5 comments about The Face Painting Book of Butterflies.

1. This book didn't take me from novice to pro in one afternoon, but I'm pretty sure with enough practice I will get there. The kids loved their butterflies and I enjoyed painting. Highly recommended.



2. I'm a professional face painter, and this book was just what I needed to step up my butterfly techniques. I recommend this book to any face painter who is looking for fresh, new ideas and techniques, or to a beginner just starting out.
   
   ~Mikky the Clown



3. This and the other books by this author are beautiful but not terribly helpful for non professsional face painters. The pictures are very pretty but there is only brief direction on how to achieve the end look. Some of the materials used are very specialized. I would only recommend this for an expereinced face painter.



4. I LOVE this book. Yes, it is a little small, smaller than I thought it would be but it is jammed packed with ideas. The other person said that all the butterflies were the same but they really are not. Great inspiration for colors and shapes. Love the little quotes on each page. Nice touch. With your own creativeness you can make great mystical butterflies. I would have like a little more info. on how to put the paint on but if you have just a little knowledge on how to put it on you can figure it out. Practice on a kid for free. Again I love the book great addition to your painting library and I am ordering Marcela's book on Face Painting Fairies and I am sure I will be just as happy.



5. This "book" is more of a color pamphlet. It shows how to create full-face butterfly paintings, but they all looked very similar. If you have any artistic bone in your body, you probably won't need this book for anything but inspiration. I found it helpful for showing me how to face paint butterflies on little children and keeping it away from the eyes. Also, most of the butterflies use glitter, which I was scared to try with young children.

5 comments about Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron.

1. I read Daniel Clowes "Pussey" which I loved but this book is an absolute disjointed, convulted mess that makes no sense whatsoever, it sucks. Really there is no other way to convey this other then "It Sucks". The people who praise this book here, scare me and I wonder about their sanity.



2. I am a fairly recent Clowes fan (I've been reading for a couple years...started with Ice Haven). And as with most work I love, I tend to pleasure-delay other works by the artist. That said, I read David Boring at the beginning of the year, and just picked up and went through Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron.
   Where David Boring and Ice Haven definitely seemed to cohere with some, albeit demented, climax at points, this book is a veritable pandora's box of narrative. The thing is all over the place, and there are plenty of characters that show up and then disappear forever, before you even get a chance to figure out their purpose.
   In that way, it definitely holds the stuff of dreams, and meanders in completely unexpected ways. It's a total mind trip with a strangely comforting ending... comforting in that it finally seems to decode some of what Clowes set up throughout the book... it's hard to explain, just check it out.



3. I may be biased, being a big Clowes fan, but I thought this book was great. If you read David Boring or a strip Clowes did called "The Gold Mommy" (I think), and you liked that sense of pervasive nightmarish unease that Clowes is so good at creating, then you will like this book. If you are not into creepy, dark, or bizarre themes, you may want to move along.



4. Okay, this book was really hard for me to track down. I ordered it on amazon last year and it was out of stock and never shipped for months, so eventually I cancelled it. I finally got it not long ago from a comic shop.
   I read the other reviews and I see what people mean. At first, I was confused. Then when I realized it was supposed to be bizarre and not make sense, I got into it. I liked it. The biggest complaint people seem to have is that it's not like "David Boring." I love his other books, and this one was good, but it is very different. It's very surreal and disturbing.
   Seriously. I was extremely disturbed by some of the characters. My boyfriend asked me how it was and all I could say was "unsettling" and "bothersome" because it just makes you feel uncomfortable.
   So yeah...be warned.



5. I was a fan of Ghost World and David Boring. Daniel Clowes has a knack for putting real people in a world where everything is a bit askew. This book is older than the others and reviews lead me to believe it would be a bit more insane than the other books, but I had no idea...
   
   We follow our rather dry hero, Clay, on a bizarre odyssey as he searches for his long lost lover after recognizing her in an obscene film. Typical Clowes' formula, but Clay's path is littered with feminist warmongers, dogs with no orifices, an admirer that strongly resembles a giant potato-fish hybrid, and some of the freakiest character designs you will ever see.
   
