No comments about Perspective Drawing for Beginners (Dover Books on Art Instruction).

No comments about LogoLounge 3: 2,000 International Identies by Leading Designers (Logolounge).

5 comments about The Zen of Creative Painting: An Elegant Design for Revealing Your Muse (Practical Art Books).

1. Jeanne Carbonetti has produced awonderful book to unleash one's creativity--whether you understand Zen or not---It is not easy to get into Zen, but the illustrations help us to learn something at a deeper level--not just intellectual or academic.I like the play of light and color---in a sense that is what art is all about ---to convey your feelings or even passing moods...Books like these go beyond the 'right brain-left brain' theories that have filled the academic discussion on art training....May be ,one should work out his/her own Zen approach--this book can only point the way---not to imitate but to emulate Jeanne.



2. I have recently started doing watercolor paintings since I retired and was lent this book by my teacher. I had to buy it as soon as I opened it. The paintings are absolutely splendid. I think that they are what watercolors should be. And the text sets a mind frame that will enhance any budding artist down the path to great work.



3. A must to read to start your own ideas on Watercolor painting, using the Zen method.



4. I like Carbonetti's art and this book is full of it. For that reason it is worth buying. She also succeeds in showing the mental aspects of creative art. However, her seeing of Zen is not so successful. She also wrote books like "The Tao of Watercolor" and "The Yoga of Drawing". I would prefer if she simply explained her own position without packaging it into so many commercialy attractive titles.



5. The book was very logical yet had many creative aspects. I would recommend it for a mid-range painter.

5 comments about Fill Your Watercolors with Natures Light.

1. I bought this volume after I read it from my public Library. I paint and found it to be an invaluable resource. It has changed the way I look at painting and strongly influenced my painting technique. I would recommend it to anyone that paints or wants to learn how.



2. The artwork is lovely and inspiring. The teaching could have been a bit more detailed, but I got some terrific ideas about technique from it. It's another angle on the Nita Engle style of paintings "painting themselves". (I can't seem to get them to paint themselves, however...)



3. Disappointed in the book, which wass recommended by Amazon. It wasn't even close to what I was looking for. Also, the delivery of the book was poor. The seller wasn't helpful. Would not recommend this book.



4. Fill Your Watercolor With Natures Light: Features Masking, Pouring & Spatering Techniques
   
   Book offers new ways to create really dramatic, luminous landscapes especially with snow, water and even flowers. Author/painter keeps the promise of the book's title! Glad that I bought it.../pae



5. This book is set out clearly and attractively which makes you want to get going and try the methods suggested.

4 comments about Calligraphy For Dummies (For Dummies (Sports & Hobbies)).

1. This book was fantastic. It supplied all the information needed to begin calligraphy, including how to set up your lap board for an easier beginning writing experience. I really don't feel I would ever have been able to complete the projects without the help and guidance of this book. I would highly recommend it to anyone in the beginning stages of calligraphy.



2. This book is great for the beginner who doesn't mind being seen with a book for Dummies. The explanations are clear and there is even help for the left handed calligrapher. The illustrations help a lot. Although there are some different fonts to work with the selection has been kept to the simpler types. It is a good way to get started with the art of beautiful writing.



3. It has little depth to it but for the beginner is quite good. Better than many beginner calligraphy books.



4. I just wanted to say that I recently purchased this book and am pleased with it. The book has a nice structure to it and helps walk me through everything from getting the tools of the trade, to building my confidence. For someone with my complete lack of experience, this book was exactly what I needed. Some of the other books I've found have been somewhat slim on explanation, or a poor choice for a tutorial. While it doesn't have the full suite of letter forms inside it that others may have, it seems to have the major ones I'd like to start with, and is a great way to get started. I suspect that someone with experience already would find this book somewhat too basic.
   
   I would have given this book five out of five, were it not for the fact that I really have nothing else to compare it to. As well as the fact that the pages are not really suited to practise on as they are of a newsprint type quality. For those who wish to begin with calligraphy, I suggest using this book to get started with without reservation.
   
   Cheers,
   
   t.

1 comments about Watercolor A to Z.

1. The watercolor examples are done in a moderate realism style, some more loose & 'painterly' than others (see customer images); the majority of examples seem to favor landscapes and related subtopics, but there are also some limited sections on animals, still life, people and textures. Overall, this book is a very nice addition to any watercolor reference library.
   
