No comments about Urban Soil in Landscape Design.

No comments about Architects Without Frontiers: War, Reconstruction and Design Responsibility.

No comments about Exploring Art.

3 comments about Painting Wildlife Textures: Step by Step.

1. Each example is well documented with photographs and step-by-step procedures. The examples are easy to follow and duplicate. Once you have read the book you want to start creating textures immediately. A book every wildlife artist should start with and have.



2. I bought this book based on the review and on the sample pages in the hope it would help me to improve my technique in painting wild animals. To be honest I was rather disappointed when I first opened the book. At first I thought the book was meant as a course book for illustrators of wild life books, not painters, due to the poor quality of the illustrations, and the fact that in most cases they dont represent paintings but only details. I found the sample pages looked much better on the screen, especially colorwise, than in the real book (Paperback edition 1996, other editions may be better). My first intention was to rate this book a 3-star because of the poor presentation and illustrations. Take for example, John Agnew's book "Painting the secret world of nature" and you will know what I mean. After a closer look, though, I found Lawrence's book was not as bad after all, especially for the part on the eyes p. 66 and 67, the many explanations and usefull tips and the abundance of step-by-step presentations. Now, after having read the book through and having used it in the past days I feel I have to upgrade my rating to a 5-star as this is one of the most honest, usefull and inspirational art instruction books I have ordered. I call it honest because it really gives you what is written in the title, which is, as compared to other books, already an achievement. Unlike so many other art instruction books, where the artists use the pages as a showcase for their own art pieces instead of communicating anything relevant, you feel Rod Lawrence really wants to share his technique with the reader and does it in a clear, understandable way. It is usefull because you can really sit down and follow the clear step by step demonstrations without having to go through lots of useless text or guru-like nonsense befor you get to the point. No other art instruction book I have seen brings so many step by step demonstrations (50 in total), allowing you to see the steps to follow to achieve the desired result, making your painted fur or feathers look real. The items covered include : fur (long : american elk, short: bobcat, curly: bison), feathers (wing, speculum, body, head), scales, eyes&ears, bills&muzzles, tails&feet, antlers&horns and the different types of whites and blacks. The mediums described are watercolor, oil and acrylic, with a preference for acrylic.



3. This is an excellent reference with a step by step guide to bringing out the most vital of details in animal art. The techniques, while shown in mainly acrylic painting, are adaptable to any media of your choice. A wonderful tool for the serious or amatur artist.

2 comments about House: American Houses For The New Century.

1. A stylish book--with substance. Clear, intelligent writing, dazzling photos, and a crisp graphic layout. A must for anyone considering buying or building a modern home, or anyone who loves gorgeous contemporary architecture.



2. Two former editors at Architecture have selected 21 recent houses that offer a promising vision, in their frugality or inventiveness, for the future of residential architecture. They are scattered around the United States-often in unfamiliar locations-Canada, and Mexico. There's no overarching message beyond Ho's lament that so few can afford a house like these, leaving the rest little beyond the retro offerings of home builders.

1 comments about 325 New Home Plans for 2007: Today's Top Home Designs Updated Classics for Today's Homeowner.

1. I had expected to see a walk through of home design color picture inside the book. But it just had one home in color (5 pages) and the rest of the 250 pages had just black and white exterior home designs and layout.
   
   I would suggest in your selection process for a internet buyer to give a brief of the book, not just by the looks of the cover. In fact the introduction states interior and exterior. Some of the previous books I purchased had a walk through of each home, I mean the interior of the sitting, bedroom, kithcen etc etc... Not really usefull after my purchase, this applies to two other books as well I bought along with this order, "Two-Story Homes" Second Edition and "Europeon Dream Homes" Second Edition.

3 comments about North Light's Big Book of Painting Watercolor Flowers.

1. I do not recommend this book. I have quite a lot of watercolor books including several on painting flowers in watercolor, and this one ranks at the bottom.
   
