5 comments about Fashion Artist (Fashion Design Series).

1. I wore holes in piles of paper trying to work up to the basic points so magnificently outlined in this book! It's like having an art teacher with you (without the snide remarks) to bring your abilities to the top.
   
   If you are planning on studying fashion, or just doing it for fun, you need this book.
   
   Highly recommended!



2. This book is a great start for beginners who want to work in the fashion industry or for those who consider fashion designing a hobby and want to improve on their illustration skills, like myself. Burke starts with the basics, like learning how to draw the female figure in different poses and drawing some examples of clothes, but she also touches upon fabric rendering and ideas on how to make a presentation. There's even a section on designing for men, childeren, and costumes. Overall a very informative, clear and consise book to get started and to encourage and inspire amateurs to want to learn more.



3. I haven't really had a chance to play a lot with this book since I got it a month ago, but so far, I like it. There are very colorful designs, croquis', and many illustrations. It seems like it gives a lot of information in a short amount of time.



4. I'm wanting to become a fashion designer and i bought this book and i was amazed. it really teaches you how to draw fashion models (and people in general) in all different poses. it shows you so many different poses both with an actual person modeling the pose and then a block figure showing you how to draw it. after the structure is learned, it teaches you in a really easy way how to flesh it out, and then how to draw the clothes and how the clothes are supposed to look at folds and creases. if you like this book, i recommend Draw Fashion Models! by Lee Hammond, a great book that goes in depth into more poses and how you should draw the clothes and how they look when the arms are raised, when you're leaning on one hip, etc.
   
   i really recommend buying this amazing book, it's straightforward and very helpful!



5. I bought this book for my 16 yr old daughter who is an aspiring fashion designer. To get into design school & possibly qualify for a scholarship, she must prepare a portfolio. She expressed concern that her sketching skills would look amateurish so she asked for a book to help her.
   
   This book shows in picture and text detail the supplies needed to do a project & an easy format to follow. She loved it and was so excited to have a guide to help her. This book not only helps in this regard, but has several sections that gives pointers on design elements and much more pertinent information.
   
   If you or someone you know is an aspiring fashion designer, do not hesitate to get this book. It will be a valuable tool that will be put t good use.

5 comments about The Japanese Tattoo.

1. On the good side, Amazon service was just as great as ever in delivering this book.
   
   On the bad side (and there are several) this book had a cheap feel about it just from opening the packaging. Reading the preface / introduction I was stunned by the insulting gibberish by D.M. Thomas as to the Japanese tattoo culture. Looking at the back cover of the book you also see the photographer holding the heads of her subjects which also feels demeaning to the Japanese men portrayed in the picture: Japanese are not very touchy and touching ones head is generally not a good thing in most Asian cultures: the impression is of a woman and her two dogs. Not nice.
   
   Later in the book you find the photographs blurry and the picture text very poor: you could have filled these huge pages with a lot of informative and captivating text about Japanese tattoo and culture. Instead you get to read what is pretty much: "this man has a fish tattoo".



2. The book is nice but some of the photos are not that great in quality. Has some nice designs, but I have to say I expected a little more of this book. Would probably buy again though.



3. This book is worth the price for the pictures alone. Which is good because the writing is extremely sub par, with misinformation and just wrong information. The art is wonderful but the writing is so bad that you are probably better of not even reading it.



4. I purchased this book for my boyfriend for christmas who happens to be an avid japanese tattoo lover. He himself has full sleeves and leg work done all in the same traditional style this book offers the reader. The pictures are beautifully done and the commentary is very intresting. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves japanese culture or body art!



5. If your into japanese tattoo's this is the book to get! The ink is bad a$$ with great pictures!

5 comments about Meggs' History of Graphic Design.

