William T. Cooper was one of the world's most esteemed bird painters. In his paintings, birds nibble at plump red berries, they rest on twisted vines and branches covered with lichen, and they clutch forest fruits and leaves in their claws. These botanical details, the backdrops to his bird portraits, are the subject of this lavishly illustrated book written by his botanist wife, Wendy Cooper. For the bird lover, Bill's lush, full-colour paintings, many from private collections, are reproduced here, alongside Wendy's notes and Bill's diary entries about bird feeding habits. Wendy describes seeing King Parrots in the wet sclerophyll forest and rainforest at their home in Bungwahl, New South Wales, feeding on the juicy black berries of the Narrow-leaved Palm Lily (Cordyline stricta). The parrots were extracting the seeds and dropping the flesh. Over the course of a decade, Bill observed activity around an Umbrella Tree in their garden: 'Watched a female coloured riflebird feeding on the flowers of a Schefflera on the driveway. I'm convinced it was taking nectar as they do on the Thunbergia in the garden. It went from open flower to open flower'. For the nature lover, Wendy has included detailed botanical descriptions of each plant and personal notes about where a particular specimen was found. She takes the reader from rainforest to dry country, from swamps and beach forest to the jungles north of Australia. We learn that Maiden's Blush trees are forest giants with wonderful high-arching plank buttresses; that Bill had to shoot down a small stem from high up in the forest canopy to capture a fruit specimen; and that the tree's scientific name, Sloanea australis, honours physician, naturalist and collector Hans Sloane, whose private collection became the founding collection of the British Museum. Alongside Wendy's description is Bill's sketch of a Maiden's Blush buttress and a finished full-colour acrylic painting of Regent Bowerbirds perched on the tree's branches. For the budding illustrator or artist, Cooper's annotated sketches, studies and paintings of plants, as well as many of his finished bird illustrations, give a unique insight into his artistic process. The Botanical Art of William T. Cooper shows the flora of Australia and beyond in all its messy, imperfect glory. Readers will gain a new appreciation of Bill's works. They will see the thick mossy branches and veiny withered leaves of a Sovereignwood tree (Terminalia sericocarpa) even before the black and red Palm Cockatoos in a double-spread oil painting; note the way a bird clutches and nibbles at a large green gumnut on a Marri tree (Corymbia calophylla) in a colour plate of two Red-capped Parrots. This is a beautiful book to dip into and treasure. For those who purchased An Eye for Nature: The Life and Art of William T. Cooper, this will make an equally valuable addition to your library.

In the work of artist William T.Cooper, platypuses swim in green underwater worlds, waves throw up blankets of spray, embers glow in the aftermath of a bushfire, a Thylacine emerges from the shadows, sniffing the air. But it is his paintings of birds which set Cooper apart-his raucous cockatoos, colourful parrots, animated turacos and flamboyantly displaying birds of paradise. Often placed in meticulously studied landscapes, these intricate bird portraits reveal Cooper's close observation not only of his subjects' appearance, but their habits, poses and behaviour. In this biography, Penny Olsen traces the path of Cooper's life and art-from his childhood spent in the bush, to his teenage years as an apprentice taxidermist at Carey Bay Zoo and, later, to his work as a window dresser and landscape artist. She documents his fruitful partnership with wife and collaborator Wendy Cooper and his extensive travels in Australia and abroad in pursuit of his subjects.

Capturing the Essence is a step-by-step personal guide – by one of Australia's greatest living bird artists – to observing, retaining the essential information and then painting birds from field notes and sketches, photographs and other field observations. The author takes the reader through the processes involved in oil painting, watercolour and acrylic techniques, and a piece of art is built up in stages to demonstrate the skills required in each of these media. While the book covers some of the general basics relevant to various kinds of painting of natural history subjects, the concentration is very much on birds. Painting or drawing any subject well, gives great satisfaction. In this book the author hopes to help the reader become competent at drawing and painting birds, or at least to enjoy trying!

