2 comments about Instant Expert: Collecting Prints (Instant Expert).

1. Leila Lyons' book is an interesting and informative explanation on the world of antique orginal prints. Having known nothing about antique prints before, I felt like this book has well prepared me for buying and collecting antique prints. The book talks not only about the various print processes, artistic movements, and print values, it also provides the reader with most invaluable advice - to collect only what you love. I find this emphasis on personal interest and hobby to be a refreshing take on the otherwise exclusive antique industry, and Ms. Lyons herself gives examples of prints costing as little as $27 to as much as $27,000, so that there are prints at every price range, making them accessible to many people.
   
   Her writing style is refreshing as well, with little quips of humor and charming anecdotes - I read this in a single sitting, and felt compelled to learn more about antique prints, and to go looking for antique prints myself.



2. I became interested in collecting prints knowing relatively little about the market or why original antique prints were relevant in the art world. This book -- a clear, comprehensive, and fun overview of printmaking processes, periods, and artists -- provided me with the knowledge and I confidence I needed to begin my own collection. Now I can approach an auction, a flea market, or a gallery knowing what questions to find an original, not a reproduction, and one worth the money I pay for it. By reading this book, I've been able to develop what Ms. Lyons calls the "educated eye." My educated eye helps me to select prints not only for their aesthetic value, but also for their intrinsic value. Even if you aren't a serious collecter, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history and the visual arts. You can learn a good deal about the artwork that essentially served as the pre-industrial revolution photograph; long before we could snap a picture or google images, artists were painstakingly engraving images of species, places and people, to share with the world.
   
   Aside from its fascinating material, the book is well organized, easy to follow, comprehensive, and even funny. I highly recommend it!

2 comments about DK Art School: An Introduction to Mixed Media.

1. I have owned this book for many years and it has been the inspiration for many a successful lesson with primary aged children. I have learnt a great deal about technique and how to enhance artworks without having special "drawing" talent. A must for any teacher in a school without a specialist art teacher.



2. This book is designed to open the reader's eyes to the various types of mixed media art and how the techniques are used by different artists to achieve a wide range of effects. The photographs, especially those of the tools and supplies used in the techniques, as well as the photographs of artwork are especially informative, and useful for a beginner. However, if you're looking for specific technique instructions, or tips on how to combine the various mixed media techniques into your own artwork, you may be disappointed. This book left me wanting more, but it is still a valuable addition to a beginning artist's library.

1 comments about A Sense of Place: The Artist And The American Land.

1. A SENSE OF PLACE links the human with the natural: people make, and are made by, parts of our earth. Landscape artist and conservationist Alan Gussow has organized 63 well-chosen colorplates reminding us that paintings record the known landscape, the unknown frontier and what might be forgotten once nature and people meet. The book is a beautiful way to get to know the names in landscape art and see how the United States has changed over time: late 16th-century John White's "Indians fishing" in the Virginia colony organized by Sir Walter Raleigh; early 19th-century Thomas Cole's "Landscape with dead trees" and George Catlin's "Prairie meadows burning - Upper Missouri"; mid-19th century stained glass window specialist John LaFarge's "Bishop Berkeley's rock"; late 19th-century David Howard Hitchcock's glowing "Halemaumau" volcano; early 20th-century Marsden Hartley's rambunctious "Smelt Brook Falls" and Charles Sheeler's precise "Rocks at Steicher's"; mid-20th-century Edward Hopper's "Cobb's house" on comfortable Cape Cod and Georgia O'Keeffe's elegant "Sky above clouds II"; and late 20th-century Sidney Goodman's chilling "Landscape with 4 towers" and Anne Poor's delicate "Gertrude's bouquet." Readers get more specifics from William Gaunt's TURNER, Patricia Junker's JOHN STEUART CURRY, and Bernard B. Perlman's PAINTERS OF THE ASHCAN SCHOOL. It also is interesting to do comparison reading into Paul Machotka's CEZANNE and Richard Thomson's CAMILLE PISSARRO.

1 comments about Ceramics in the Pacific Northwest: A History (Index of art in the Pacific Northwest).

1. This is an excellent overview, and the only one, as far as I know, of the growth of studio ceramics in the Pacific Northwest from the 1920's through the 1970's. It fascinates me, by presenting the work of artists who are household names and/or my teacher, or a friend's teacher. Thus, it is both intimate and covers a lot of territory (Washington to Montana, south through Idaho to Oregon with dips into California). These old artists help one understand the background of Northwest clay work now. Lots of B&W photos. It's a good book, because it fills the need for review/perusal of a specifically local past in ceramics.

No comments about Touch Graphics.

2 comments about Sombra.

1. i saw this book in a store and fell in love with the subtle beauty of these photographs. being a photographer myself, i loved seeing the antique printing processes Mr. Afanador used creating images that seem to be made 100 years ago, but with a modern edge. Sombra, means "shadow", and i love his play with that, making dark, shadowy images. i love dancer bodies and this book is an homage to the grace and line of them. i also enjoyed seeing male nude photography of thinner, and in a way more feminine men, which is a wonderful contrast to his other book, Torero, which i went on a mad chase and finally found one that i could afford. those photographs are much different, more traditional and masculine, but still with a feminine touch, but i think they are both wonderful companions to one another. Mr. Afanador is a master at what he does, especially in showcasing the androginy of the male form, in both books. so if you are a fan of male beauty, in all its shapes, this is an excellent edition to your collection.



2. After his first book of photos, Torero, this one is a real letdown. Compared to the natural drama of those earlier photos, the present group seem contrived and merely melodramatic. And instead of the super-real textures--textures that you wanted to reach out and touch--he has tried some new printing or over-painting techniques that are not very effective--almost every photo and/or model is solarized or daubed or spatter-painted or metallicized or whatever. And the poses and subjects are repetitive and uninspired. I guess that an artist can't follow the same path for his entire career, but this seems more like a backward step than an advance.

No comments about Imagination Becomes Reality: Part III.

3 comments about Encyclopedia of British Pottery and Porcelain Marks.

1. If you deal in or collect antique English pottery and/or porcelain this is the only book on marks you will ever need. It is worth the money. It is known in the trade as the 'Bible on English marks' and its authority is never questioned. The maker and historical notes included with every identification, give you direction if more research is desired.



2. This book is a must reference for all pottery collectors. It has all the marks and makers in an easy to find format. Trilogy Antiques



3. Geoffrey Godden's concise and comprehensive volume is universally recognized as the cornerstone of the serious student's refernece library. Identifying and dating decorative and utilitarian wares fashioned through the prior 300 years by the English is a fulfilling occupation. A grasp of the history and of the people of England brings with it a reverence for the spirit of the times captured and made tangible by these links to their makers. Godden's work is the "bookmark" directory to those links.

No comments about Spode (Shire Library).

No comments about Lessons Learned: Reflecting on the Theory and Practice of Mosaic Conservation: Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the International Committee for the ... Tunisia, November 29-December 3, 2005.