1. This is an excellent textbook and well worth the price. It's more like a history of art and culture.



2. I purchased this book for my Graphic Design history class. The book is well written and it is very informative.



3. i bought this product as new. i could tell the book had not been or had hardly been opened b/c of the sound it makes when you open a new book. the pages are clean and crisp. it was only the book jacket that protects the hard cover that had a few marks on it, but overall i'm very happy with it. =)



4. After using all the editions, the latest isn't up to the late Phil Meggs' standards. In its attempt to
   be concise and concept oriented, it omits much cultural and marginal information that was
   interesting and flavorful. This edition is not as delicious as the others. I'm thinking of switching
   textbooks for my students.



5. This book provides an excellent resource on the graphic design industry with in-depth information on typography and how different art movements affected graphic design. It is well written and has great pictures with detailed descriptions. I recommend it for every graphic designer's personal library.

5 comments about DragonArt.

1. Ok, so i got this from barnes and nobles a few months a ago and so far it has been really great to use. It offers great tips for beginners and its layed out in an easy to understand kind of format which i really enjoyed. though i really like the colors and pictures in the book, the step by step how to's weren't all that great as they are really detailed and might not be great for someone who is new to drawing really intricate and detailed pictures. but all in all its a great book and well worth the 20$ i paid for it and it would make a great gift for someone really into dragons,mythical creatures, and drawing! :)



2. Was swayed to buy this book by the reviews... Amazon offers several! Well done ~ does a fairly good job of explaining the basics, and the step-by-step was helpful to me. Not geared for the very young, though... would suggest from the 10-12yr. range & up.



3. I got this for my nephew 2006. He likes it and has been drawing pictures of Dragons. He is thirteen.



4. I love this book, I took art lessons and could never draw a good picture
   but I got this book out of the library and my first picture was amazing!
   after a week I bought it and now I can easely draw most things in this book although this book is fun, after your done with it it seems like it was a little short,
   well anyway its a great book for all ages, buy it and you'll love it!



5. Wow! This book is such a value for the quality and content. Gave this to my 12 year old son for Christmas and he loved it. He couldn't stop reading it or drawing from it for the rest of the day!

5 comments about Figure Drawing for Fashion Design (Pepin Press Design Books).

1. I got this book and was not thrilled. It has some nice pictures, but they don't teach much about drawing. There is also nudity for no real reason. Some of the illustrations look more pin-up than fashion. I find most of the illustrations very short waisted.



2. This book is full of graphics and excellent information about drawing the fashion figure. I teach fashion design and illustration and I recommend this to anyone, beginner or intermediate!



3. I bought this book because I *just* wanted templates. (I know that as a designer, my strong suit is not in fashion sketching like this, never has been- but sometimes you have to.)
   
   What this book provides is more of a how to create the bodies you want based off of the 9-head model. For some, this is great- a classroom in the book. For me, who has been working in this field for a long time and I just needed to crank some bodies out without putting in (for me) an excruciating ammount of work, it fell short.
   
   Also, the proportions of the bodies are a little strange and the hand placement a bit rough. I spent more time fiddling with more natural hand positions on the templates than actually drawing the garments on them.
   
   It is a good book for those who can't attend an actual sketching course, but if you're looking for templates- good luck.



4. This book helps a lot, it open your eyes transporting in the world of fashion draw. is really nice material.



5. Though I haven't had a chance to study the book in detail yet, I skimmed through the book, & it seemed like it covered some pretty basic drawing concepts. It also included differing styles of collars, sleeves, etc., which seemed particularly helpful for those in the field.

5 comments about The New Creative Artist.

1. The New Creative Artist: A Guide To Developing Your Creative Spirit
   
   Here is another WOW spiral-bound book!!! It is full of COLOR,a lifetime of ideas, activities, and opportunities to s-t-r-e-t-c-h. The coverage of the Design Element is full: Line, Shape, Value, Color, Size, Pattern, Movement, Harmony, Contrast, Rhythm, Repetition, Gradation, Balance, Dominance, Format Options, Compositional Choices, Design Strategies, and touches on when to give the rules a rest. If that isn't enough, there's lots more! I especially look forward to working through the section: The Realism-Abstraction Connection during my next artistic transition. A beautiful book!
   
   Patricia Eastman



2. This book wasn't as good as "celebrating your creative self."
   
   It was a little wordy with inspirational messages. Not as much about technique and new ideas as I was hoping.



