Illumina: The Art of Jean Pierre Targete (Hardcover) by Jean-Pierre Targete, Jean Marie Ward

"That man can draw magic and make you believe," author Patricia Briggs says of Jean Pierre Targete. Illumina explores the work of this talented Miami-based artist, who has established himself as one of the most versatile new stars in the fantasy/sf firmament. Building on his skill at rendering a subject in almost microscopic detail, Targete grounds images of the impossible in the mundane details of the real world: the texture of a granite boulder, the liquid sheen of a serpent's eye, the weight of a drawn sword. At the same time, he uses his understanding of the emotive value of light and abstraction to create covers that do more than represent a novel; they tell the story. Illumina follows Targete's early development as an artist and presents more than 100 of his most important paintings, including the Chesley Award-winning The Circle at Center and his paintings for the new Thieves World and Planet of the Apes series. In addition, he discusses the techniques he uses to capture the essence of a story in paint.