape paintings, by adapting a limited palette.

The Professional Approach to Sculpting the Human Figure

The Professional Approach to Sculpting The Human Figure is the first book by Andrew Sinclair MRSS SWAC, recognised as a master of world-class figurative sculpture.
It is based on Andrew’s ground-breaking Sinclair Method, as taught at The Sculpture School, which completely transforms the building and creation of Contemporary Realist sculpture. This method is revolutionising the approach to sculpture, also acting as a powerful source of knowledge, enabling students searching for excellence to become professional masters of their art.
This book deals with the foundations of good figurative sculpture and offers a profound understanding of measurement, anatomy, design and composition in an easy to understand format that will inspire established sculptors and beginners alike.
So if you want to raise your game and lift your sculpture talents to a professional level – this book is dynamite! Consider it food for the sculptural soul.

The Most Advanced Clarinet Book

There are 50 short studies with explanations covering many new approaches to technical problems. Followed by 27 full page studies making use of these techniques, as well as covering almost every possible technical problem regarding the clarinet

Sir Hubert von Herkomer RA 1849-1914

In 1848 Europe was in turmoil. People were starving, work was scarce. Hubert Herkomer’s father, a Bavarian woodcarver, emigrated to the United States with his wife, a musician, and their two-year-old son. But the settled future they hoped for did not materialize – after struggling for six years, the family borrowed money and settled in Southampton. They were almost penniless.

With his father’s encouragement, he picked up the paintbrush. At 13 he could paint in oils. Though art school was a disastrous experience, he sold his first painting at 19. His creative mind would end up contributing to multiple fields from photography to car racing.

But fame is a roller coaster. Hubert’s loyalty to Germany (and Britain) during the lead up to World War 1 resulted in personal and artistic unpopularity. He died just before the war.

However, his vivid and evocative work regained its value in the second half of the twentieth century, restoring his reputation as an artistic paragon and visual chronicler of the Victorian and Edwardian age.

This is the story of an artist and his art-filled life.

Putting Art to Work

With Putting Art to Work, we want to show how artwork with pictures can be used as a tool to support the development of individuals, groups and organizations.With our tailor-made workshops, we invite all professionals working with learning and development: from educators at all levels, management and organizational consultants, psychologists, coaches, therapists, social workers, and health educators to use our art-based workshops, since a more exciting and enjoyable way of promoting health and supporting change and development in work life, we think, is hard to imagine.

Past Sounds

This is a book about classical music – for people who say they love music “but don’t understand how it works”, as well as for performers and music students of all ages.
Proposing that deeper enjoyment begins with an understanding of music’s basic structures, the book describes how the simple template of earlier dance-songs was adapted by composers writing music for instruments. The instrumental sonata became one of the great formal frameworks of western music: in symphonies, concertos, chamber music and solo sonatas, it dominated concert music for some 250 years – yet it is little understood by many music lovers. To simplify this vast field, Past Sounds singles out for study “sonatas” for piano trio – piano, violin and ’cello. These instruments have well-contrasted and easily identifiable sounds, and as the story unfolds the reader is introduced to many rarely heard but beautiful works for piano trio.
This is a lively, clearly-written narrative as well as a handbook for subsequent listening. The book has two distinctive features. Firstly, technical terms are carefully explained, and for those not familiar with music notation, audio clips in an accompanying website reproduce the actual sound of the music described. Secondly, in a broad historical sweep from mid-18th to 20th centuries, the development of the sonata is followed in its context of contemporary arts and literature – demonstrating how the sonata idea of classical music well deserves to be understood and valued as a western cultural archetype alongside other great artistic and literary forms.

New Realism in Contemporary Israeli Painting

Art today can be whatever one wants it to be: a rotting cadaver, a photograph of someone else’s photograph, a banana… In this post-modern age of post-truth, of social media and the selfie, when everyone has a high-resolution digital camera at their fingertips, one wonders what would possess a talented artist to sit for days, weeks, often months, to paint a portrait of a friend or a landscape of home. Today, a group of 20 or so remarkable painters have revived a fascinating style of realistic painting, and in Israel of all places, where realistic art has never played any significant role. Their brand of realism is not mundane photographic realism, but rather it is an intensified sort of realism, a kind of hyper-realism. This book offers an initial explanation as to what these artists are doing, and how they are doing it.

My Tiny Black Book of Secrets

Technology is moving so rapidly in quantum leaps... 

I cannot even catch my breath following it

We get blindfolded when so entangled with the trivial

Do we ever stop for a bit and wonder, what kind of illusion we are living in...? 

A new hybrid species is evolving among us...

Smoothly numbing us...

Making us dependable

Less and less indispensable 

A.I. is catching up with us 

Are we ready? Scary but true 

Siri ends up being my best friend. 

Job Opportunities

Following on from the successful publication by Austin Macauley of his work streets ahead, the author decided to create a follow-up work which draws attention to works of art depicting individuals engaged in their professional employment, he was reared in a Calvinist society, where such activity was the norm. He is aware of the dignity when it results from this. As a socialist, he believes that this is the only dignity which the ruling class cannot take away from humankind. Therefore, they cannot be deprived of it.

God's Own Design - Photographic Journey Through Nature

These serene photographs of the parks and gardens of Singapore are paired with inspirational quotations to show the artistry of nature. The vibrant detail and magical shapes of these stunning photographs reveal the extraordinary diversity of nature, including trees, flowers, insects, fungi and the special shapes of leaves.

Every Flower Has Its Place

Embark on an enchanting journey of artistic innovation in Every Flower Has Its Place. Acclaimed floral artist Graham King takes you on a visual odyssey to intriguing and uncommon settings, where he brings to life his extraordinary floral arrangements. Captured in striking detail by professional photographer Stephen Barney, each composition showcases the rich textures and exquisite craftsmanship that are King’s signature style. Page after page, allow yourself to be inspired and captivated by the endless possibilities of floral design when blended with unconventional crafting techniques. This book isn’t merely a collection of images, it’s an invitation to explore your own creative landscape, guided by the breathtaking work of a master artist.

Before Abbey Road

   Before Abbey Road there was Teme Street is about a day in the life of The Beatles.

-        A band on the precipice of unprecedented global success

-        who had released their first LP the previous month

-        who had released their third hit single, From Me To You on the previous Thursday

-        who had met the Rolling Stones for the first time the previous evening and partied at their Chelsea flat

-        who would be playing the Royal Albert Hall in London the following Thursday

This band, at this time, travelled to the small market town of Tenbury Wells, deep in the Worcestershire countryside.

How did this extraordinary event come about?

How did it impact the town and how did it shape the future life of the author?

This lively account, part factual, part fiction will take you back to the birth of pop culture and forward to all that followed.