Art Techniques

Based on a far-reaching study of thousands of individuals, Finding Flow contends that we often walk through our days unaware of and out of touch with our emotional lives. Our inattention makes us constantly bounce between two extremes: During much of the day, we live filled with the anxiety and pressures of our work and obligations, and during our leisure moments, we tend to live in passive boredom.

Part narrative, part practical, this adventure takes you to the foothills of Ethiopia and the ‘town of runners’; to the training grounds of world-record-holding marathon runners in Kenya; racing across the Arctic Circle and the mountains of Europe, through the sweltering sands of the Sahara and the hostility of a winter traverse of the Pennine Way, to witness the incredible natural movement of runners in these environments.

Negotiation is a social activity that involves disciplines like language, observation, reaction, listening, speaking, storytelling, humor, and sensing. The number one thing you bring to every negotiation is you. This book helps you understand how these various behaviors and disciplines come to play and therefore how you can become a better negotiator. The book helps you develop the mindset and tools to become a great negotiator for yourself and for others.

If you have ever felt cheated by people after opening up to them or being lured into scams when you feel like you are already too down, you are not alone. Anyone can be manipulated and deceived, no matter their job, education, or social status. These manipulators will continue deceiving people as long as there are those who easily fall into their schemes. It's time to step up and turn the tables.

This book is an invaluable and inspirational material for the film, television and theater professional. It helps directors, actors, writers, designers, producers and executives tap into their imagination and instincts, in turn helping them create the films they’ve always dreamed of creating.

Esper worked closely with Meisner for 17 years and has spent decades developing his famous program for actor's training. The result is a rigorous system of exercises that builds a solid foundation of acting skills from the ground up, and that is flexible enough to be applied to any challenge an actor faces, from soap operas to Shakespeare.

While other books give you tips on how to “write funny,” this book offers a paradigm shift in understanding the mechanics and art of comedy and the proven, practical tools that help writers translate that understanding into successful commercial scripts. The Hidden Tools of Comedy unlocks the unique secrets and techniques of writing comedy. Kaplan deconstructs sequences in popular films and TV that work and don’t work and explains what tools were used (or should have been used).

Just about every human being knows how to listen to music, but what does it take to make music? Is musicality something we are born with? Or a skill that anyone can develop at any time? If you don't start piano at the age of six, is there any hope? Is skill learning best left to children or can anyone reinvent him-or herself at any time?

In professional life, you are constantly faced with situations that present challenges or even develop into serious problems. Teams often end up having lengthy discussions that ultimately fail to produce a truly satisfactory solution. In order to be able to deal with difficulties efficiently, it is therefore very important to have the right communication skills. You can achieve a great deal here with the right questioning technique. In this book, you will learn when and how you can use which questions and what advantages the individual questions have. However, using them requires some practice.

Best-selling author, artist, and illustrator Lisa Congdon brings her expertise to this guide to the process of artistic self-discovery. Featuring advice from Congdon herself and interviews with a roster of established artists, illustrators, and creatives, this one-of-a-kind book will show listeners how to identify and nurture their own visual identity, navigate the influence of artists they admire, push through fear and insecurity, and appreciate the value of their personal journey.

Veteran script consultant Jill Chamberlain discovered in her work that an astounding 99 percent of first-time screenwriters don't know how to tell a story. What the 99 percent do instead is present a situation. In order to explain the difference, Chamberlain created the nutshell technique, a method whereby writers identify eight dynamic, interconnected elements that are required to successfully tell a story.

Many dread small talk and shy away from it as much as possible. But whether we like it or not, there’s no way we can escape small talk because it is part of everyday interactions. Humans are social creatures and we use conversation as our way to emotionally connect with each other. If you are one of them, worry not because you are about to learn the techniques to gracefully jumpstart a conversation with anyone in any situation.

On Christmas Eve, 1818, in a small Austrian village, a local Catholic priest and a church organist composed a Christmas carol that changed the course of holiday music forever. Exactly two hundred years later, it’s not the holiday season until you’ve heard “Silent Night” in the car, at the store and on TV – all in the same day.

In Jingle Bell Pop, John Seabrook, acclaimed author of The Song Machine, takes us deep inside the holiday music business. We go behind the scenes to meet some of the producers, songwriters and recording artists responsible for the timeless tunes we hear on repeat between Thanksgiving and Christmas every year.

In this definitive guide to resources, aspiring artists and serious amateurs devoted to their art will find scores of time-tested strategies to help them set up and work safely from a home studio; learn where and how to acquire appropriate art materials; develop their abilities with others as well as create art alone; explore opportunities for education in a wide variety of forms; and much more.

Despite the ups and downs of his personal life and professional career—even in the face of deafness—Beethoven remained remarkably consistent in his most basic convictions about his art. This inner consistency, writes the music historian Mark Evan Bonds, provides the key to understanding the composer's life and works. Discarding tired myths about the composer, Bonds proposes a new way of listening to Beethoven by hearing his music as an expression of his entire self, not just his scowling self.

Welcome to "Self-Sufficient Garden: The Art of Self-Sufficient Gardening." Are you ready to embark on a journey of sustainability, self-reliance, and flavorful, homegrown goodness? This audiobook is your passport to becoming the master of your own food supply, right from your garden. Unlock the secrets of self-sufficiency in gardening.

An inquiry into the creative process from philosophical, psychological, spiritual, and practical points of view, The Creative Path is a welcoming work on the creative process. Carolyn Schlam encourages the listener to embark upon his or her own journey of discovery, identity, and wonder through art. This inspirational book examines why we make art, and though it makes primary reference to visual art, The Creative Path will resonate with all creative practitioners, whatever their chosen discipline.

Does the idea of going to a large party make your mouth go dry? Are you more comfortable on Facebook than face-to-face? You're not alone: 90 percent of the world suffers from minglephobia. Jeanne Martinet has developed a cure - a sure-fire system for overcoming fears and having a great time at any type of business or social gathering.

In this audiobook, you will find detailed information on mind control. You will learn how the process is created and how it is imposed to the victim. A manipulator tries to transform you into a slave willing to follow any orders.

Discover the songwriting technique used in 97% of all hit songs. Music is a tough industry to break into. With production gear being affordable for the first time in history, it seems like everyone is making music these days. Getting noticed in the continuous stream of information that is the Internet seems almost impossible. But: There is a technique designed specifically to captivate and hook an audience and with The Addiction Formula, you can learn it in a couple of hours.