3 comments about Marine Painter's Guide.

1. Tried this book on a whim to assist with painting marine scenes to get the details on boats correct. This book is an outstanding timeless reference. Probably one of the best detail books on the subject.
   
   I wanted to know more about Jack Coggins and found a web site on his paintings and writings maintained by a relative. Coggins is a modern master and a vast body of his paintings are available for viewing on this site.
   
   I hope this book never goes out of print. If you are looking to properly render the ocean and boats this book is for you.



2. Experienced maritime artist and teacher Jack Coggins presents Marine Painter's Guide, a self-teaching tool written especially for beginning to intermediate painters. Chapters cover such common maritime painting subjects as hulls, masts and rigging, sails, water, skies, freighters and tugs, docks, gulls, and people, as well as giving a wealth of technical do's and don'ts. Painters who have difficulty capturing the subtle nuances of perspective, composition, and water reflections will find Marine Painter's Guide particularly helpful. 127 black-and-white illustrations, many of which show sketches of complex ship riggings in careful detail, and 11 illustrations in full color round out this "must- have" how-to guide for creating realistic and emotionally moving works of maritime art.



3. An excellent book for the begginer and most helpful for an intermediate painter. It provides very practical guidance on perspective and composition. The author is a practiced professional artist with the down to earth feel of a person who has thought through how to make his advice relevant. He does not waste words or time explaining overly basic matters but keeps to a firm structure with plenty of examples and illustration. The book can be used as a course for learning marine painting.

3 comments about Cezanne: Landscape into Art.

1. Although this is a great book for any art lover it is a must for the plein air (outdoor) painter. It demonstrates how Cezanne transformed his "motif", the scene he has selected, into a painting by showing photos of the motif side by side with his paintings. Machotka, an artist himself, discusses the artistic problems presented by each scene and Cezanne's various solutions as they vary over his development as an artist. Machotka is knowledgeable, thoughtful and writes well. This book will certainly extend your appreciation of Cezanne and if you paint plein air, will likely make you a much more observant and better painter. As a painter this is one of the few books on composition and technique that I recommend to other painters.



2. Cezanne's influence on Cubism and later abstract styles can make the viewer forget just how important looking at his native landscape was to the painter. This wonderful book helps us see the fascinating ways Cezanne succeeded in "realizing his sensations" in front of nature and landscape. A book to return to again and again.



3. This is by far one of the best books I have ever read and had. Machotka details Cezanne in a great way. I was never a great fan of Cezanne before purchasing this book, now I'm a devoted fan! Cezanne would be proud to have someone like Machotka writing about his work.

3 comments about Willem de Kooning: Paintings.

1. This book is undoubtedly the best recent publication on De Kooning. Very complete, it encompasses the entire career of the artist with beautiful reproductions and a text partly written by one of the most sensible art critics of our time, the late David Sylvester (whose other writings on American Art I strongly recommend too). It was a catalogue for an exhibition held at the National Gallery in Washington in 1994, which, to this date remains a reference.



2. One of the New York action painters, abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning was born in Holland almost a century ago. He began as a portrait and figure painter, later becoming "an artist who makes ambiguity an hypothesis on which to build."

   This gloriously beautiful retrospective of his work was published in conjunction with the first major exhibition devoted exclusively to his paintings at the National Gallery of Art. With 80 color and 50 black and white plates, exhibit curator Prather, art historian Sylvester, and art history professor Shiff offer commentary on 84 of de Koonings's paintings which span five decades of his career.

   Beginning in the 1930s with the earliest series of paintings of men and women to the 1980s when the artist's style became more abstract, this superb volume is testimony to de Koonings' life and oeuvre.

   A contemporary of Rothko, Kline, and Pollock, Willem de Kooning's works are sometimes taken as metaphors, dynamic with shapes and colors splayed across the canvas. He is one of the most influential artists of our generation. This splendid catalogue is apt tribute.