3. This book will get any creative body with a block back into their creative hobby. She gives so many great ideas, like that you should write down all the great creative ideas you think of and put them in to a jar. That way, whenever you can't think of something to get your creative juices flowing, just grab your jar and do whatever the piece of paper says!
   
   On a sidenote: I also love that the binding is ring - so that you can fold the book flat and not worry about pages closing on you when you are trying out something new - but that it is also protected by a larger cover so the ring binder doesn't fall apart like they usually do - THANK YOU PUBLISHER!
   
   Anyhow, great buy for any artist or artists' library - a book I will forever reference...I only wish that Leland explained more of the techniques behind rare art forms (but that would add a whole other book!).



4. Jam packed with useful tips. You can always count on Nita Leland for the best information.



5. This is the best motivation and help book I've purchased in a very long time. Lets you know that you can create (and feel very good about it) what pleases "yourself". I had to get over worrying what other people thought of my work. Thank you.

5 comments about On Ugliness.

1. THIS BOOK SEES ART FROM ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW TAKING A DISTANCE FROM DECORATION AND BEAUTY
   AND HELPING US REACH MORE PROFOUND LEVELS IN THE UNDERSTANDING OF AESTHETICS



2. I was a little worried this book might be really dry and difficult to read but it has been enjoyable and interesting so far. I decided to buy Umberto Eco's Beauty book too.



3. 'One man's trash is another man's treasure' might be a apt conclusion after spending the significant amount of time required to digest Umberto Eco's semiotic approach to 'ugly'. Eco's brilliance as an author is well accepted, yet his informed academic investigation (upon which many of his own novels are based) is only now being appreciated. It is difficult to read ON UGLINESS as a treatise, so lush and provocative is his prose style. Rizzoli International spared no expense on supplying Eco with images and design of this art treasure, and the result is a volume about art history and our manifold perceptions of the signs and symbols that through time have defined 'ugly' versus 'beauty.'
   
   Eco wisely uses the chronological approach to his discourse on the semiotics of ugliness. After a superb Introduction in which he suggests the response of an alien visiting our planet, trying to determine what our civilization labeled beautiful (!), Eco launches into his presentation with gusto. He presents chapters on ugliness in the Classical World, religious use of ugliness (passion, death, martyrdom, apocalypse, hell), monsters, witchcraft, sadism, 'obscene pornography', the appearance of ugliness in architecture and industrial buildings, and finally the transition of the 'ugly' in the popular kitsch and camp.
   
   Coupled with the fascinating written words by the author are copious reproductions of paintings, details of images (some of the details of Bosch's complex canvases are amazingly clear), by both well known painters and unknown painters, displayed with short excerpts from writers who wrote on the subject of the ugly versus the beautiful. Eco brings us to the absolute present (punk art, Cindy Sherman, current film, etc) and as his images emerge from the book's pages, so does his commentary quicken. And so we are left with a book on the subject of Ugliness, which as an art volume is quite the opposite: this is a very beautiful and informed new art book. Highly recommended reading and viewing. Grady Harp, November 07



4. I've enjoyed Eco's fiction (The Name of the Rose, Baudolino), but was never familiar with his work as a semiotician. This book gives a wonderful taste of his intellect outside of fiction. "On Ugliness" is Eco's companion volume to his excellent History of Beauty, and takes the same style: here you will find descriptions of the Western world's ideas about ugliness, from the classical era through the modern, discussing things such as the devil, monsters, death, age and decay, damnation, camp and kitsch, etc. Eco examines this subject broadly, and provides great insight. This book is essentially a collection of visual art related to the different subjects, juxtaposed with passages from literary works from a number of Western cultures.
   
   What keeps this book from receiving my full 5 stars is the fact that none of the pieces (whether literature or visual art) include any kind of analysis or description. Eco simply writes bookending snippets for each chapter and then basically lets the works speak for themselves, which is largely unsatisfying. However, for anyone interested in conceptions of beauty or ugliness, or who would like a fascinating addition to their library, this book is for you.



