1 comments about Corridor Ecology: The Science and Practice of Linking Landscapes for Biodiversity Conservation.

1. I highly recommend Corridor Ecology for anyone who is interested in corridors, land fragmentation, and species conservation. It is the most comprehensive literature I have come across in terms of the role of corridors, corridor design and implementation. As a current graduate student working on a corridor project, this book has been incredibly helpful in planning my field work in ground truthing Least-Cost path corridors. Especially the chapter, Corridor Quality: Continuity, Composition, and Dimension. It has really helped me understand better how to evaluate potential corridors. My advisor has been so impressed with the book that she is going to order some for the library and a biodiversity center that is being set up at campus. I also feel that this would be an excellent text for conservation courses as it covers issues such as metapopulation theory, edge effects and focal species considerations. The book also covers issues and potential problems that need to be dealt with when designing a corridor, which is very valuable. I also think this would be a excellent source for land management agencies and the Department of Transportation to utilize. The authors do an excellent job in bringing together all aspect of corridor ecology by utilizing the most current literature, valuable study cases along with their incredible field and research experience.
   
   Tanya Diamond
   M.S. Candidate
   San Jose State University

5 comments about Painting Watercolors That Sparkle With Life.

1. I was looking for a book on how to do watercolor portraits, and I came across the cover of this book, whose realism drew me in. I bought the book at an extremely reduced rate, although it is worth every penny of its original price. The author/artist does incredible work. She included many color pallets, which are quite helpful, and she shows the steps she went through to create some of her paintings. This was EXACTLY the kind of book I was looking for.



2. If your subject matter is pets, portraits and home scenes, Cindy Agan's "Painting Watercolors that Sparkle with Life" will be a valuable guide for how to render these subjects in transparent watercolor.
   
   The book covers how to paint faces, especially children's faces in great detail, from sketching from photos to painting flesh tones. Pets are also discussed, from how to paint fur to making the most of a bad photo of a pet (the painter can get rid of those glowing night eyes that show up in flash photos of cats and dogs--the retinal lining of nocturnal animals flashes yellow or red and you as the painter can fix that!)
   
   There is a section also on still life subjects of metal, glass and fabric and how to use masking. The demonstrations show the paintings in progress and you can see the author's sectional approach. She paints in detail section by section rather than over an entire area in layers of washes. By this I mean, the base of a crystal lamp would be painted in sectors from left to right rather than build up from the entire base with wash then darker detail. This is instructive.
   
   One thing that is not dealt with; the tendency for paintings done from photographs (portraits) to look distorted or somehow odd. The camera does get a child or pet to stand still! That does help to get a good, realistic sketch, but I can always tell if a painting of a live subject is done from a photo. There is a sort of weird angle or other odd look to it that, as an artist, really bothers me. I can go into any gallery or look at someone's work and pretty much tell if a photo was used in studio. Not the least of which also is the rendering of the depth of field --the fuzziness of background subjects. While this is attractive in some paintings, again, you get a distorted look. If you like this look in your paintings, I'd say it's fine, go for it. But for me, I have to find ways to make photographs in studio look less "studio-ized." I use several photos to get a variation in the pose, as if the model were moving. If you don't sketch from life, at least some of the time, you will have this problem. This is the only issue I have with this book and for you, it may be no issue at all.
   
   Great reference for the painter of realism and ultra-realism in water media.



3. Having bought many watercolour books over the years and not getting far due to poor instructions I decided to paint in a more forgiving medium. Then I saw the cover of Cindy Agans book. I was blown away with the painting on the cover - it looked so realistic. I couldn't believe it was watercolour. So I decided to have one more go at watercolours. In this instance you can definately tell a book by its cover!. Cindy Agan has obviously put her heart and soul into her book - sharing all she has learned, by trial and error over many years (being self-taught) she holds nothing back from the reader. Her colour swatches, hints and tips alone are worth the price of the book. I've been able to follow all the demonstrations with ease. I am so pleased with my end results and feel confident to now paint portraits, animals, flowers, etc. This book is my 'Bible' - I love to read parts of it every day. I highly recommend this beautiful book. Cindy Agan - Thank you!! Please, please write another book a.s.a.p. You have brought joy to my life.