3. This is probably the best book about Willem De Kooning on the market. Along with a multitude of color plates David Sylvester offers historical, technical, and philisophical insights about Willem De Kooning and his life works. The large format makes viewing the artists works very enjoyable. The reading is not overly complicated as it paints a full portrait of the artist, his accomlishments, his techniques, and also offers an approach to understanding the significance of his work. A must have for any De Kooning, or Abstract Expressionist enthusiast.

5 comments about Cuba (National Geographic).

1. First the book gives a nice resume of cuba's history, then a summary of current living conditions for Cubans. This puts you in the right mindset to fully appreciate Harvey's work. But the story told by David Alan Harvey is simply spectacular. Harvey gets off the beaten track and takes you to the heart of Cuban's daily lives, but with an incredible sense of beauty and a touch of sensuality. Buy this book, take it slow, and you won't regret it.
   If you have a minute go check out this link where Harvey explains his experience and lets you get a glimpse of the content of this great book.
   http://dirckhalstead.org/issue9910/cubaintro.htm



2. I have traveled to Cuba and I have followed the photographic work of David Harvey for more than 20 years. While neither makes me an expert I do know that the Cuba Harvey captured is the Cuba I saw and felt when I visited several years ago while on a teaching visa. Harvey caresses his subjects with intensity and love. He blends in - he becomes a part of the scene - while not changing the scene. He is both a photographer's photographer and a man of the people. We hang with the saxophone player in Trinidad on page 45, we roam the late night streets of Havana on pages 92-93, we are unseen as we observe the barbershop/front bedroom on page 166. I highly recommend this book to those who love photography, those who love people and want to learn something about another place, to those who desire to sit awhile in a culture other than their own, and to those who simply love images and the gift a fine photograph can bring to your life. It is a true gift. This captures the vibrant yet gentle Cuba of today, of now, not of tightly clutched notions that died 50 years ago.



3. David Alan Harvey, long one of the most outstanding photographers at an outstanding publication, National Geographic, has produced that captures well the beauty, spirit, and reality of life in Cuba. Harvey's masterful compositions with his trademark use of strong, vibrant color remind one of Alex Webb's photographs of Haiti and the tropics.

   I suspect that those who complain about "dark pictures" have missed the point; the photographer seems to deliberately have exposed for the highlights, leaving his shadow areas to fall to blackness and lending the subjects in his photos a timeless anonymity.

   And the harsh reviews that Harvey has "misunderstood" Cuba seem to be misguided on the part of some reviewers. I guess they'd rather deny that the poverty reflected in some of his photographs actually exists, and bash him for merely bringing a non-Cuban perspective to the land they love with rose-tinted vision, rather than address the actual points his work raises.




4. Cuba is a visual delight and, with more than 100 color photographs, David Alan Harvey shows you why. Combine Harvey's images of life in Cuba with Elizabeth Newhouse's terse yet thorough style and you have a perfect match for this book.

   I have recently visited Cuba and found that Harvey's photography captures the essence of Cuba's greatest resource - the Cuban people. Strong and proud, though materialistically impoverished, the people of Cuba are rich in relationships, music, dance and defiance. Harvey, a photographer for National Geographic, has spent the last 20 years photographing Latin America and is skilled at capturing people in their everyday environment.

   Newhouse's chapter on the turbulent history of Cuba is excellent. Without pulling any punches about the glaring deficiencies of Castro's totalitarian Communist government, she writes with objectivity about life in Cuba and she is able to show, with sensitivity to the culture, the strength found in the people of Cuba. "But above all Cuba is music," Newhouse writes, "expressing Cubans' intense joy in life, sensuality and machismo. Garcia Marquez calls Cuba 'the most dance oriented society on earth. And that Fidel Castro is the only Cuban who can't dance, should have warned the people about him from the start.'"

   The downside of this book is the publisher/printer's very poor reproduction of Harvey's photos. Almost all of the photos are too dark and thus rob the effect that David Harvey intended. Considering that National Geographic is distinguished for its stunning photography, I called the publisher and asked about this blunder and was told that the printer, not the photographer, was culpable.

