5 comments about Collage Art: A Step-By-Step Guide & Showcase.

1. I like this book, along with Creative Collage Techniques by Nita Leland. As a beginner, I needed something that would give me the information I needed and to spark my creative juices.
   
   This book includes a Materials and Ingredients list for each project and Recipes throughout. There was cornstarch paste recipe, which may be something I try at a later date, but I want to keep it simple for now. The book has great photographs and text that show the steps needed to complete the project. It also includes a gallery of collage art by various artists. Collage Art covers paper, fabric, found object collage and collagraphy "the process of making a print from a collage plate".
   
   A very nice book to add to your collection.



2. I rate this book a 4-star only because it's several year old. The inspiration here is terrific. I question some of the "how to's" only because there are other methods available now(no need to make your own glue). Acrylic medium is the best adhesive available for collage art. It touches on fabric collage as well. The gallery of work is wonderful. You cannot (and should not) duplicate, but your are given enough inspiration to create your own work. I would say this book is big on "Look what you could do" and little light on the "How to". Still . . . a good keeper. Excellent and plentiful full-color photos.



3. I've had my share of disappointments with collage books. So much of the rubber stamping craft craze has moved into what we call "Collage".
   I was afraid this book would be hyping rubber stamp and craft company
   products. Never have I been so WRONG!

   This book is by and for artists who are working on original ideas. The "how to's" are not for cookie cutter projects but informative in recipes (wheat paste glue) and techniques. All work in this book is by serious,
   original artists.

   This book has me planning two days off to play around with some of my own ideas using the techniques of application of paint and materials in this book.

   You won't be sorry, buy the book!




4. I have long been interested in collage and recently decided to try my hand at it. To facilitate this, I got several books on the subject. This was one of the nicest and most complete.

   Atkinson's beautiful book was a great help. I liked the way collage artists showed, step by step, how they created their collages. The photgraphy of the pieces was excellent, making it a very visually appealing book.

   My only disappointment was that the book did not cover what materials to use, what glue to paste with, what different kinds of papers are available, and preservation of the finished work. This is not the fault of the author....she never claimed that the book was a beginner's guide.

   Overall, this was a great resource book.




5. This book is dedicated to those who already know the first steps of collage works: what materials to use, what glue to paste with, what elements to include... but it gives an amazing amount of ideas and new approaches that are awesome. You can't miss this publication if you are collage-prone. It's a delight for the eye and helps you understand how artists use their skills and imagination. Take a look!... Am I wrong?

2 comments about The Art of Handbuilt Ceramics.

1. Loved this book. It has nice pictures and good information. I am glad I have it in my collection.



2. The book was geared toward those without much working knowledge of handbuilding. The photos were very nice, and included various different ways of approaching handbuilding, so could serve to inspire someone try new approaches.

5 comments about VJ: Audio-Visual Art and VJ Culture: Includes DVD.

1. The book is well written and is a great overview of the VJ culture, the DVD is full of excerpts form live perfomances by the major artist around, interviews and CGI videos. A must-have for VJS!



2. Just finished reading this book and have to say its amazing.
   
   very insightful cross section of the Vj community. Much to be learnt about the wide range of VJs out there.
   
   It has a good mix between articles on specific issues, looking at the world of VJs, and technical articles explaining how established VJs have their setup.
   
   The DVD has been produced to a very high standard, and like the book lots of informative content is on it.
   
   The book looks beautiful with all the UV pages, and so much design work has gone into it.
   
   anyone who has not got this book yet is missing out big time, recommended to the highest degree.



3. This book was several years in the making, and I admire the dedication of those involved in getting it to print.
   
   Unfortunately, that means that in such a rapidly-moving field, it's a bit out of date. Several of the acts featured have disappeared off the radar by now, and there are some quite glaring omissions - such as the EyeWash DVDs, Resolume software (currently used by around a third of the world's top VJ's) and uh... PC's. This wouldn't bother me as much if not for the tagline on the back cover which touts 'full details of the hardware and software available for VJing are provided'. I'd suggest that 'examples of hardware and software available for Mac-based VJing are provided'.
   
   If you get the impression that you need a pair of Mac Powerbooks to VJ from the setups and info given in this book, don't worry - that's not the case. The scene featured in this book is just one aspect of international VJ Culture, and it's been curated from a particularly Mac perspective.
   