   The book itself is designed to stand on its cover (remember the typing tutorial books in high school?) and pages 1-96 go front to back, then you flip the book and 97-198 continue back to front. An interesting design and handy on a table top, but not without problems - the back cover is made of heavier card stock & doubled to bear weight, but the front cover is a little too thin and clumsy for my taste and will probably not withstand long years of use without getting torn or mushed.
   
   Each example has several steps for you to follow to duplicate as learning exercises with varied degrees of difficulty - the approach assumes you have a fair skill & knowledge of drawing: shadows, secondary light, reflections etc. It touches on perspective in a cursory way and while it encourages you to keep up with a sketch book to hone drawing skills as a pre-requisite to watercolor painting, it doesn't spend much time explaining nuances of realistic drawing; it only directs you when to add those nuances in and what colors/brushes to use when painting them.
   
   The book offers basic but succinct info on care & selection of art materials and watercolor paint characteristics (staining, transparency & opaque colors). The book is sprinkled with little tidbits of info on techniques - using/removing masking fluid, toothbrush spattering, making hard or soft edges, glazing/wash effects etc.
   
   I'd have given this one a 5 star rating for beginning to intermediate watercolorists were it not for the cover. Despite that, it is a worthy volume to have.

5 comments about One Last Little Peek, 1980-1995: The Final Strips, the Special Hits, the Inside Tips.

1. At the time of this writing Berke Breathed's Opus 'toons hadn't made it to my local paper, so this collection represents "the end" of sorts for a strip that burned as brightly as a supernova from 1980 to 1995.

   The first part of this collection contains the final - more or less - Outland strips. These strips were written back when fat and cholesterol were the bad foods instead of carbs. Various plotlines include jabs at Hollywood with a sequel to the classic "To Kill a Mockingbird": "Kill Mo' Mockingbird". Steve Dallas defends Bill the Cat of his murderous fake chainsaw rampage a'la the OJ trial, then Steve hi-jacks Oliver Wendell Jones' time machine to go chase ambulances through history, running into Calamity Janes, Lady Godiva, Adolf Hitler and a caveman, circa 10,000 B.C.

   Opus winds his way through the final Outland strips much as he did at the end of Bloom County, ending with a poignant reunion with a loved family member thought long gone.

   In the final part of the book Mr. Breathed lets us in on some of his favorite strips and private thoughts in a way I haven't seen in other places. He tells us the anecdotes of communications he has received from Leonard Nimoy, Caspar Weinburger, President Reagan, "Mockingbird" Author Harper Lee, and he describes the evolution of characters originally intended to appear for only a moment who then became cornerstones of the Breathed 'toon empire: Opus and Bill the Cat. Good stuff for the Breathed collector.




2. Reading past Bloom County and Outland strips is like taking a stroll through the political and pop culture landscape of the eighties and early nineties with non-stop laughs and fond memories of the times and of the what is quite possibly the funniest comic strip series ever.



3. Why do all the great ones do it? Berke Breathed, Bill watterson, Gary Larson. Al the great cartoonists quit when there's lots of stuff left to cover! All the boring strips (Dennis the Menace, Garfield, Family Circus) must remain. Dilbert is Pretty good, but Scott Adams can never live up to the artistic and comedic talent of Berke Breathed. I wish Mr. Breathed would AT LEAST do another collection full of fresh stuff...



4. It was a sad day when Bloom County and then Outland ended. These are perhaps the best view of the Eighties and early Ninties that can be done with humor. I really enjoyed the last part of the book in which Breathed tells a short story about cartoons that recived special responces from diferant public figures (i.e. President Reagan, Casper Weinburger, Gregory Peck and Spock, yes, as in Mr. Spock!!). I will miss Bill and Opus.



5. I was very upset when Breathed stopped drawing comic strips. I didn't really discover Bloom County until just before it was canceled and Outland took its place. It's a shame that all of the good cartoonists stop writing while the rest keep running the same gags forever (don't believe me? see how many different jokes you can find in Dennis the Menace.) Alas. This is the final collection of Breathed's strips, with some older ones and the stories about them. Most of the time that sort of thing tends to be pretty boring but in this case they are actually the highlight of the book (be sure not to miss the one about the time President Reagan called while he (Breathed) was in the shower.) The Outland strips themselves are not, in my opinion, as funny as Bloom County was, but that isn't a very harsh criticism.

