3 comments about Watercolor Made Simple with Claudia Nice.

1. This book was suggested for me since I am a relatively newcomer to watercolor. The person who suggested it has been a painter and teacher for over 70 years(she is 95 and still teaches a small group). She was right its a great book for people such as myself.



2. Great book, but not simple enough for a total beginner like myself.



3. This a very good book. It covers many aspects of painting in watercolor, including some difficult-to-find tips like mixing convincing shadow colors, working with color triads (3 colors) to create mood, and a list of common colors that are transparent, opaque, staining, or granulating.
   
   There are troubleshooting tips to help the beginner who wants to achieve certain effects but cannot figure out what went wrong.
   
   The book has only 127 pages, but it is fiiled with useful information about techniques like washes, glazing, layering, masking and spatter. There is also some information about the use of unconventional aids like stamping, sponging, alcohol and plastic wrap. Every page is filled with Ms. Nice's realistic yet magical artwork.
   
   Where to use transparent or opaque watercolor, and how to test pigments for transparency would have been some welcome additional information.
   
   Overall, it is a good book to own, especially for the beginner to intermediate levels.

5 comments about LogoLounge 2 (mini): 2,000 International Identities by Leading Designers.

1. Lots of pictures of different logos and the book is arranged in a very orderly manner. Excellent book!



2. I'm very impressed with the wide array and organization of this book (and the others in the series). Such great colors, and layout... everything just makes me want to study every last detail on every last page. I've bought the first two... and have added the third one to my wish list. If you want to be a good logo designer but experience "designer's block," this should get you over that hump. Thanks, Bill Gardner, and all the fabulous designers who were featured in the book!



3. Well printed, well edited and an excellent resource for designers and creative individuals.



4. Great for idea gathering and inspiration. It keeps you up to date with the newest logo designs.



5. Logo Lounge 1 is a must-have in my design library - I refer to it often. Unfortunately Logo Lounge 2 seems lackluster, uninspired, and disappointing. While it contains the same quantity of logos as the first book, the solutions are much less imaginative and the profile section at the beginning is too long and the designers profiled, and their work, are difficult to relate to.

No comments about Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes.

4 comments about Schiele Drawings: 44 Works (Dover Art Library).

1. This book contains some wonderful drawings, but the book itself is made of very cheap materials. The paper is somewhere between newsprint and construction paper. However, this hardly detracts from the artwork itself, as Schiele's rough sketches feel right at home on rough paper. Perhaps it's for the best. Buy it for the art, not so you'll have a beautiful book to put on the coffee table. A child might mistake it for a coloring book, and that child would be forever disturbed.



2. It's a concise collection of some of his best works, spanning his career. Enjoyed having a sample from each of his styles over time, but didn't realize they were only black and white copies (my fault). So you'll have to do without the color. Overall good value, because the price is extremely low.



3. This book is great for the $7 price, just let me preface with that remark. The book is also of a pretty good size.
   
   On the downside, and this is a big one for me- There are more than just drawings in this book. Many of the works are drawings with Gouache and Watercolor, and are still printed in black and white. While all the works print up okay in black and white, with little loss as to the line work, the fact that the originals are in color makes me a little sad.
   
   If you are interested at all in any more than the line quality of Schiele's works, get one of the more expensive collections of his works, which include color plates.



4. dover art library books are a great way to get copies of master drawings...cheap. all prints are in b/w and print quailty isn't the best...but for the price they are a great unprecious alternative to the glove wearing 60$ art book.

5 comments about Terracotta: The Technique of Fired Clay Sculpture.

1. How do you compliment a master? There is none except "thank you."
   
   In a real sense Bruno is a man that should have been born in another time. His sensitivity to the human figure and his love for fired earth is the stuff of a true Renaissance man. He captures the imagination and brings life out of clay.
   
   What is most inspiring aspect of this Italian born sculptor is love to teach and share his skills, tips and tricks with other aspiring sculptors around the world. Sculptors like me. No studio library is complete with out all of his books and tapes.
   
   Bruno works with slabs of clay smashed on the floor and then quickly forms them into layers of mass that are shaped into the maquette. His attention to proportion makes him the artist that others have sought to imitate, and none can completely duplicate.