   This book celebrates the passion, color and sensuality of the Cuban people, and, even with the gray backdrop of Communism framing their existence, and the deficiency in the photo reproduction, the Cubans are still able to shine through the gloom and darkness. Recommended.




5. A colorful well laid out book with good use of photographs in the National Geo style taken by a optimistic photographer with a quirky eye that obviously has a lot of passion for this country. looking forward to the next one.

3 comments about Splash 8: Watercolor Discoveries (Splash).

1. So many almost photographic pictures of shiny objects,fruits, flowers and too few real "Discoveries" I look forward to each new "Splash",but this one seemed just more of the same.The pictures using fluid inks and a looser style are fun, but please thinks of us non-Americans when you use brand names of materials like "Yupo"plastic paper



2. La série des livres SPLASH (actuellement le 8e volume est paru) est une pure merveille. J'ai la chance de disposer de l'intégralité de ces ouvrages achetés sur le site Amazon.com
   Chaque livre présente plus de 100 oeuvres. Chacune de ces aquarelles est une découverte formidable: de la couleur, de la poésie, de l'art, du très grand art.
   Je vous recommande ces ouvrages très vivement. Vous ne serez pas décus. Félicitations très chaleureuses à tous ces artistes.



3. The story continues with this latest edition of 140 works. Since the first book in 1991 the Splash series has featured some glorious watercolor paintings. The reason I love these books is the enormous variation in style. In this book it can vary from the almost photographic painting of trees and a house by Steven Kozar (page eighty-nine) to the very loose but still very controlled work of Dan Burt and his flamboyant painting of a street scene in Guanajuato, Mexico (page eighteen).
   
   I have the eight books and they are such a treat to browse through but I think it worth mentioning that they are not how-to-do books. Each artist though, does contribute some thoughts on how they created their work and in a way this can be more valuable than a learn-to-paint book because with so many styles on display every artist has a different point to make about their creativity.
   
   The presentation follows the style set in the first book, each spread has two paintings, and frequently one is whole page with the artist's comments and another painting on the opposite page. The screen is 175dpi so the reproduction is good on a gloss paper, though I prefered the matt stock used in book four, it made the images sparkle a bit more.
   
   Amazon has over twelve hundred books listed under 'watercolor painting' so there is plenty of choice but I think the Splash series has a special place for presenting the best contemporary American watercolor work.
   
   ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

No comments about Scrapbooks: An American History.

5 comments about The Clothesline.

1. I thought it was my own secret obsession. My God, how I love laundry. Until recently, I lived with a clothesline out in the yard. Now, I use a commercial washer and dryer, and it's nowhere near as much fun!
   
   However, I do sometimes wash some things by hand, lovingly hanging them up inside the house. What is it about the smell of clothes drying on the line that refreshes the spirit so very well? It takes me back to being a young child reaching up to hang out the towels on the line, all the while relishing the sunshine smell and nature all around me.
   
   This book just takes you back to another place and time, and those wonderful nostalgic feelings that laundry brings about. The pictures are wonderful! This is a book to cherish.
   
   If you are looking for a little item for the "Wishing Well" at a bridal shower, this is an awesome present. But first, be sure to get one for yourself! Thank you, Andrea VanSteenhouse, Irene Rawlings, David Foxhoven and Jason McConathy for this trip down a fragrant and sunny memory lane!



2. "The simple act of picking clean, wet clothes out of a wicker basket, shaking them out, and hanging them up makes me slow down, giving me time to compose the rest of my day."
   
   Washing machines are great for convenience, but there is a magical quality to hand washing clothes with a delicious essential oil soap (orange or lavender) and hanging them outside to dry. Of course, this means you need a clothesline and a secluded back yard.
   
   As a child we used a soap called Sunlight and washed clothes in a ring washer. I know, I'm too young to know about ring washers, but in Africa that is what we used and we even had a sink with a washboard type surface.
   