1 comments about Francis Bacon: Anthology.

1. This book is the catalogue for a recent Bacon exhibition held at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, Italy.
   
   It is divided into four initial essays, the first studying the force and energy that exhude from Bacon's paintings (the violent presence of the flesh, the obsession of life, "the drama of the existencial experience"), the second dwelling on Bacon's creative process, the sources and references he used (contrary to what was formerly believed and to what the artist wanted us to believe, he left little space to chance in his works), the third focusing on his small portraits as embodiements of Bacon's ideas of what art should be (key words here are "energy" and "force")and the fourth attempting an explanation of what these paintings, through their violence and crudeness, represent (what kind of reality, beyond the mere dissolving image of the human body). This last chapter is buttressed by many quotations from Bacon's famous interviews with David Sylvester where he stresses the crude truth that, above all, the human body is "meat, a river of flesh").
   
   Then comes the main asset of this book: the reproductions of the works. I own more than a dozen books on Bacon and, in my opinion, this one is the best as far as the quality of reproductions is concerned. They are simply outstanding and cannot be more faithful to the originals. All in full color (which is crucial when you are dealing with Bacon, who was one of the greatest colorists in XXth century art)they are also numerous.
   
   The last part of the book is especially interesting in that it focuses on Bacon's studio (faithfully reconstituted at Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane in Ireland) and everything that was found in it after his death. Photos of the studio and reproductions of sketches, torn photographs, well-thumbed books and odds and ends that used to strew the studio floor are especially revealing of the importance of what the artist called "the chaos" in his creative process.
   
   A high-quality book which I strongly recommend.

2 comments about The Methodologies Of Art: An Introduction.

1. Excellent introduction to the various approaches to writing about art. She discusses Freudian art criticism, feminist art history, semiotics, biography and autobiography, among other topics, in a clear and cogent style.



2. correction to your listing. Laurie Adams is NOT the editor of Methodologies, she is the author. Delete (editor) from your listing.

5 comments about Art Nouveau Floral Patterns and Stencil Designs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archive Series).

1. This book has great designs and some very pretty artwork, however I would not really call it a stencil book. There are only a few stencils in the back of the book and they are all in full color with printing on both sides of the page so there would be no way to use the stencils out of the book. You could photocopy them for use but there are only about 10 pages of real stencil designs the rest are front and back fairly intricate artwork that would be not good for stenciling, but they make great little pictures for frames, etc.



2. I have about two dozen books specifically purporting to be Art Nouveau 'collections', and NOT ONE, or even THREE COMBINED, come close to capturing what THIS book offers, albeit in the "floral" patterns category... To artists looking for a definitive 'starter' source, in the art of the period, for repurposing in art, crafts and decor (ie: wallpaper, fabric, pottery, woodcarving, etc.), pick up a copy of this book and forget the rest! I was able to find not only what I needed for several initial projects, but was inspired to START more new projects based on the sparkling ideas inspired by this plethora of lush color images. Only wished a CD-ROM was available to accompany this book with hi-res digital images, as it would have made importing images to my computer (for re-sizing, tiling, color changes, etc.) much easier than hand-scanning... Only my collection of (specifically) Alphonse Mucha art books surpasses the value of "Art Nouveau Floral Patterns & Stencil Designs", and that is only because I have not YET found a like compilation of M. P. Verneuil 'figure' designs.



3. This book exceeded my hopes. It had many more images in full color than I expected for such a cheap book. I have seen other books by Verneuil and they were half as nice and mostly black and white. I think anyone into decorating, drawing, and painting will like this book. It will inspire you to create art nouveau lines and flowers on your own work.



4. If you are into art nouveau, you will enjoy this Dover book. Again many variations on floral themes.



5. I thought the artwork in this book was stunning, and the reproduction quality and colors were lovely. I did have one major problem with the book, two of the main designs on the cover (topmost horizontal design and the center horizontal design) are NOT IN THE BOOK! These are two of the main patterns I planned to use from the book, and now if I want to, I need to get them from the cover, where they are covered by text. I found this to be unacceptable! Please keep this fact in mind if the cover is what won you over.