2. This is a super book, very informative and easy to follow. It answered many questions I had, and introduced many new (to me) ideas.



3. The first time I browsed the book, I was blown away by the beauty of Bruno's work.
   The second time, I was disappointed because of the limited explanation and technical descriptions.
   But once I understood what this book was really about, I loved it.
   It really is a documentary of Lucchesi at work. You can witness him working. The book is very visual.
   You will not learn sculpturing, but you will get the chance to see an accomplished sculptor and his creation.
   The book does not tell the why's, you can see the how's.

   My copy is now really filthy, with stains of terracota all over it. I keep it by my working bench, and quite frequently, in the middle of my work, I open it to see how Bruno does it.

   My recommendation is to buy this book in addition to "From Clay to Bronze " of Lagland.




4. I'm a student working in wax, but the most important concepts in this book are definitely cross media; it was a good buy. I mainly use the book as a reference tool and posing guide -- it is a great problem solver. There can't be many issues in posing or proportioning that a beginner won't find help for somewhere in this book. Ms. Malmstrom has such a talent for photographing sculpture that you almost feel like you have the actual piece in front of you. And Mr. Lucchesi's work... it's tough to imagine a day so bad that his sculpture can't make you feel more at peace.



5. I found this book to be a wonderful tool for the beginner or advanced sculptor. It leads you step by step and, as a 3rd-year sculptor, the techniques Lucchesi provides have greatly inspired and helped me improve my own techniques.

1 comments about Visual Arts in the 20th Century.

1. Very useful in my college Modern Art course. Good sized illustrations and summaries of significant modern artists such as Pollock, Dali, and Mondrian. Well explained modern art movements and effects they had. All in all, a great book, and highly recommended for the art student or any lover of modern art.

5 comments about Rembrandt: The Painter at Work.

1. Excellent! Great images.
   
   (Although much of the text is very technical and concerned with small and trivial details.)



2. This book explain a little about Rembrandt technique and some details in his paints. You can understand how could he painted so beutiful arts. But you won't be Rembrandt reading this book. Only the technique is not sufficient to be a master!
   But, if you are a Rembrandt fan, you have to read this book!



3. This book is generous with loads of quality pictures of the masters work and an equal amount of text for the reader of history and the technical , a good buy certainly worth the money , I really enjoyed this and I suggest it to any one with even just a passing interest in Rembrandt and an insight into how he produced his work , they actually found some of his dna in his paintings (i bet that makes you curious). This and the other book " Rembrandt's Eyes by Simon Schama" is another beauty possibly a bit better than this one Schama's book spend the first half talking a about Peter Paul Rubens and the dreams Rembrandt had of being his equal , both are great companions to each other I recommend them together.



4. There isn't much more I can say, which hasn't already been said to reveal the great merits of this book. However I think the sheer quantity of 5 star ratings speaks volumes. This book is essential for any academic or personal study of Rembrandt, especially so for a painter as I am. On top of all the incredible detailed scientific analysis, the text is written very clearly and is even a pleasure to read. Above all, the detail shots of his paint surface, are breath taking and most instructive for any painter. They utilized different levels of magnification to reveal his work from the entirety of the picture down to the microscopic level. This book has revolutionized my studio practice!
   
   Richard T Scott
   Joelle-Scott Gallery



5. This book is not easy to evaluate, at a first sight is a very irregular book, amazing in many passages but extremely boring in many others, a whole chapter dedicated to the canvas support !?, with a great mass of technical information about thread density and weave, I think it is too much, a very important Rembrandt's trick like "glazing and sweeping" (that it is supossed he created this technique) is just overviewed when it is perhaps one of the constituents for the most amazing passages in many of his paintings.
   My conclusion is that despite of Rembrandt's Project and a lot of scholars studying his masterpieces is very, but very little what we know. How he commited his works is an enigma like in Vermeer's case, so there are a lot of books about them but very little valuable information

3 comments about Michelangelo's Mountain: The Quest For Perfection in the Marble Quarries of Carrara.

1. An early reference to marble work in Lee, Massachusetts caught my attention and drew me deep into this unique and fascinating account of the marble quarries that provided the raw material for the genius that we all now know as Michelangelo. I glimpsed the quarries from a train window on a trip to Italy a year ago, mistakening them for snow at first, and it's an amazing sight. I highly recommend this book - the stone that inspired the Rennaissance is still there and this story of the mountains of marble is told with a passion that reflects the emotion of those times. A great read.



