How to Build the Alamo: Day 5 Hands-on Learning (Free Texas Unit Study). What better way to learn about Texas and it's geography than to build the Alamo.

A wonderful free collection of vintage educational posters including the complete Adolphe Millot collection of natural history illustrations.

Illustrated Hierarcy of the Feudal System. Fantastic download to utilise within the classroom environment. Explains the feudal system visually.

This guy is craaazy. Apparently he learned his style by copying what he thought were pen and ink drawings. They turned out to be wood engravings. This is the result. A bit about him: Booth was born in Indiana and grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Back then, major publications like Scribner’s and Harper’s relied on both illustrators and engravers to provide images; the illustrators’ drawings were engraved for printing. These illustrations were what Booth learned from. He eventually ended up working for the magazines he copied from. Check out his line work. It's pretty much all about line placement. If you zoom in on the images you can really see how he used different densities of lines rather than line weight or crosshatching to separate different elements. Personally, I really like the design of his clouds and trees. He's great if you like vertical compositions; it seems like most of his work was in that format. More in this book: Franklin Booth: American Illustrator. I haven't bought it yet but I plan on it.

Beautiful free old illustrated calligraphy pages from the Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta. Natural history paintings by Joris Hoefnagel.

Discover the mysteries of the Voynich Manuscript, a 15th-century codex with undeciphered text and unique illustrations. Explore its history, theories,

Explore rockcastlelacanada's 2735 photos on Flickr!

The Middle Ages and Medieval time period is so fascinating and kids really enjoy learning about it in history studies.

Natural history of Victoria. Dec. 6-10 Melbourne,J.Ferres, government printer;1885-90. biodiversitylibrary.org/item/27160

Baa-rilliant! Learn why lamb illustrations are a favorite theme for art and children's books. A fluffy journey through history and imagination.

A wonderful free collection of vintage educational posters including the complete Adolphe Millot collection of natural history illustrations.

A series of art-historic line drawings for your coloring page fun. You are free to save and print these for personal, educational and non-commercial purposes.

Fairy folklore has been around for centuries. Many people actually believe fairies exist in another realm that is invisible to the naked eye. What do you believe???

The oldest known icon depicting Jesus Christ (6th century) in Saint Catherine's Monastery, Egypt.

Dodo, extinct flightless bird of Mauritius, one of the three species that constituted the family Raphidae.

I was recently commissioned to do an entomological illustration of the Seven-spotted ladybird Coccinella septempunctata for a birthday gift. Gathering reference As always, the first step is to assemble your reference. I use as wide of a range of reference as I can; this decreases the chance of “copying” mistakes, and helps show the main features to […]

The other week, I went on a foraging expedition with Adele Nozedar who wrote The Hedgerow Handbook and The Garden Forager (both of which I illustrated). She mentioned that plantain is better for treating nettle stings than the traditional favourite, dock. Ribwort plantain Plantago lanceolata This led to a lively discussion on Twitter where other possible “cures” for stings were offered. Helping a sting: […]

Professors are starting to orient Charles Darwin within a rich history of people from all cultures who have grappled with the mechanisms of life.

Supplies Needed Brown paper bag White glue Water Wax paper Bowl Stir Stick What to do Step 1 Rip the brown paper bag into one inch wide strips of equal length. Step 2 In a bowl make a mixture of half glue and half water. (To make one sheet of papyrus you only need about 1/

It is interesting to observe the way that female Saints like Joan of Arc enthrall people who in other areas of their life are quite uninterested or even antipathetic toward the Catholic Church. I think this is because the female Saints represent an emancipation of the feminine genius, a true "feminism," that emerged far before the modern movement.

The Gossips is the culmination of Rockwell’s fascination with the subject of gossip - while he had painted works exploring this theme in the past, it was not until his immersion in the Arlington community that the final composition came to fruition. In the present work, Rockwell depicts 15 figures, each portrayed twice, as part of a chain receiving and passing on a tidbit of gossip. The attention he pays to naturalistic detail in these expressive portraits is exceptional, and the artist ultimately conveys a sense of the personality and character of each figure. [Sold for $8,453,000 at Sotheby’s, New York - Oil on canvas, 83.8 x 78.7 cm]

One of the great Japanese woodblock artists, Hiroshi Yoshida (1876-1950) was especially noted for his exquisitely detailed, evocative prints of landscapes around the world. His work is beautiful, subtle and often atmospheric, displaying a real mastery of his technique, which allowed him to capture the subtleties of light and form. Yoshida often reused the same woodblocks, varying the colours and saturation to suggest alternate moods of the same scene – a different time of day, or even different weather conditions. Initially trained as a painter (of some renown), Yoshida began working with woodblocks in the early 1920s, and after a meeting with the owner of the Watanabe Print Store in Tokyo he had his first series of prints published. The woodblock technique is notoriously time-consuming and difficult, but Yoshida seemed able to capture the most delicate graduations of colour and the tiniest details in a temple façade or mountain face. Yoshida was a keen traveller and visited numerous countries from the early 1900s onwards - his cosmopolitan attitude is reflected in the landscapes and studies he created in countries like India and America. The traditional Japanese techniques in his work applied to a changing foreign world at the beginning of the 20th Century make for some fascinating, unexpected images, which sit comfortably alongside his more elegiac landscapes. Whilst the world has changed almost immeasurably in the 50 or so years since Yoshida died, when viewed today, well-kept examples of his woodblocks still have a real vibrancy and warmth to them. Yoshida died in 1950 but his two sons Toshi and Hodaka both became respected woodblock artists in their own right, carrying on the family tradtion. In fact, since the mid-1800s the same Yoshida family - Hiroshi's forebears - has produced eight artists of serious renown – a veritable woodblock dynasty. Boat in dry dock, Kinoe Grand Canyon (Bright Variant), 1925 The Cherry Tree In Kawagoe, 1935 Obatan Parrot II, 1926 Yarigate, date unknown Yomei Gate, 1937 Taj Mahal, 1931 Taj Mahal, Night, 1931 Snake Charmers, 1932 Sketch of a Tiger, 1926 Kinkaku, 1933 Kameido Bridge, 1927 Iris Garden In Horikiri, 1928 Obatan Parrot, 1926 Icho In Autumn, 1926 Udaipur 1931 Early Morning, Fujiyama, 1928 Elephant, 1931 Eboshidake, 1926 Cryptomeria Avenue, 1937 Climbing Snow Valley, 1926 Cave Temple In Ellora, 1932 Breithorn, date unknown Avenue Of Cherry Trees, 1935 Konoshima, 1935 All images © Estate of Hiroshi Yoshida

Honoré Daumier, prolific French caricaturist, painter, and sculptor renowned for his cartoons satirizing 19th-century French politics and society.