5 comments about Big Art, Small Canvas: Paint Easier, Faster and Better with Small Oils.

1. This book was just OK for me. I was expecting more detail and refinement in the paintings which I strive for in my work. The small paintings make a nice price point when you are doing various sizes.



2. I found this book to be very inspirational. I wish I had thought of it!



3. This book is not only instructional, but a complete course in painting miniatures -- and fills a vast void in that area. The author not only provides excellent reasons for painting on a small canvas, but gives practical advice on setting up space and equipment, preparing the panel (canvas), and staging & lighting the props for a still life. She goes on to review elements of color theory, and presents her favorite complementary palettes. She discusses methods of 'seeing' in order to get the underlying drawing right, and outlines the most important elements of design: composition, perspective, balance, focal point, and texture. Additionally, several methods of creating depth in a painting are covered. Thereafter, Washor presents a series of step-by-step still-life and landscape demonstrations, each of which illustrates yet other enigmatic features of art. She even discusses framing! This book is packed with practical, useful, and instructive advice, and is filled with gorgeous, painterly examples of the author's work to inspire us. What a find!



4. Overall, the book was good. I liked the intro and the chapter on equipment. I would have liked more step by step pictures to show the development of the painting. Also, some better descriptions of painting techniques would have been helpful. The book does inspire me to experiment on my own but it doesn't give enough insight to avoid common mistakes.



5. Disregard the size of the paintings if you like, and just look at the gorgeous colors and brushwork!!!!! So sensuous. The author is very generous with her information. Her color palette is unusual, and the color schemes she uses are really, really lovely. This is one of the top oil painting books around. I highly recommend it.

5 comments about Life, Paint and Passion.

1. This book is a must for those interested in the creative process. It is clear, inspiring and very worthwhile for artists of all mediums even though the focus is on painting.



2. I've never been drawn to the concept of "process painting" before. It just seemed too simplistic as ordinarily presented.
   
   But Michele Cassou's ideas - based on decades of hard-won experience - about what encourages the creative flow and what constricts it are profoundly illuminating, detailed and sophisticated. And her sparkling observations are presented in the most enjoyably simple and down-to-earth way imaginable, to boot!
   
   For the most part, each chapter begins with an observation about what creates a block to creativity and what releases it. It then continues on with a vignette from an interaction Michele has had with a student during one of her workshops in which she helps the student release the sort of block just discussed.
   
   Her solutions always involve having students ask themselves a question specific to the block they're encountering. For instance, if a student feels all dried up and as if she simply has no inspiration for a painting, and then bursts out, "It's so childish!," Michele will ask her to question herself: "What would I paint if it didn't matter how childish it was?"
   
   Quite simple and direct. And Michele's questions work with the precision of a scalpel in releasing constricted creative energy.
   
   Through these vignettes, Michele reveals numerous presuppositions, both conscious and unconscious, that we hold about what we're allowed to feel and to do, and how they strangle our creative flow. Even more important, she reveals the way out of each of these strangleholds.
   
   This is not just for painters; it's for anyone who feels they've encountered significant creative blocking or who would like to encounter their own creative core.
   
   This book is simple but far from simplistic, and altogether delightful!



3. Painting, although the medium meant to be the subject for this book, is only a catalyst for inspiring creative thought in any venue. As a writer, I found it easy to replace writing for painting in many portions of the book. One part in particular, many creative people of all genres can relate to where it states: "If you find yourself overwhelmed by your emotions, make your brush move faster then you thoughts. It will help you disengage from the drama." "Brush" can easily be replaced by "pen" and work as effectively.
   
   If technique and structure are what you are looking for, keep looking. This book is for those that want to create freely and be released from the guilt, judgment, and conditioning of traditionalists.



4. This is an inspiring book on letting go and letting art come from you without your internal critic or judgements on meaning or technique. It is about Learning from Art; and letting art take you where it will. It is about discovery and play -- ultimately it is about how to get into the Process of Creating.... and stop worrying about the "product"
   
   This is one of those books that I read and instantly thought of five friends I wanted to share it with. And it also helped jump start me to believe in making what I make; not to worry if it is too dark, too silly, too profane, too honest and vulnerable; and not to try to direct it to what I think it is supposed to be.
   
   The book contains short chapters about challenges and personal accounts. It can be just as beneficial to open the book to any page and read what is there as a jumping-off spot. It does not tell you "how" to create your work -- but it shares why, and it also shares methods for loosening the restrictions and the blocks. "What" you create will come from you.
   