5. Since I am only a hundred-some pages into this book I hope you'll forgive the premature nature of this review, but thus far Eco's latest work has been so movingly fascinating that I wanted to step up and urge anyone who might be considering buying and reading it to go ahead and do so. Initially I had reservations about beginning it but have no regrets that I did. Although it should become apparent early on that this is honestly less a companion volume to History of Beauty than it has been touted to be, this study of perception, beauty, and above all beauty's often more charismatic twin, ugliness, takes on the entire sweep of history and makes an investigation of the output of some of the biggest names in western art and literature. Why are, say, Goya's more gruesome works his most enjoyable? What makes villains the best characters in fiction (and life)? Why does the repugnant occur so frequently as a theme in art, music, literature and even in everyday fashion? Most of all, why is one object or individual deemed "ugly" and another not? Less (at least thus far) an indictment of the cult of beauty which seems inextricably bound up in human affairs and more an exhaustive investigation that intelligently asks numerous questions from many angles, Eco's challenge here is to compel each of us to contemplate the nature of perception itself. I have loved what I've read so far and can't wait to read the rest.

5 comments about From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books (Voyage of the Beagle, The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals).

1. This is a collection of Darwin's four best known books, and it's a great read for any natural science enthusiast. My only complaint is that the volume is so large in size that it makes it rather inconvenient to carry with you. The price is very reasonable, if you were interested in only two of Darwin's works you may as well buy this and get his four major publications.



2. This book is excellent! It has all of the four greatest works by Darwin, all facsimile editions (exact original) and written by Wilson, a great evolutionary biologist. If you are looking to read some of Darwin's books, here is the place to do it. It also features introductions by the editor to put the book in its scientific, cultural and historical context.



3. this is a great book, it is really neat that all 4 volumes are in one book. it was a great price for these volumes



4. Having also considered the alternative collection "The Evolution Of An
   Idea by James Watson " I arrived at this work, from the couple dozen
   small newspaper-style, mini-illustrations on same pages, and the feedback
   received from this work.
   
   Actually, it's an open debate whether this is the best option. First,
   all 4 books are glued together in one giant "tome" ...and this doesn't
   facilitate reading, from the size or the volume. Also, the pages are
   extremely thin, although not transparent, and probably smudge easily
   and are fragile. That's another liability, if one makes notes in the
   pages, probably the ink will leak to the other size, etc.
   
   Perhaps the best option, is buying all 4 books separately, and reading
   them one at a time.



5. A long time ago, I criticized the theory of Darwin, before I escaped
   fundamental Christianity -- and before I had ever read his works. After
   reading this rather lengthy book, a collection of his four major works,
   it becomes painfully obvious how little there is to criticize. A
   summary of the major works follows:
   
   THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE:
   The first book in the volume is the account of Darwin's travels aboard
   The Beagle, a voyage that lasted about five years, visiting mostly the
   southern hemisphere. The greatest part of this account is on various
   places in South America, but covers the Galapagos, Australia, and
   several other places. Some of the most interesting parts of this book
   are about the Fuegians or other primitives and their practices. I
   further enjoyed reading about other things, such as the distaste he
   expressed in regard to slavery, and remarks consistent with him being
   somewhat a Christian during the journey, though his findings on the
   journey influenced his theories and theology to conform to natural
   evidence he found.
   
   ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION, OR THE
   PRESERVATION OF FAVOURED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE:
   Published in 1859 initially (and this is the form published in this
   volume, rather than any of the updates provided later), this was the
   defining publication for Darwin's life's work. It is no wonder. After
   reading it, I had to admit that anyone against evolution likely has
   never read the book, however they may be educated. His arguments are
   very cautious, cogent, detailed, and persuasive. All of the arguments I
   ever heard against evolution, he introduces in this work as possible
   detriments to his theory, then soundly quashes every one of those
   arguments with pages of reasons and examples for why those arguments are
   untenable, and in a completely humble and careful manner. An example is
   the "irreducible complexity" of the eye. He gives examples of various
   stages of organs of sight that exist in the living world, from very
   complex, as with ours, down to stalks with the most primitive sensing
   organs that can only tell the difference between light and dark, and
   shows the relation from one stage to another. He also wonders what we
   are to do with animals with vestigial eyes, such as moles, with eyes
   covered in skin and hair in many instances. It is easily surmised after
   reading this work how little it is read by Christian and ID apologists.
   It is equally surmised how sound evolution is, and though Darwin did not
   originate the idea - as many scientists before and during his time knew
   there had to be something like it - he is the one that carefully
   examined and put forth a workable mechanism - Natural Selection.
   