   The spinning umbrella clothesline was behind the house with a mountain right behind where animals could easily find their way down to our house. Often while putting up clothes, I'd walk up the steps and scare a baboon who would screech at me for interrupting the stealing of fruit. I'm not sure who scared who more, but clothes definitely ended up thrown about the garden as I ran one way and the baboon ran the other.
   
   Memories of running outside to quickly take down the clothes in the afternoon is also a fun memory. As the rain would start to soak the clothes and sheets, we'd frantically be pulling them off the line, then hanging them inside to dry overnight.
   
   With memories of hanging out clothes on a line, this book becomes even more meaningful. If you have a penchant for lavender ironing water and verbena soap, this will also be a delight.
   
   This unique book has recipes for making your own soap with herbs, describes the variety of clotheslines, shows pictures of many different clothespin bags and explains how to wash linens. How do you make a new clothesline last longer? Why use a naturally scented softener?
   
   Throughout this informative and very practical guide there are also moments of inspiration for designing your own laundry room. The storage of linens with small herbal sachets is followed by recipes and creative ideas. A special section shows how clotheslines found their way into art. Urban clotheslines and country clotheslines are included. Remember clothespin toys? They have pictures of those too.
   
   "I know this sounds funny, but I think of hanging clothes as an almost religious experience." ~Betsy Bennett, artist (Sheets to the Wind II painting)
   
   Now and then I just wish I could take my laundry down to the river and wash it on stones. I have strange notions, but mostly they appeal to my outdoor nature. By washing our clothes inside, we miss out on the feeling of the sun on our skin and the sound of clothes whipping about in the wind. While at my mother's house one day I found two clothespins and decided to keep them. My mother and grandmother always had clotheslines and I remember many happy hours as a child running through the sheets warmed by the sun.
   
   ~The Rebecca Review



3. This is a real glimpse of another era, but one not so intangible as we might think....we can definitely enjoy it, too. Some of the sweetest things in life are the simplest pleasures, and a sniff of our bedsheets after drying in the sun, or drying off with a towel that did the same is a perfect example. Since our olfactory sense is the one most tied to memories, this book would be a great one for those new to housekeeping or new mothers. I can remember running through the sheets on my mother's clothesline, smelling my clean clothes as we brought them in and folded them. I do the same for my family when I have the time, and my 78 year-old mother recently expressed a desire to start hanging out her wash again. So since April 19th (yes, it's a Monday--traditional washday for years and years and years in our country) is National Hang Out Your Wash Day; I got the book for my mom and will pair it with a clothesline and clothespins. It's a wonderful little book, and even has a recipe for lye soap that we used to make as kids. It was pretty gross but those farm women were strong and even though I'll bet it took the skin right off their hands, they used it. We could learn a thing or two from them, I'm sure.



4. I like books full of nostalgia and simpler ideas. Like the other reviewers I found it a good walk through memory lane. We never had a clothesline since we grew up in the city, but I remember seeing them on movies and the like. Its definitly a piece of Americana. I picked this up mainly because of the stress of the current war on terrorism, I needed something simple and nice. This made me feel some more trust and confidence in our values and the core of what is America. I really needed a break from all the crud books coming out on politics from former hippies trying to make a buck (sorry Mr. Bob Woodward). I like knowing that at our heart America is the home of the free, brave, and simple folks doing normal things. Thanks for an easy, stress free, good book.



5. I guess I hadn't thought about it till I read this book, but the simple act of doing the laundry can generate an almost Zen like satisfaction. We wash our clothes almost every week, and it seems like a chore... or is it? Take a walk back in time and even through today and look at the way we do wash and how. This book brought back the smells I remember of my Mother over the enamelled steel tub rinsing and scrubbing. Me and my sisters had endless fun running between the sheets and clothes hung from the seemingly endless lines of drying laundry in our back yard playing hide and go seek. For any of you who remember when simple pleasures were derived from simple tasks, and satisfaction from a job well done wasn't pushing a button on a TV remote you ought to give this a read.

5 comments about Malicious Resplendence sc.

