Search results for ""Author Bert Dodson""

Draw with Confidence and Creativity! New in paperback! Creativity occurs in action. It is not a trait; it is something you do. To be creative, you need to engage in the art-making process. When you are "in the flow," you shift out of the future and into the present, making connections, generating variations and surrendering to the process. This ten-year edition of Keys to Drawing With Imagination is a course for artists in how to take something, do something to it and make something new. Bert Dodson, author of the best-selling Keys to Drawing (more than 250,000 copies sold!) presents fun techniques and mind-stretching strategies to get you drawing better and more imaginatively than you ever have before. In every section, he offers you basic guidelines that help you channel your creative energies in the right direction. Before you know it, you'll lose yourself in the process, enjoying the experience as you create something gratifying and worthwhile. The subjects covered in this hands-on book are as vast as the imagination itself. Through 58 strategies, 36 exercises and 13 step-by-step demonstrations, you'll explore how to: Take your doodling from mindless to masterful Create your own reality by crumbling, melting or breaking objects Flip the familiar on its ear to create something utterly original Experiment with visual paradox and metaphor Tell vivid stories through the details in your drawings Play with patterns to create captivating compositions Build your drawings by borrowing ideas from different cultures Develop a theme in your work Along the way, Dodson offers you priceless advice on the creative process culled from his 70 years of drawing and teaching. For additional inspiration and encouragement, he includes the work of 30 other outstanding artists, including R. Crumb and Maya Lin. So what are you waiting for? Grab this book and start drawing! You'll be amazed at what you can create.*Note to readers: This book is a 10-year anniversary paperback reprint of the Keys to Drawing with Imagination hardcover edition (2006).

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Favor Johnson lives on a small farm in the hills of Vermont. He keeps to himself, surrounded by dozens of animals, chickens, geese, and his one constant friend, a hound named Hercules. Then one Christmas Eve Hercules' life is saved by Favor's new neighbor, a doctor, and Favor's whole life -- as well as the life of everyone in his village -- is changed forever. This delightful story of Favor Johnson, Hercules, Doctor Jennings, and the mysterious house-to-house delivery of homemade fruit cakes on Christmas Eve is a heart-warming tale of neighborliness and generosity in a Vermont village at Christmas. It is also a tale of rescue, of good and bad cooking, of friendship, and of giving presents at Christmas. A modern, and classic, American Christmas folktale, Favor Johnson has been a favorite radio story for years and is published now for the first time, brought to life by the wonderful watercolor illustrations of Bert Dodson. This book is their second collaboration, the first being John and Tom, published in 2001.Willem Lange is a short-story writer, commentator and host on Vermont Public Radio and New Hampshire Public Television. He also has a weekly column in The Valley News, the major newspaper in the NH/VT Upper Valley area. In addition to the Yuletide readings of his Christmas story, Favor Johnson, a staple on Public Radio for fifteen years, his annual readings of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol -- on stage, on Vermont Public Radio, and on Armed Forces Radio overseas -- have been popular since 1975. He lives with his wife in East Montpelier, Vermont.Bert Dodson is the author and illustrator of the best-selling learn-to-draw classic Keys to Drawing as well as the illustrator of over 80 children's books including a previous one with Willem Lange. He has also co-written The Way Life Works with noted biologist Mahlon Hoagland. He lives in Bradford, Vermont.

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Walter Paine's Cousin John: the Story of a Boy and a Small Smart Pig takes young readers to a time when dogs roamed unleashed and ice was delivered in blocks by beefy men with iron tongs. Bert Dodson's charming illustrations bring the bygone era to life and highlight key points in the story. Due to be published in September 2006, an advance review copy is enclosed for your consideration. A simple, elegant tale set in Brookline, Massachusetts a generation or two ago, Cousin John is about awakening and discovery, animals and humans, as experienced by a lonely, curious boy and his pet pig who become the talk of the town. A true story, Cousin John exemplifies that magic moment in childhood Graham Greene noted, when the door opens and lets the future in.

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A boy is sure he has the world's best father, an outdoorsman who shows him the hiding places of ground-nesting birds and teaches him to paddle a canoe and handle a rifle safely. Never point your gun at anything you don't intend to shoot, his father tells him, and don't kill anything you don't intend to eat. When he's eight years old, he is finally allowed to go to hunting camp with his father. They climb through dark woods to the icy-cold camp, where Dad starts a fire in the stove. A few minutes later, a tiny, shivering white-footed mouse emerges from his nest to share the warmth of the stovepipe. The boy feeds him a bit of cheese and sees that the mouse trusts him. Later, when his father begins to bait a mouse trap, the boy wittily reminds his Dad of the lesson he had taught him.The White-Footed Mouse is Willem Lange's and Bert Dodson's latest collaboration, a delightfully illustrated parable for lovers of nature and the great outdoors and for kids who want to keep their Dads in line.Willem Lange is a short-story writer, columnist, commentator, and host on Vermont Public Radio and New Hampshire Public Television.This is his third children's book with Bert Dodson. He lives with his wife in East Montpelier, Vermont.Bert Dodson is the author and illustrator of the best-selling learn-to-draw classic Keys to Drawing as well as the illustrator of over 80 children's books including a previous one with Willem Lang. He has also co-written The Way Life Works with noted biologist Mahlon Hoagland. He lives in Bradford, Vermont.Advance PraiseWhen I was a 15-year-old kid, Will arrived in our tiny Adirondack Mountain town. It was the beginning of an enduring and profound friendship. Over fifty years we've paddled, climbed, hunted, and fished together, and listened to each other. This story is Will at his best: a man, a boy, and a mouse in a camp together, a tender story of respect and caring for one another in the most important ways.--Baird Edmonds, retired designer, contractor and outdoorsman What a wonderful and beautifully illustrated story! A father teaches his son about nature and ethics, and the son then gives his father a lesson. Willem Lange is a master storyteller and The White-Footed Mouse is one of his best. Beautifully written and beautifully illustrated, the story has lessons for us all. Though written for youth, it's one that every parent and grandparent will treasure. It's destined to become a classic that future generations will enjoy and learn from.--Gary Moore, syndicated columnist, broadcaster and former Vermont Commissioner of Fish and Wildlife

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Old Bob was old Abe's horse and he was loyal and the manes of both horse and master blew haphazardly this way and that as their way across the prairies long before Old Abe became the most important President America ever had. Old Bob took his master over barely passable trails, across almost unfordable rivers, through endless reaches of tall grass and heavy rain which obscured any view, as Abraham Lincoln rode the circuit of his law practice often for months at a time. Their temperaments matched strong, calm, dependable and intelligent. Old bob was there when they voted Old Abe into the presidency of the United States of America. Old Abe was there in the parade to celebrate the Union victory covered in that special red white and blue blanket covered in tiny Union flags. Tragically he was there too as the nation mourned their assassinated President walking in a place of honor behind the hearse as Abraham Lincoln was borne through the streets of Springfield to the beat of muffled drums to be buried in the Oak Ridge Cemetery. Old Bob and Old Abe is a story of companionship and honor, of a man who loved animals and men, and treated both with respect and dignity in a time in American History when Freedom was won.

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