   THE DESCENT OF MAN, AND SELECTION IN RELATION TO SEX:
   The longest and most tedious of the books, it is the next step after
   ORIGIN in that it completes the thought of where humans came from, which
   was not addressed at all in ORIGIN. Not quite as interesting as his
   masterwork, he addresses somewhat the relation of humans to evolution,
   then goes into a very long section about sexual selection, in which he
   describes in painful detail characteristics that are specifically sexual
   in natural selection (such as beauty or singing of most male birds as
   opposed to female birds), starting with lower forms all the way up to
   humans. Then he concludes with final remarks on humanity's relation to
   Natural Selection and Sexual Selection.
   
   THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS IN MAN AND ANIMALS:
   This is the shortest of the works in the volume, and the title speaks
   for itself. However, what does not come across in the title is how
   deftly Darwin shows emotional expressions to be inherited - not learned.
   Something as simple as shrugging one's shoulders is shown by examples
   to be linked with descent.
   ______________________________________________________________________
   The introductions and summary by E. O. Wilson are most helpful in
   putting these works into their proper perspective, including remarks on
   Darwin's views on religion. There may be less expensive ways to read
   Charles Darwin, but this Norton volume will be a handsome addition to
   your library, and is built to last.

1 comments about Universe of Stone: A Biography of Chartres Cathedral.

1. For anyone who has stood in awe of the splendid architecture of Notre Dame de Paris, Saint Denis, or Chartres itself, this is a delightful book. In his engaging and smooth prose, Philip Ball guides the reader through the religious, social, and philosophical milieu that produced the quintessentially Gothic cathedral at Chartres.
   
   The essence of Gothic architecture is hotly disputed (Ball navigates neatly through the variety of scholarly opinion), but it certainly incorporated into a unified whole a number of different elements that had previously existed--all for the purpose, it seems, of achieving a soaring height and lightness inside, heaven on earth. Contrary to what the name suggests, Gothic was really a French style, and Ball discusses Chartres in the context of the nearby and near-contemporary cathedrals, especially St Denis, Sens, Soissons, and Strasbourg. (He occasionally brings up the adaptations of the Gothic style further afield.)
   
   Like many other important churches, Notre Dame de Chartres was erected on an even more ancient sacred site: a sacred well (not a druidic temple, which is a Renaissance misinterpretation of Caesar's writing). The earliest churches that stood over Chartres's sacred well (which can still be seen in the crypt beneath the cathedral) were wooden and burnt down repeatedly: rebuilding was undertaken in 743, 858, 1020 (at which point the bishop Fulbert decided to make it an impressive Romanesque cathedral), 1134, and finally in 1194. At this point, it was decided to rebuild in the new Gothic style--a style introduced in the west front and choir of St Denis that had been completed a half-century before.
   
   In a long middle section reminiscent of Ross King's Brunelleschi's Dome, Ball keeps the reader waiting to find out the answers to some key questions: Who built it? How long did it take? He explains thoroughly the historical context of the Gothic cathedral and its architectural features in alternating section that aren't in chronological order.
   