   Sometimes living in the world is a challenge with all the other concerns and critiques of other people...but if we keep growing and learning and making/creating -- it can keep us going! Art is a respite for me; it is what gives me meaning and value in my life, it is what gives me energy. This book puts these ideas in an inspiring perspective with some humor, some philosophy, and some common sense. Don't let anyone keep you down -- and don't keep yourself down!
   
   Artists, writers, educators, and anyone who loves any of the arts would benefit from the viewpoint of this book. No experience is necessary, just the desire to create for the fun of it -- for the play and joy and experience.



5. The title says it all. I would recommend this book to those of us that call ourselves artists, aspiring artists, or anyone of any age.
   Great Book!!!!

5 comments about Drawing Realistic Pets from Photographs.

1. I purchased this book for my daughter's 14th birthday. She loves to draw and is quite talented. I gave "Drawing Realistic Pets from Photographs" to her for her birthday and she loved it. She sat right down and sketched the cat. She said when she opened it "Awesome". This book shows the picture of the animal and then how to pencil/charcoal draw the picture by hand. I would highly recommend this book.Drawing Realistic Pets from Photographs



2. Lee Hammond's books (all of them !) are so great! Easy to understand and lots and lots of great tips. Really comprehensive and excellent work.



3. I am an oil painter and I wanted to experiment with pencil drawing.I have a few of Lee Hammond's books and I think this is the best by far.A very good book that explains a lot of detail and helps a beginner get motivated to learn.



4. I purchased this book for my daughter because she loves to draw animals. It has fantastic illustrations and pictures with easy to follow instructions. My daughter is eight and it was easy enough for her to understand yet challenging enough to keep her interested. She was very happy with the book & her drawings have really improved with the help of this book.
   
   This book has been great for her & she's since checked out other how-to-draw books from the library. It's helped give her more confidence in her art work.



5. I like to draw but always have trouble getting my sketches exactly looking life like. After doing the lessons in this book there's no stopping me. It is so easy to understand and the final results are amazing. Well done Lee Hammond I also bought the painting copy with excellent results as well.

5 comments about Illusive: Contemporary Illustration And Its Context.

1. I'm really happy with this book. There's lots of inspiring illustrations in here. Some with lots of color & vectors - others black and white sketch-like illustrations. I definitely recommend it!



2. I work in graphic design and have to say that Illusive is in my top 5 favourite art books. If you like good quality art books then this it. Illusive is filled with inspiring art from artists around the world with a broad scope of different styles. My favourite artists in the book include Henry Obasi, Stephane Manel,and Sophie Toulouse. This book makes a great coffee table book and would make an excellent gift for those interested in graphic design, illustration and art.



3. This book is better than I expected, way better. Illusive has become a bottomless well of inspiration to me. Some of the art is a little out there and impractical, but thats what's great about this book. The art is both cutting edge and simple at times. My favorite chapter is the one that covers handmade elements combined with digital elements. If you're into cutting edge art and want to expand your skill set buy this book ASAP!!!!



4. For all illustrators and designers!
   This book is a must have.
   It contains the most amazing collection of art works.
   I am graphic designer and illustrator.
   This book gives me tons of inspirations.
   I highly recommend to add this book to your collection.



5. I bought this book along with the "Bologna Annual Illustrators of Children's Books" catalogue and leave both of them on my coffee table. The illustrations as well as graphic artwork for anything from books to band posters and advertisements are beautiful and very inspiring. I find myself sitting on the couch flipping through it regularly. Well worth the money!

5 comments about 390 Traditional Stained Glass Designs (Dover Pictorial Archive Series).

1. The cover gives 14 color examples. The 78 pages are packed with
   an average of 8 black and white outlines to a page.
   This is a lot of ideas but would be challenging to enlarge for
   pattern making. A limited range of symetric styles are divided
   into four groups.



2. This book is not my cup of tea, but it's great for someone who's looking for a design from a certain era. The book is broken down by the different eras or styles: Victorian Geometric, Art Nouveau, Victorian Floral, Edwardian, and 1920's. All the designs have a lot of horizontal and vertical lines in them. Also, it's all in black and white so you have to use your imagination to color it. The back of the front cover and back cover has examples in color.