4. I have owned this book for over a year, and it is a mainstay for me, which I constantly refer back to again and again. The author is a tremendous teacher (and an inspiration with her beautiful work), and her approach is easy to understand in her step-by-step demonstrations. I therefore strongly disagree with Pricilla Goodwin's critique that this book was unhelpful, and left out essential steps in the painting process. You can tell by the many other critiques that readers have used her step-by-step process to paint a subject successfully for the very first time, and that says everything to me.
   The author covers all of the challenging subjects in this book from fur to grass to flowers, to backgrounds, as well as covering techniques such as glazing, masking, and feathering among others. She also discusses the emotions an artist must deal with when facing criticism when presenting their work, which can be a tremendous challenge for many. I cannot think of a single point that the author did not cover in this well-thought-out book, and I have been painting and studying watercolour seriously for the past 6 years. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who wants to achieve realism in their paintings. My only disclaimer is this: as with any book, you can buy it and let it sit on your shelf, and it won't do anything for you. That's usually when people blame the book instead of themselves for not achieving their desires of improvement. However, if you buy this book, read it, and practice from it you will be very pleased with the results you have achieved with the help of this gifted artist. I hope that we will see more books from Cindy Agan in the future!



5. Being entirely new to painting (I joined an Art Class in Sept2004) I bought this book in November and to my delight found the step by step instructions clear, concise, & totally comprehensive. My first project was to follow the demonstration of painting the Black Cat, which I adapted to copy a photo of Penny once a member of our family. When a friend of an artist saw it she exclaimed "You feel you can reach out and stroke the fur". This book has been so useful to me and is one I can refer to time and time again.

5 comments about Julia Morgan, Architect.

1. This is an outstanding book on Morgan's life and work. Well written text, detailed history, biographical information, and quality photos of the many buildings are just of few of the book's strong points. Morgan designed hundreds of buildings during her over 50-year career, and the author deserves credit for covering so many of them. Of course, she is most famous for the projects she did for Hearst, such as the "Castle" and Wyntoon, the Austrian/Bavarian style estate near Mt. Shasta in northern California, but she created many other important buildings also, which get discussed in detail in this fine volume. Also included are scans of the original plans. Out of all the books on Morgan, this one is by far the best, and well worth your time and money.
   
   A little side note here, I've done five different tours of the Hearst Castle over the years, so have had an opportunity personally to view one of her most important works. During one of the tours, the guide said that a few years ago they had a 6.4 magnitude earthquake there, but except for a few tiles that came off here and there, the castle sustained no damage. That's because despite the delicate looking surface ornamentation, underneath the building is steel reinforced concrete, with even thicker walls than necessary. As a result, the entire Hearst Castle sustained almost no damage during the quake, and no structural damage, and the only really dramatic thing that happened was the guide said that the quake shook things violently enough so that a lot of water sloshed out of the big Neptune pool. :-)
   
   One of the guides said some interesting things about Hearst's wealth. By the standards of the time, he was certainly very wealthy, earning $50,000 a day back in the early 30s. But compared to the most wealthy people of the day, such as Rockefeller, who made one million dollars a day, this was relatively modest. Hearst was the 42nd wealthiest man in the U.S. at the time, his father, George Hearst, being 32nd, if I remember right. He spent 9 million dollars on the Castle, approximately one half a year's earnings, so percentage-wise, it was not that much money for him. But compared to the super-wealthy of the day, such as the Morgans, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, etc, apparently it wasn't much. :-)
   
   Back in the financial panic of 1905, J.P. Morgan, one of the wealthiest men of his time, lent the U.S. government 20 million dollars of his own money, back when that was a lot more, so it could temporarily keep operating. When Morgan died, Rockefeller commented, "He accomplished a lot for a man who wasn't that wealthy."
   