   The monastic trends of the era are pointed out, together with the structure of the cathedral's ministry (and the tension between Chartres's and the local bishop); and the cathedral's original interior colors, ochre and white, are revealed. The Aristotelian, Platonic, and Augustinian foundations of medieval philosophy and theology are laid; and important figures such as Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard are profiled. The state of the art in medieval science is discussed, and its incarnation at the cathedral school in Chartres; and Geoffrey of Leves and Bernard and Thierry of Chartres are profiled. The roles of architects, masters, and builders are discussed, together with their building materials (chiefly limestone in the Isle-de-France); Villard de Honnecourt and his drawings are discussed, as are the uses of military technology in building projects. The engineering challenges of a Gothic cathedral are presented, including forces and stability, cracking and buttressing. (It seems that the argument over whether to buttress or to vault first was never really settled.) And in a chapter reminiscent of Ross King's on pigments in Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling, the making of colored glass is discussed and it is revealed why blue and red were the dominant colors in medieval stained-glass windows.
   
   In the second-to-last chapter, Ball describes the actual building of the cathedral at Chartres, and he debunks the legend of the townspeople putting their shoulders to carts of stones in a frenzy of enthusiasm. As for the cost of the project, Ball estimates that perhaps 5% of the total cost (around 4000 livres) came from the town; maybe another 5% from the French king; a little could be expected from pilgrims who came to see the town's prized relic, the Blessed Virgin's Sancta Camisa; but most of the funds probably came from the bishop's own salary and the rents on church lands. Ball addresses the age-old question of the order of construction--east to west? west to east?--amusingly, observing as evidence against the west-to-east theory that "the nave doesn't so much join up with the west end as crash into it." The question hasn't been settled, but in any case it seems that the architects had thought they would be able to replace Bishop Fulbert's two western towers. (Just one remains--the southwest, less elaborate one.) But funds ran out, and it was in retrospect a happy accident, because it forced the architects to simplify the design (nine spires were originally planned), thereby unifying it and providing a template for the great cathedrals that followed. One wonders how things might have turned out otherwise--would the great Gothic cathedrals all be like the colossal Duomo in Milan?
   
   This was a very enjoyable book, filled with great pictures and diagrams (unfortunately not indexed, though) and eventually answering those key questions: No one knows who the masters or architects were, but there were probably a number of them. And it took just 26 years to build, much less than the century or so needed for Amiens or Reims. This is a great book for the traveler--armchair or otherwise--who is interested in Chartres or medieval architecture.

5 comments about The Art of Polymer Clay Creative Surface Effects: Techniques and Projects Featuring Transfers, Stamps, Stencils, Inks, Paints, Mediums, and More.

1. This book is outstanding and extremely useful. It has great projects, detailed descriptions, and plenty of info on where to find suppliers for every tool and material used in the book. I found it very helpful.



2. I was totally new to clay working, heading for a class in the medium, when I purchased this book. I was absolutely delighted, and was able to start my class with some background and understanding of working the materials. I sit in awe of Ms. Kato's talent, and did find the techniques more difficult than they look. This aside, it is an excellent accumulation of many of the techniques that makes polyclay such a joy to work with. Ms. Kato does list several varieties of clay, inks, paints and other products, but I appreciate that she enumated which she found easier to work with, and why. I did expect some bias towards Kato Polyclay, as she helped develop it, but have also found this an excellent product to work with and have not been disappointed with its performance.
   The book is a MUST HAVE for the beginner reference library, and is also an inspiration with the images from Ms Kato and other artist's collections. I'm pleased I purchased this book, and plan to keep it as a cornerstone for clay working.



3. I was surprised at how many "finishes" you can give Poly Clay. This book explains it all . She does show alot of "specialty tools" you can use - but they can be substituted with your own tools or simple copies. GREAT BOOK - Great Pictures and easy step by step instructions.



4. As with all of Donna Kato's books it is well written and her explanations and photos are geared for all level of artist. It is a must have book if you love working with polymer clay or just love to look at innovative Asian influenced design ideas.



5. I had worked with polymer clay years ago and abandoned it as a medium. While watching reruns of Carol Duvall shows I would sketch and make notes about inspiring crafters and artists. I knew nothing of Donna Kato and as I looked back through my notes her name appeared again and again as work I had admired. This new book is an excellent addition to my resource library and I refer to it again and again as I practice polymer clay techniques with a new appreciation for the medium. The techniques are well described complete with specific brands of materials and clearly well-tested. A must-have.