3. This is an excellent resource book for stained glass artisans. It has a variety of styles and eras in easy to duplicate drawings. Projects range from easy to intricate, designs (in some instances) can be mixed and matched.
   
   Dover has a good selection of stained glass books which provide wonderful references to many and varied types of stained glass design.



4. I've been looking for ideas for simple patterns; this book helped me a lot!



5. This book is great for traditional patterns, specially for the ones from Great Bretain. It shows different types of patterns depending on the period of influence, like Edwardian, Art Deco and others. I wished the patterns showed some color!!!!

5 comments about Klimt (Big Art).

1. This is truly a wonderful book. The paintings are beautifully re-produced and printed. The analysis is in depth and fascinating. I would like an index of all the works contained in the book. Perhaps individual critical analysis of each print would be better, but it's difficult to criticize a book selling for 10 dollar!
   This book was originally published in 1990 so it does not have the current developmets of Klimt's art: such as the 2006 auction of Adele Bloch-Bauer I for 135 million dollars - the highest price ever paid for a painting. A B-B I is hardly critiqued in this book. But overall, the book is a must read!



2. My disappointment comes from the printing process rather than the content,
   which is chock full of color plates of Klimt's paintings and some great
   photos of Klimt's life and times.
   All of the color plates and the photos are printed soft-edged and the wonderful vibrant golds are somehow absent. None the less, it is a lovely
   book with a very good text and a marvelous range of his work.



3. First of all, the book is not covered as shown in the amazon photo which shows the famous "kiss" painting. The book, apparently updated in 2006, shows a cover photo of Klimt's famous Danae (1907-8) oil on canvas painting. I think this cover is more provacative and more organic and softer than the famed Kiss painting which reveals a couple entwined in gold looking rather stiff. Danae was certainly a better choice for the cover. The book is definitely not written for the casual art reader. It is written with extreme depth as what I'd expect from a historian of the arts on a university research level. As verbose as it is, it has plenty, if not hundreds of photos of the famous works, including all of Klimt's paintings and lesser known sketches. The author discusses several of Klimt's famous paintings in depth and reviews various critics of Klimt's time period as well as Klimt's personal opinions and struggles. Culture, politics, and various movements in the arts is also discussed at length. This book is too deep for the casual browser or reader but makes a great coffee table book if only for the pictures alone. It is a high quality book and the pages are high quality (acid free) and glossy. The painting photos are rich and fully colored, better than other books I've bought on Klimt (where the precious gold paint is reduced to lousy brownish or greenish prints). The gold tones in this book, so famous in Klimt's work, are reproduced extremely well as well as the other vivid colors so characteristic of Klimt's work. It's a bargain to get this book at the price.



4. Over the years, I've only looked at Klimt from the edges - that is, I was aware only of the more popular poster images you couldn't help seeing here and there. But this book is a big revelation to me. Such genius! He is truly amazing, and I had no idea of the range of his thought or the depth of his talent. He was a superb draftsman, which enabled him to take risks with the figure because he knew exactly what he was doing.
   
   A well-designed book - a complete visual pleasure, and fire to the imagination.



5. Spend more. get a bigger book. the painting are worth it.

5 comments about The Watercolor Flower Painters A to Z.

1. I purchased this book after considering many watercolor painting books on Amazon.com and I'm so glad I did. It is beautiful in every respect. I also got one heck of a good price, too. This book has everything I wanted and more. Super concise and easy instructions and illustrations - just perfect for a beginner like myself. Every step of the painting is shown and explained. You just couldn't go wrong when using this book. I wish I had this book years ago because if I had, I would not have given up trying to paint with watercolors. Now I'm back and I'm going to love every step of learning with this helpful book. Gorgeous photos throughout. You will definitely be inspired!



2. An Excellent reference for beginning through advanced painters.
   
   Everything needed to paint lovely floral watercolors: Selection of paper and paint colors; step-by-step sequence of demonstrations along with samples of completed "floral portraits".
   
   If I were to own only one book of floral watercolors, this would be it!



3. This book is on the top of my list of books I would recommend to learn to paint and draw flowers in watercolor, and I have a huge number of watercolor painting books to compare it to. It is also great for learning basic watercolor techniques, as the beginning chapter cover everything a beginner would need to know, but it is a book for watercolorists of all levels.
   
   After the basic techniques and materials chapters which are outstanding in themselves, the student is given 26 beautiful flowers to paint, each with detailed instructions, and sometimes close-up views of exactly where the detail such as masking fluid goes, or where the next glaze goes, etc.. Each exercise gives the exact pallet you will need. The instructions are excellent.
   