   Anyway, just a few perhaps irrelevant comments on some of the history of the wealthiest individuals of the time. :-)



2. Comprehensive with great photographs, this is a good place to start learning about Morgan's career.



3. I have always been interested in Julia Morgan's work but I have never been able to find enough solid and valuable information about her and her work. I own all of the Julia Morgan books, that is every book written about Julia Morgan. This, by far, is the best composition of the true character of Julia Morgan. Not only do you get an entire biography with incredible detail but you also get insight from hundreds of pictures, scans of actual plans Julia Morgan drafted and entires from other important persons. This book is a must have if you are looking for "the" book covering everything in Julia Morgan's life. This book stands alone among all the other Julia Morgan reads. I suggest that if you are looking for a book about Ms. Morgan, this is the best book, brings the greatest attention to detail that you will ever find about Julia Morgan.



4. A wonderful survey of a truly great Architect. Great photos. Original drawings. A detailed career history & biography. Most of the better known masters haven't gotten this kind of treatment; Ms. Morgan deserves it. GREAT book.



5. Beautiful book! Author does a lovely, sensitive job profiling Morgan, and her career as the first licensed female architect in the US. I also really enjoyed the socio-cultural, and artistic context of the early 20th Century. The extensive photographs are a wonderful addition - imperative in a book dealing with a visual art. One of the very richest architectual books I've seen in a long time, and a great addition to anyone's collection.

1 comments about The Architectural History of Venice: Revised and enlarged edition.

1. Mrs. Howard not only describes "the stones" of this city , but illuminate the soul with details of great historic relevance.
   Beacuse of her I learned about the Ruskin's classic book on
   Venice and the influence of the Arabs on the West.
   This is a very good start point to explore in detail
   (with books and travel) the architectural treasures of
   this dream surounded by water.

2 comments about The Complete Guide to Creating Heritage Scrapbooks (Memory Makers).

1. In my ongoing quest for more info on the how-tos of creating my Heritage Scrapbook, I purchased CHS. It is much better than Bev K Braun's book - CHS provides many intersting lay-outs which has given me wonderful ideas. But thank goodness I don't want to exactly replicate them because very few step-by-step instructions are offered.
   
   Overall, I would recommend this book as a basic in your library.



2. Memory Makers has once again produced an attractive, helpful guide for those of us wishing to expand our scrapbooking collectionl of page ideas. In The Complete Guide to Creating Heritage Scrapbooks, we are encouraged to tackle that most intimidating of scrapping tasks, the Family Heritage Album.

   The CGTCHS launches with an explanation of the importance of preserving our family's historical photos, stories, and memorabilia in an archival safe environment (aka, the scrapbook album). A short introduction to basic scrapbooking tools and techniques takes up a few pages. The main body of the book which follows is divided into six sections:
   Daily Life (documenting/preserving those "slice of life" moments in time);
   Celebrations (weddings, graduations, holidays, religious events, etc.);
   Wartime;
   Across the Generations (comparing people then and now);
   and Portraits and Family Trees.
   Each section is a collection of examples of pages dealing with these themes, and instructions on the process to recreate the page ideas presented. I found them to be very appealing, tasteful and well done overall. To help supplement one's journaling, there are nice year-by-year historical trivia timelines printed on the marginal sidebars thoughout the sections, dating from 1850 to 1975. Several of these ideas will end up in my own albums.

   However, a "complete" guide it is not. CGTCHS provides minimal information regarding researching family geneology, organizing one's search for information and a bare two page spread dedicated to the primary task of duplicating and restoring ancient photographs. I would expect these to be the first steps in researching a family history, but commentary on these subjects is scattered randomly. Also, to my way of thinking it was illogical to put "Portraits and Family Trees" last, as a family tree would be useful for keeping one's information correct as one completes other parts of the album. Readers who intend to put a serious effort into this aspect of their scrapbooking project will need to look elsewhere.