   The problem is the mystery, the tension, the weirdness just builds and builds and builds and there seems to be so little relief from it. The payoff just isn't satisfying. The book gave me a headache. If you enjoy Clowes' art style, there's plenty to look at here, but story-wise, it was quite disappointing. If you're new to Daniel Clowes, I suggest trying his more accessible works first.

5 comments about How To Draw Manga Volume 28: Couples (How to Draw Manga).

1. When I bought this book I was a little unsure if it would be helpful or not, but I'm relly glad I got it! It has tons of helpful poses and some I probaly wouldnt have thought of! It has some nudity so be wary of that, and it also has some bedroom scenes at the end. Not for young children, but other than that very good book.



2. This book is an execellent tool for intermediate to advanced artists. It contains some sexual content.



3. This is gonna be a simple review. This book is the best book HTDM haves ^^ i own about 10 or 13 HTDM books and this one is by far my favorite one, i use this one alot so it well deserves its 5 stars



4. 
   I received this book as a gift recently. It is a very helpful addition to my "arsenal" of "How to Draw Manga" books. This book covers many things, including holding hands, embracing, and kissing. There is also a bit about love making, but it is by no means graphic.
   I was also quite happy to find that the book covers same sex couples in addition to male-female couples.
   
   I highly recommend this book to any aspiring manga artist!



5. I use it all the time for my couples and such. This shows great ways to draw kissing to intimate to marriage scene. It's reocmmended if you do this a lot and you love it. The illustrations are out of this world on how they show things popular with couple drawings. ^^

4 comments about Advertising Now. Print (Midi Series).

1. Fantastic, amazing, incredible. I did miss a couple of campaigns, but overall it's a great advertising book, bringing a lot of campaigns from different years together.



2. I was interested for this book because of a friend. It is excellent, I recommends for everybody that likes advertising and needs references.



3. This book has a nice review of the best ads of 2005/2006. I would recommend it for collectors. Very nice quality also on the cover.



4. I find this to be a very useful, thorough advertising design / marketing student's resource. As with most printed ads in award books or publications, you wish the images were a little larger but the ideas are there as well as the layouts. I'm still going through it with a fine tooth comb and am very happy with my investment.

1 comments about 100 Habits of Successful Graphic Designers: Insider Secrets from Top Designers on Working Smart and Staying Creative.

1. This book doesn't really teach you anything but does offer experiences that other designers have had. Because each story is so short there isn't a lot to learn from each one. However it is a great book to have around because you can open to any page and not be lost.

3 comments about Plants and Their Application to Ornament: A Nineteenth-Century Design Primer.

1. This is absolutely beautiful. The illustrations are on a creamy base paper, and it's just like looking through a volume of original art nouveaux designs painted in gouache.
   
   It's a fabulous resource for designers and design students of all kinds, as it explores how to stretch out a theme (in this case each variety of plant) into a range of different pattern and motif ideas and applications. There are lots of motifs and inspirations for new work to be found within!
   
   Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful book....love it.



2. The use of natural elements in art and design probably reached it's zenith during the Arts and Crafts movement. This reproduction of an original 1897 guide to the use of plants in ornamental design is a wonderful example of that time! Although not nearly as extensive as Owen Jones' famous ornamental tome. This release focuses on just the natural aspects of design in reference to plants. However, like Jones' book, this focuses lightly on text and is heavy on letting the graphics speak for themselves. (as they should!)
   Beautifully reproduced images in a fine binding make this a wonderful addition to any collection.



3. Although this book is beautiful (the cover is better than what is inside) it is not of the print quality I'd hoped. It looks as though it was slapped together rather hastily with little regard for creating a quality book. However, it looks good on the table in the living room of my 1929 bungalow.