   I consider myself still a beginner, but was amazed at how beautiful my first flower turned out, and credit most of it to the teaching methods in this book. This book is among the very BEST OF THE BEST to learn from and also to enjoy the beauty of the paintings. I can't think of anything I didn't like about this book. It's tops in every way.



4. I found this book to be very helpful in painting flowers with watercolors. Being new to the medium, this is a very valuable reference.



5. Not all artists can teach, but Adelene Fletcher is definitely a teacher. One thing I like about this book is she tells you all the colours you will need to do each flower in the book, and then gives you some very good instructions in painting them. I have done the first two flowers in the book and thoroughly enjoyed her method of teaching. I am now looking to buy her Trees and Foliage A-Z book but Amazon cannot get it and the other suppliers I've looked at so far do not ship to Canada.

2 comments about Contemporary Color.

1. This book is packed full of useful information, and is laid out in an easy-to-read interesting way. I actually look forward to reading assignments in the class this textbook is for!



2. I found this to be an ecellent book on the subject of color and it's relationship to the art, graphic, and design world.
   I would have loved to have taken the course which uses this book as their study guide art the Art Institute of Tampa, but they only deal with Degree seeking students.
   You will find it very relative to the use of color in the Art, Graphic, and Design areas, especailly in the practical use of color in the real world.

5 comments about Successful Lyric Writing: A Step-By-Step Course & Workbook.

1. If you only bought Sheila Davis' book on the Craft of Lyric Writing, do yourself a BIG favour and BUY THIS WORKBOOK! The new workbook gives you a chance to go through exercises for all the critical concepts that Davis teaches in her previous hard-cover book. If you are only thinking of buying this workbook, do yourself an even bigger favour and buy the hard-cover book as well. Both books are important to place in your library.



2. Ms. Davis's other book, "The Craft of Lyric Writing", was recommended to me. Looking in the library this one was the next book over, (oh, great fortune!) so I took both out. I have just ordered both for purchase because, as a composer of some experience who has now made the leap of trying lyric writing (and anyone that thinks it's easy is kidding himself) I cannot imagine my library without them.

   Her step-by-step suggestions, professional and well-considered insights, and many examples demonstrating things like writers' consistent viewpoint, simplicity/clarity, etc. (or lack thereof) have already resulted in a successful rewrite of a tune that was driving me bonkers.

   Finally, for what it's worth, I'm not only not a 'book person' when learning something, but have no use for 'success formulas' and can smell snake oil a mile away---and this sure aint either.

   Thank you, Dr. Sheila. You've made me a better songwriter.




3. Ms. Davis's other book, "The Craft of Lyric Writing", was recommended to me. Looking in the library this one was the next book over, (oh, great fortune!)so I took both out. I have just ordered both for purchase because, as a composer of some experience who has now made the leap of trying lyric writing (and anyone that thinks it's easy is kidding himself) I cannot imagine my library without them.

   Her step-by-step suggestions, professional and well-considered insights, and many examples demonstrating things like writers' consistent viewpoint, simplicity/clarity, etc. (or lack thereof) have already resulted in a successful rewrite of a tune that was driving me bonkers.

   Finally, for what it's worth, I'm not only not a 'book person' when learning something, but can have no use for 'success formulas' and can smell snake oil a mile away---and this sure aint either.

   Thank you, Dr. Sheila. You've made me a better songwriter.




4. So far this is a great book. Good for beginners who need to add structure to their writing. A note: this book seems like a good starting point and a good guideline as tohow to start writing. MY ONLY COMPLAINT: The example songs are old and outdated and therefore makes it somewhat hard for the younger reads. That's it. Enjoy.



5. In this book, Sheila Davis has designed a course of study that beautifully introduces the concepts of songwriting in an understandable and helpful order. Being a teacher, I value any book that offers students a chance to build skills through practical exercises.

   Davis's exercises allow the student to explore concepts in whatever song style in which they write.

   What I like best about this workbook is the section on "The Whole Brain." Once students have mastered the craft of lyric writing, Davis focuses on means of finding inspiration and beginning the writing process.

   This book was a tremendous help to me and my fellow students as we began our journey into the world of songwriting. Thank you, Sheila Davis!

No comments about Electric Firing: Creative Techniques.