   Other things I would have found helpful would have been a guide to era-appropriate color schemes and decorating themes, and more on interviewing relatives regarding their own personal histories.

   Despite these drawbacks, CGTCHS was a great resource for ideas and inspiration. I finished the book with fresh encouragement to start on my own family heritage album.
   -Andrea, aka Merribelle.

5 comments about New Orleans: Elegance and Decadence.

1. This book provides a very realistic - as opposed to the usual touristic - look at New Orleans and inside homes. Of course, some rooms are highly individualistic, even eccentric, but that is what helps make the city unique. Few of the photos could have been shot from a tour bus, or in any other community. I'd guess that this book is owned primarily by New Orleanians & that they are all very happy to have it. I lived in the Crescent City from birth until retirement and these are the first photographs to make me homesick.



2. I have been to New Orleans millions of times and this is the best all around book. The author has really, really researched and pulled up ALL kinds of interesting tidbits.
   I think that Compass guides in general are the extra travel books one buys. I wanted more than Fodor's has because I already know all the best places to go. I think that she had good choices and you could use it as your only travel guide.
   I think some readers were disappointed because maybe they were taken back by the exorbitant prices hotels charge. Hotel-wise , you don't get much for your money unless you go in summer or during Christmas.



3. One of my all-time favorite books. The stuff of dreams and nightmares too.

   This is an utterly luscious picture book. Chock full of photos of real interiors. Real homes of artists and the creative. Homes of people who love peeling wallpaper and cracked plaster; and especially those who love living in the midst of art works, or deeply personal collections.

   The homes of people who love the humid haze, moist clay-scented New Orleans.




4. One of my all-time favorite books. The stuff of dreams and nightmares too.

   This is an utterly luscious picture book. Chock full of photos of real interiors. Real homes of artists and the creative. Homes of people who love peeling wallpaper and cracked plaster; and especially those who love living in the midst of art works, or deeply personal collections.

   The homes of people who love the humid haze, moist earth-scented New Orleans.




5. This book has great interior pictures of some glorious New Orleans homes. Unfortunately when I've been there, I didn't have the opportunity to go inside to see the many interior styles. This book gives me the opportunity to see the beauty inside, that I've only been able to view from outside. Great book for those of us who love and appreciate the city!

No comments about Architects Today.

No comments about From Agit-prop to Free Space: The Architecture of Cedric Price.

5 comments about Designing with Models: A Studio Guide to Making and Using Architectural Design Models.

1. the book was in excellent condition as advertised. however, it took about twelve days to receive it, though it was placed in the mail a day after purchase.



2. It describes materiality and techniques for model creation but quality of the picture in this book is poor for the price i paid.



3. It took a while to get to me but not long and the book was practically new! I'm very happy with it!



4. I was astonished with poor quality of BW pictures this book contains. And I paid $50 for this? The photos are poorly lit so the details are not clear, and not sharp enough for this kind of printing. Texts are rather sketchy too. Intrestingly, resources contain a section for books on presentation models. I found most of them are out of print.
   I can just imagine this book's innitial run was so low that gave this hefty price tag to this book.
   Unless you have a lot of money to waste, or you're advanced, you'll be surprised like me.



5. From the standpoint of representation, and despite the advent of computer graphics and animation, the architectural model has persisted in being a privileged way of expressing architectural intentions. The irresistible iconic relation between the model and the building, and the intimacy witnessed through this association, has unquestionably contributed to this survival. Because in the model no extra interpretive energy is needed to grasp the intended, and because there is definitely a pleasure in seeing something big represented by something similar to it but smaller, the critical denigration of model-making has been minimum. This is unlike the case of the plan and other classical modes of projecting buildings where the conventional nature of representation has opened the gates for questioning their legitimacy. From the angle of making and performing, model-making has also remained a very powerful means of exploring ideas that have 3-d space as their support. The relative absence of a cognitive distance between intentions and their crystallization in the sensible realm, due essentially to the paramount role the hand directly plays in the shaping of a given design idea, has reinforced an interest in model-making as a means for expressing the immediate and the spontaneous. A closer relation the other visual arts has followed, and the architectural model has become a competent candidate not only for expressing design ideas but also emotions and feelings. The author, who is both an architect and an artist, seems to be implicitly alluding to these stands in one fashion or the other.