   This book lacks a lot of clarity and the instructions are extremely vague for the most part. Some of the demonstrations begin with a picture of a penciled drawing of a flower, then go on to the next picture, which looks like a highly detailed finished painting, with a short paragraph on how the finished product was accomplished. I got the feeling that this book was hastily put together by a number of people working segmentally. There are a few acceptable demonstrations, but for the most part, the book lacks clarity and leaves students on their own to interpret what the author really means. If someone were considering this book, I would have at LEAST 5 other watercolor color flower painting books that I would recommend instead of this one. It was quite a disappointment.



2. Very nice book,looked like a new book



3. Very instructive. Many different styles of painting demonstrated in a way easy to follow. Very well worth the money.

No comments about Birkhäuser Architectural Guide Switzerland 20th Century (Birkhauser Architectural Guides).

5 comments about American Shelter: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the American Home.

1. I'm looking into returning the book itself, just because I already own American Shelter from 1981, and it is the EXACT SAME BOOK. If you don't already own it, it is a great reference.



2. In the world of architectural field guides, there is a division between the guides that rely heavily on photographs and those that use line drawings to represent buildings. Photographic field guides are good in that you can see actual historic homes. This is a valuable thing for people who like me live very far away from historic areas and rarely see a building over a hundred years old.
   
   However, the great problem with photographic field guides is that it is often times difficult to understand a building style by looking at one or two representative photographs. What's worse is that often times the eye is drawn to details like electric lines or automobiles. One can spend more time trying to identify the decade the photo was taken than on concentrating on the image. For this reason, I prefer field guides that use line drawings to represent buildings. In my opinion, line drawings are a better tool for teaching the different architectural elements that come together to form a style.
   
   Of the field guides that use line drawings, Lester Walker's "American Shelter" is the very best. It is the best for two reasons. First because of the sheer number of styles he identifies. In this book he details 103 styles whereas a typical field guide will usually identifies 20-30 unique styles. Second and foremost, Lester Walker is a very talented artist. His drawings are not hyper technical like the Historical American Building Survey (HABS) drawings which one finds in some field guides. They have a lot of personality which seperates them from what I call the illustrator school of architectural drawings.
   
   I have been collecting field guides for a number of years and this is my favorite guide. That is not to say that there are not other very high quality guides. However, if you need to purchase just one field guide, this is the one. Hopefully, this book will inspire you to start collecting architectural field guides which in my opinion is a most worthy hobby.



3. I purchased this book while I was an undergraduate studying city planning. This book has been on my shelf since it was published and I still use it quite frequently today. This is a fantastic reference for anyone interested in housing, architecture and urban design. In fact, I highly recommend this book to any planning students with a housing or preservation focus. You will not regret having made the investment!



4. If you ever have reason to write (fictionally or otherwise) about American architecture (chiefly domestic), you shouldn't miss a chance to add this volume to your shelves. (It's included in the file I always send to Old-West mavens wanting to know what they should read.) Chapters range from two to eight pages in length and cover everything from the earth lodge of the Southeastern Plains Indians to the projected space station now three years past due. Typically, each includes the time and region in which the original style was most abundant, a few paragraphs explaining its history and salient features, and a number of finely detailed pen-and-ink sketches portraying exterior details and often cutaways and floor plans. The book can also be used as a field guide to help you decide what kind of house you happen to be looking at. From log cabins to Frank Lloyd Wright, Mount Vernon to the humble Quonset hut, every major kind of American house is here. This is an item that cries to be brought back into print. Until it is, don't miss a chance to pick up a used copy if you're afforded one.



5. I own the poster American Shelter by the same author, and wanted to see the explanations behind the dates and titles. As an architectural historian, I've studied many of these styles, but there are some new variations of house styles that are not part of any other reference book. This book has fun graphics and easy to follow descriptions. For the trained historians, architects, etc., this book is an amusing addition to your collections. To the architectural housing enthusiasts, this could be a helpful resource.

No comments about Digital Representations in Architecture: Motion, Montage and Experience.