This beautifully illustrated field guide covers 504 of the most common fruiting plants found in Australia's eastern rainforests, as well as a few species that are rare in the wild but generally well-known. These spectacular plants can be seen from Cape York to Victoria, with some species also found in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and overseas. Rainforest fruits are often beautifully coloured, and in this guide the species are arranged by colour of ripe fruit, then by size and form. Five broad categories – pink to purple, blue to black, yellow and orange to red, green to brown, and white – allow people with even limited botanical knowledge to identify rainforest fruits. Each species description is accompanied by a leaf drawing, a distribution map, and diagnostic characters to help the reader distinguish similar species. Australian Rainforest Fruits includes stunning artwork by Australia’s leading natural history artist, William T Cooper. It will be sought not just by bushwalkers and natural history enthusiasts, but also by those who admire botanical art at its best.

This book is the final collaboration of Joseph M. Forshaw and William T. Cooper and combines the finest Cooper artwork with an updated, authoritative Forshaw text. Presented as a deluxe edition, this book is truly a combination of art and science presenting many previously unpublished Cooper drawings, sketches and paintings. Containing more than 300 artworks, it is fully cased in grey Ballantine cloth, with black blocking and marbled endpapers. The book is landscape format printed on fine quality satin art paper and the size is 350 mm x 305 mm.

Botanical Art Techniques is a beautifully illustrated and comprehensive guide to one of the most delicate art forms. From the experts at the American Society of Botanical Artists, this essential reference features how-to tutorials for all the major techniques, moving from basic to intermediate to advanced, so the reader can build on their skills as they progress. Media covered in detail include graphite, pen and ink, watercolor on paper and vellum, and colored pencil, with further tutorials on egg tempera oil, acrylic, gouache, silverpoint, etching, and more. Additional information includes a detailed overview of the necessary materials, basic information about the principles of composition, and advice on how to develop a personal style. Filled with 900 photographs, Botanical Art Techniques is a must-have for creative people everywhere.

Presents a collection of botanical paintings along with descriptions of the artists' techniques and backgrounds.

Around 1870, Ferdinand von Mueller, the greatest Australian botanist of the nineteenth century, began to advertise in several newspapers across Australia for 'lady' plant collectors. This was at a time when women typically had little recourse to science, or contact with men outside their circle of friends, making Mueller's network of ladies quite extraordinary. Collecting Ladies profiles 14 of Mueller's coterie of women collectors. Included are Fanny Charsley, Louisa Atkinson, Annie Walker and Ellis Rowan for whom Mueller made time to assist in pursuit of their own passions. He identified the plants they painted and provided letters of introduction to publishers and scientists. Together, these ladies produced some of the most beautiful books and botanical art to come out of Australia in the nineteenth century, covering all the Australian colonies.

A practical guide to using gouache in botanical painting, by a leading botanical painter. Gouache is an opaque water-based medium, often called body colour, that produces crisp and vibrant paintings, and is becoming increasingly popular in botanical painting. Leading botanical painter, Simon Williams, specializes in painting in gouache and this is his first book. Botanical Painting in Gouache is full of practical advice on all aspects of using the exciting medium of gouache and contains many step-by-step demonstration paintings. In addition to the sumptuous flower paintings there are also sections on painting butterflies, birds and exotic and unusual plants from the rainforest.

The seventeenth century heralded a golden age of exploration, as intrepid travelers sailed around the world to gain firsthand knowledge of previously unknown continents. These explorers also collected the world’s most beautiful flora, and often their findings were recorded for posterity by talented professional artists. The Golden Age of Botanical Art tells the story of these exciting plant-hunting journeys and marries it with full-color reproductions of the stunning artwork they produced. Covering work through the nineteenth century, this lavishly illustrated book offers readers a look at 250 rare or unpublished images by some of the world’s most important botanical artists. Truly global in its scope, The Golden Age of Botanical Art features work by artists from Europe, China, and India, recording plants from places as disparate as Africa and South America. Martyn Rix has compiled the stories and art not only of well-known figures—such as Leonardo da Vinci and the artists of Empress Josephine Bonaparte—but also of those adventurous botanists and painters whose names and work have been forgotten. A celebration of both extraordinarily beautiful plant life and the globe-trotting men and women who found and recorded it, The Golden Age of Botanical Art will enchant gardeners and art lovers alike.