1. I have ther previous books that showed Robert's past work, but they suffered from not being the best printing and some non color reproductions of this color work. Well, this book corrects all that. It's all in glorioous color and full of Beautiful reproductions of his work. YOU NEED THIS BOOK if you are a Robert Williams fan. GET IT NOW.



2. This is really an excellent book that represents Robert Williams art. No other books are needed, it even has the painting used in the Guns 'n Roses Appetite for Destruction album. There's plenty of big beautiful prints in this large format book. I'd give it five stars but it turns out i'm not as much a fan of his art as i thought I was. The content is so busy and almost too much after a while. Maybe just soaking in a few prints at a time is the best way to enjoy it. With that said, deffinately a great addition to anyones art book collection.



3. This book is in my opinion, the best collection of Robert Williams art work. Nuff said!



4. A real great book, full of paintings, sketchs, pages, and fun.
   Buy "Hysteria in remission " to a complete collection about the msater Robert Willians.
   Para o pessoal do Brasil , pode comprar que é diversão garantida , livro para a vida toda!



5. A must have for aserious Williams fan. Considerd by most to be the founder of this genre. Exceeded my expectations.Xlnt value.

No comments about The Complete Guide to Drawing & Illustration A Practical and Inspitational Course for Artists of All Abilities.

3 comments about Francis Bacon: 1909-1992 (Taschen Basic Art).

1. I found this book very, very good for those wishing "to meet" the artist as I did. I didn't know anything about Bacon before but had strong decision to explore his paintings and himself as an artist. This book serve well for this purpose.
   It contains many illustrations, all in color but it's not all his paintings. Book covers everything mainly in chronological manner, gives overall picture of Bacon's life journey.
   Book is very good, maybe even best start for exploring Bacon's art. After that it's easy to orientate and dive deeper. And besides, Taschen series are really known for their good quality, at least in my mind.
   Personally me, I started to explore Bacon's art with exactly this book and it very impressed me. In Bacon's art I found something inspirational for myself. Taking into account Bacon art's specific features this book and Bacon art could
   be strongly suggested for animators, game developers, painters, concept artists who's into horror genre. But, by Bacon's own words:"I am not seeing any horror in my pictures"!



2. This book contains a superb range of beautifully printed Bacon pieces in full colour, and at a very modest price. However, the drawback of this book is the writings of Luigi Ficacci. His essays on Bacon are excruciating to read and immensely difficult to follow. It's like being at an art gallery and overhearing pretentious art-wannabes trying to outdo each other with big words and obscure psychoanalytical references.
   
   So if you're looking for a book containing a comprehensive collection of artwork by Francis Bacon, this is an excellent and affordable collection. However, if you're looking for insight into this fascinating artist, try "Interviews with Francis Bacon" by David Sylvester, or "Bacon" by Ediciones Poligrafa.



3. Luigi Ficacci in his Taschen book FRANCIS BACON: 1909 - 1992 has managed to give us a short survey in words about the particular genius of Francis Bacon, but at the same time presents a solid framework in which to study the primary contributions of Bacon's output by focusing on eleven of the most important works. And while the bookstore shelves have many fine expensive surveys of all of Bacon's works, this little book is a gift to the student whose pocketbook would be stretched as much as the shelf weight by those greater volumes!
   
   Ficacci's writing style is a bit dry, but his points are well made and even better related to the paintings he emphasizes. His work divides Bacon's obsessions into chapters on 'The Poetics of Bacon', 'The Expression of Horror', 'The Human Body', 'The Scene of Tragedy', 'The Portraits', and 'Sources of Inspiration'. Ficacci crowns his book with one of the finest capsulated biographies in print: each phase of Bacon's amazing career is played out in terse paragraphs as a timeline.
   
   Though Ficacci dwells on eleven paintings, this book includes fine reproductions of most of Bacon's works from the earliest to the last, with many little inclusions of works rarely seen in other books. For a superb introduction to one of the 20th century's most influential artists in a readable and affordable scale, this book is among the top choices. Grady Harp, December 05