In the United States alone, the annual construction of over one million new homes causes a very substantial drain on natural resources. Today, approximately 60 percent of the timber cut down in our country is used for building homes. Using alternative home building materials and creating a greener home are about creating better homes that are environmentally friendly, are less expensive in the long run, and create healthier occupants. Unfortunately, many people are unfamiliar with alternat...

In the United States alone, the annual construction of over one million new homes causes a very substantial drain on natural resources. Today, approximately 60 percent of the timber cut down in our country is used for building homes. This book shows you how to identify, locate, and effectively use alternative building materials. You will learn about straw bale, cordwood, cob, adobe, rammed earth, light clay, pisé, earthbag, bamboo, earth-rammed tires, cork, wool carpeting, and sod.

A complete course for the can't-wait-to-get-started beginner!Got the urge to draw? What are you waiting for?! Getting started is as easy as 1-2-3 with Grant Fuller's Start Sketching & Drawing Now! Packed full of easy and fun techniques, readers will learn to create accurate and expressive likenesses of people, animals, landscapes, and objects. Suddenly rendering even something as mundane as an electrical plug will become an adventure in seeing-and as you'l...

Learn great lessons about how you can incorporate great design elements into your composition, including five easy formulas that will ensure a strong image every single time. But don't let your great design be ruined by muddy colors! These lessons go beyond color wheel instruction to teach how to achieve tones from skin color to sky and foliage, all of which sets up the final section, where you'll learn great approaches to popular subjects ranging from animals and nature to man-made object...

Advice & information for choosing, designing & building a greenhouse or potting shed Few outdoor structures are as rich with romance and promise as greenhouses and potting sheds. Inspired gardeners appreciate them for their utility as well as their charm. Even homeowners who are not avid gardeners enjoy the unique ability of these structures to lend a taste of English countryside to any property. Greenhouses & Garden Sheds contains hundreds of beautiful photographs featuring the finest exa...

Artist Craig Nelson covers all the basics of composition. From perspective to proportion, you will discover the keys to unlocking the secrets needed to improve your skills and create outstanding works of art.

The latest tips and techniques for working with pastels - in full colorPastels offer bright colors, a great level of portability, and no drying time - plus they're relatively inexpensive and can be used to draw and paint on almost any surface. Pastels For Dummies covers the many aspects of this exciting medium, from the fundamentals of choosing the right materials to step-by-step projects, including landscapes, abstracts, and portraits. Inside you'll find ...

Create a Beautiful, Modern Home with One-of-a-Kind DIY FurnitureBeds, organizers, Adirondack chairs, a play table, and more! It's easy to build inexpensive, quality furnishings with this indispensible collection of woodworking projects from Ana White, the popular blogger who has inspired millions of homemakers with her stylish furniture plans and DIY spirit. As a young mom on a tight budget, Ana learned to make her own well-designed pieces inspired by the styles in her favorite stor...

Working Wood, Not Machining ItIf you're more interested in working with wood rather than machining it, you will be relieved to learn that expensive powered machinery isn't required to build furniture. You can also forget the dust masks, face shields and hearing protection since many of the safety concerns related to woodworking-the use of power tools-are eliminated. In this book, you'll learn to set up a hand-tool woodworking shop, then discover the toolset, practi...

Build your way to a more self-sufficient lifestyle with step-by-step projects for backup and supplementary utilities--including independent water, heat, and electricity--growing and storing food, raising small livestock, beekeeping, and more. Many of the projects require basic materials available at your everyday home center, but this book also provides valuable DIY resources for solar, hydro, greenhouse, and gardening needs. This book will help you build security with utility backup syste...

Open this book as an absolute beginner, and come away as a proud portrait artist.Mark and Mary Willenbrink's Absolute Beginner books have helped thousands of novices tap into their inner artists. In this book, Mark and Mary help the beginning artist take on portraits, showing that absolutely anyone can draw faces. Their encouraging, easy-to-follow instruction style makes learning fun—you'll be amazed by how quickly you achieve impressive results.

A modern guide to classic outdoor structures.Sheds and other landscape shelters have never been out of style, but they are now seeing a remarkable surge in popularity, and are being used in creative new ways. The common garden shed is now just as likely to serve as a workshop for an artist to pursue his or her hobby; or may be used as a writerÆs retreat; or may even be equipped with a satellite dish, high definition television, recliners, and used as a meeting spot...