   Now this Studio guide to making and using architectural design models begins with an introduction to the equipment, materials and model types. In detail, Chapter Two tackles basic techniques for assembling model components. Cutting, attaching, fitting, templating and finishing routines are provided with clear instructions and illustrations. Chapter Three, I think, remains the heart of the guide. Here the author explores a framework for conceiving and using models. As a pedagogic section, this chapter is full of tutoring guidelines and is a meticulously comprehensive investigation. Much of what is suggested in relation to scale, ideas, manipulation and development of models remains focussed. Mill's analysis here illustrates the paramount role models can play not only in representing defined architectural ideas but also as the prime generators of information without the aid of drawings or exact scales. The dialectical relation between sketch models and concept drawings is investigated nonetheless. But it is the stress on the idea that architectural thinking could be deeply investigated through model-making, with all possible alternatives, that is interesting. "Often, " Mill writes, " new directions emerge that do not follow the original intention. Instead of ignoring these and steering the design along preconceived paths, it can be profitable to let go of earlier ideas and follow the implications suggested by the model. This may involve following the design through a strong shift in direction or even returning to an earlier generation in preference to latter versions. " Other observations like these follow. In Chapter Four, the author applies a step-by-step case study of concepts and techniques in relation to the design of five cases: a residence, a multifamily house, a sculptural foundry, an office building and an urban park. These projects trace the evolution of design from early conceptual stages to finishing models. Many assembly techniques and strategies presented in Chapters Two and Three are shown to convey possible applications in the context of evolving designs. Chapter Five (Creating Curvilinear Forms and Special techniques), presents a range of techniques for making sculptural shapes. "Because sculptural elements are more often needed as components of a model, many of the examples present ideas for creating individual shapes. These can be expanded to entire models if desired." In Chapter Six, examples of model usage from the architecture practice are provided. The author reminds us that in practice, "modeling offers one of the strongest ways of understanding the impact of design decisions on the built work and is of particular value in working with complex geometries." The suggested projects offer examples of models from several types of practices. Many of the strategies discussed in Chapter Three and Four can be seen at work, as well as the connection between built work and the model history that helped form them. Finally, Chapter Seven provides useful advice related to alternative media, related models, transferring model dimensions, photography and detailed presentation models.

   As a conclusion, Designing With Models contributes to the (modest) body of literature on model-making in a significant way. It is, to my knowledge, the first complete step-by-step guide to fundamental and well-developed modeling. One could not fault the visual clarity and graphic organization of the work. The black and white photographs do not stand isolated but are balanced by the supplemented comments. The text includes sufficient information for a thorough understanding of the proposed model-making techniques. Although some of it is concise, the text is for the most part well written, and to the point. The lack of a bibliographical section, however, is somehow disappointing, but then the book does not pretend to be a theoretical treatise or a scholarly work.

1 comments about Building with Straw: Design and Technology of a Sustainable Architecture.

1. There are many books now available on straw bale construction, but this is the best I've seen so far, as it shows how well straw bales can be adapted to modern designs and be used in virtually any setting. Like all Birkhauser books, Building with Straw is impeccably detailed and rich in illustrations, so you will get a very good idea how this form of construction works. Examples range from the Real Goods Solar Living Center in Hopland, California, to a farm and residential building in Franconia, Germany. So, you see that this type of construction can be adapted to almost any climactic condition, even in rainy Lithuania where small straw bale projects have been undertaken.