5 comments about How to Draw the Human Figure: Famous Artists School, Step-by-Step Method (Famous Artists School : Step-By-Step Method).

1. This is a good book for those beginning figure drawing.I found it less complicated than others out there and the method is sound.There are photos you can draw from if you want to do that and the explanations are very clear.Keep it simple and have fun.



2. good price. a bit disappointed with the book itself. no reflection on the seller.



3. I found this book to give me all I was looking for, how to draw gesture drawing,anatomical proportions,figure, and it gives you practice pages to draw on and then comparison pages to go back to so you can see your errors and correct them. this is a self teaching book that works



4. THIS IS A VERY GOOD BOOK BUT NOT ONE FOR THE "AVERAGE" BASIC BEGINNER. WAS HOPING FOR A STEP BY STEP.



5. Lots of good excercises for those new to drawing the human figure.

5 comments about Confessions Of an Art Addict.

1. I became curious about Peggy Guggenheim, when last year, I visited her former home - Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal in Venice. Now a beautiful and exciting museum, made up of a great collection of paintings and sculptures.
   I was very impressed by the famous artists I found there - Dali, Picasso, Max Ernst, Brancusi are just a few names. So I thought that such a woman must have had an interesting life.
   
   But I have to say that the autobigraphy she wrote has no literary value whatsoever. Instead, it is a very honest, uninhibited story of a life dedicated to collecting pieces of art and their authors. Her motto was "buy one paiting per day" and she got much of the fame for her many affairs with artists. However, the efforts she made to promote XXth century art, by organizing exhibitions and art galleries can only be laudable.
   
   A definite non conformist, she decided to quit college and left for Europe, where most of the American literary "nomads" of the time were going. Bohemian life style suited her perfectly. The vivid literary and artistic life in London and Paris, made her fall in love with these places.
   
   I can only say "chapeau" to such a woman who was neither an artist, nor a critic, but loved art and artists, and who spent all her fortune to create what is today the most important museum in Italy for European and American art of the first half of the 20th century.
   
   The story flows nicely and I also got the chance to find out a lot of interesting details about famous artists. The book can only be a pleasant and light reading on an intercontinental flight or on your coming soon vacation.



2. Guggenheim doesn't seem to gilt her "Confessions" in velvet (or gold); she comes across as an honest soul wanting to relate her experiences--an influences--in the art world. Some of the things mentioned are her childhood, her marriages, Max Ernst, Brancusi, Kandinsky, Pollock, and Motherwell (to name but a few). Worth a read... and another read.



3. Undoubtedly, Miss Guggenheim led a colourful and interesting life. She had either great artistic insight and intigrity or a bratish desire to boost of her wealth.
   I didn't reach a conclusion having read this book, but then maybe she was doing a bit of both and wanted to keep us guessing? I found the book enormously entertaining and informative if a little disrespectful of it's subject.
   One cannot help but to consider that this disrespect and the virtual anonymous space she occupies in history, might be very different had she been Peter and not Peggy.
   A great read for modern art lovers, a fairly good one for anyone else.
   Though it cannot be helped nor altered, it is a book very heavy on characters, plot, and at times, weighty information; which can be very offputting and confusing.



4. Here's the story of a woman that knew them all, felt the earth move under her feet with many of them, and bought their art for pretty much nothing. She recognized them when they were starting, and this makes her a Princess. This book is her equivalent to Gore Vidal's "Palimpsest" and Lillian Hellman's "Pentimento". This is one of those books that almost transports you to a long gone era, and makes you wish you could have been there to see it all.



5. Peggy was a trip. She also apparently had no editor, or so it seems, which adds to the air of entitlement and oblique charm that permeates this book. Her accounts are interesting historically, though PG's slant on history is sometimes its own beast. This is a quick read and some of her observations will make you laugh out loud ("I was worried about my virginity--I was twenty-three and I found it burdensome..."), while others are chilling, especially the question of which Jews she deemed worthy of her efforts to help them get to the States. This may be more entertaining than informative, but it's both.

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