2. All of the people who think "Michelangelo" when they think of the Renaissance should read this work by a "Renaissance man" himself, Eric Scigliano, environmental journalist, humorist, art aficianado, and regular contributor to Harper's, Discover, and other magazines. I read his last book, "Love, War, and Circuses," which brought the world and land of the Asian elephant so alive I felt as if I were on his harrowing adventures with him, and have been seeking out his articles ever since. Both the layman and the expert alike will be fascinated by one of the few real prose stylists in journalism to write a part-biography, part-"reporter's notebook" account of Michelangelo, the city of Cararra (the third pole of Michelangelo's artistic endeavors, and no less important than Florence in the development of his masterpieces), and the rare, wondrous, "living" marble from that fascinating source of masterpieces the world over. Don't be distracted by the geological sidenotes or short discussions of the artists' tools; in Michelangelo's first appearance it is as if he walked up to a group of wiry, spry stone carvers and this journalist/artist/poetry translator, said hello, and joined them, as alive as ever, to admire the "mountain," a glistening white cliff of fossilized sea shells (you can't get much more alive, for stone, than being made out of the backs of ocean-dwellers, as marble is).
   
   A passionate writer on a passionate subject, Scigliano's love for the artist and his sunlit-snow-like inspiration is "alive" on every page (and I learned enough about the Renaissance to wax intelligent at parties on neoplatonism, Michelangelo's own poetry, and the Umberto-eco-like intrigues of the patronage system, just in the first 50 pages!). You will never look at the "David," or a marble bathroom counter, in quite the same way. Scigliano is a huge talent.



3. 
   Of the millions of people who have stood in line waiting at Florence's Galleria dell' Academia di Belle Arte to see the incomparable statue of David by Michelangelo, I wonder how many thought about the marble with which the artist worked. Very few, I'd imagine. Yet the story of the marble quarries of Carrara is as dramatic as many of the beautiful pieces wrought from their stone. Eric Scigliano, whose ancestors were quarrymen and stone carvers in Carrara, relates the fascinating story of Michelangelo's search for the stone he wanted, his continuing relationship with the city where he found it, and that city today.
   
   Only recently the 17-foot-tall statue of David was restored, and the world was reminded of its beauty. Scigliano reminds us of the risks taken by quarrymen and by Michelangelo himself as they worked together to find the perfect stone, one that would do justice to Michelangelo's vision. The artist's quest is set among the machinations and maneuvering of Renaissance Rome, Florence, and Carrara, a compelling story in itself.
   
   Readers will learn that there is over 2,000 years of "extractive industry" in Carrara, and it continues today. During his lifetime, Michelangelo probably spent two years there, first arriving in 1498 to find the stone for the Pieta. In regard to the San Lorenzo Church facade, there was all but open warfare between the Carrara marble masters and the Medici rulers in Rome and Florence.
   
   Author Scigliano researched assiduously, laboriously searching Renaissance archives and often deciphering documents that had not been translated before. The result is a memorable work, one that will fascinate not only art lovers and historians but all.
   
   - Gail Cooke

2 comments about Photometrics Handbook.

1. I have read a lot of reviews (for other books) from people who bought books for the wrong reason. Make sure you understand- this is a specifications manual for professional stage electricians and lighting designers. This is not an introductory text book and is not appropriate for most amateurs and volunteers in community theatres. If you don't already know the meaning of the following words and phrases:
   throw distance, wattage, color temperature, bayonet, focal point, ERS, and Parabolic reflector...
   this is not your book.
   Even if you do- chances are, if you're not sure whether you need it, you probably don't.
   
   That being said- Every lighting designer and stage electrician should own this book and keep it in their glove box with their wrench and gloves.



2. There are two things a good electrician should always have handy, his wrench and this book. This books has all the informaton on all the lighting instruments that I have come across. When drawing or hanging my plot I make sure I have my book handy. No more guessing or looking for the torn instrument specs. This is the one great book an electrician can't do without.

No comments about The Tinsmith's Helper and Pattern Book: With Useful Rules, Diagrams and Tables.