   It's a graphic-design triumph - you couldn't ask for more beautiful, slick presentation. The background of Faulkner and other members of D-Fuse as print-based graphic designers with decades of experience between them really shows. Personally, I find the layering and shiny panels a bit distracting and hard to read at one sitting, and I feel like I should put on gloves every time I pick it up as the slightest touch leaves great grubby fingerprints on some of the shinier pages. But it's a stunning, jaw-dropping book, which is just what the scene needed.
   
   To be honest, I don't see this as a book to read so much as to show-off. VJing is a very visual artform, so what better way to communicate what it's all about than in gorgeous, awe-inspiring imagery? Even if it's a bit of a struggle to actually sit and read it cover-to-cover, it's the PERFECT coffee-table book. You couldn't ask for a better showcase for potential clients, newbie wannabes or... well... your Mum... to show what VJing is and why you're dedicating yourself to it despite the bad pay, the expensive equipment, the long hours, etc etc.
   
   A friend of ours runs a Band House, where touring members of bands stay when they're performing in her town. She's a VJ, and so in a good position to plug 'have you thought about using visuals?' on a daily basis. She said this book's been the perfect way to do that - she just leaves a copy lying around and the muso's thumb through it over their breakfast.
   
   The DVD is a huge improvement over that provided with Spinrad's 'the VJ Book'. There's a load of great material on it, and most of it's of an equivalent standard to the imagery in the book - the glamour, high-end of the VJ scene. Positively wow-worthy, and the most impressive DVD collection of live VJing I've seen to date. Some of my favourite parts though were cut very short - eg just a minute or two long - and then there's the bizarrely out of place inclusion of long swathes of content by Elliott Earls, most of which has little to do with the VJ scene - eg a long mockumentary called the Saranay Hotel. Given that there was so much other great VJ content that could have gone on there, I can't work out why Earls' doco was included. It's got nothing to do with VJing or audio-visual art, and the quality is so vastly different to everything else on the DVD.
   
   Like Spinrad's VJ Book before it, I've bought multiple copies of this book/DVD to give away whenever I can afford it. I take a copy to meetings with new clients, and I lend copies to newbie VJs that come along to our Plug n Play nights. The real problem is keeping a copy for myself, as everyone wants to take it home.
   
   The VJ scene is really still very young - maybe equivalent to the DJ scene of two or three decades ago - and we need some impressive look-at-me Superstar VJ's to get the public to take notice, so that the rest of us can get on with doing what we do with hopefully a bit more attention being paid to what's going on behind the scenes on the screens.
   
   I think this book is probably the single biggest factor so far in that process of getting the public to take notice. It's a lush, visually stunning celebration of a new phenomenon. Thanks so much to Faulkner and the rest of D-Fuse for giving this to the scene. Every VJ should own a copy. Or three.
   
   VJ kattyb, VJzoo.com



4. I was contacted by D-Fuse for an interview for a book a few months ago. I am a VJ as well and I was expecting some sort of paper bag book when it came out. I got it yesterday, a day after my birthday in fact and I have never seen a book (if you can call it just that) with so much detail and so much artistic value.
   
   The audio-visual art + vj culture is one of those books you need to have in your livingroom for your friend to look up despite its content yet. Tp make it better there is so much information inside, even a graphic on how many VJs are per country.
   
   Is a book compared to those of Frank Lloyd Wight. Is one of those books that make you feel like having one even you do not know what is about. The best thing is that you will learn a lot because of the way all reference are managed. And you know what? I'm on page 160!!!
   
   Really good work regarding content and desing, I am very very impress. I am about to get another one, one to show to the people and another one for me.



5. This book is a brilliant piece of art as much as it is a great resource for beginning and established VJs. The presentation of pictures and graphics is stunning, and looking at all of the eyecandy in the book can be inspiring.
   
   This book does a great job of showcasing the best talent in the business in the form of interviews and articles. There are also some really great tips and how-to guides that even the most experienced VJ can learn from. Equipment hardware and software is covered thoroughly and explained in detail.
   
   This is truly a book all VJs should add to their bookcase because it will always serve as a great reference tool as well as entertain and enage you as a casual reader. I highly recommend this book to all VJs and people that have a passion for motion graphics and live performance art.

3 comments about Ten Thousand Years of Pottery.

1. i ordered the 5th edition. when i serached for the item the 5th edition title came up but on the individual item to select it said nothing about which edition it was. i assumed it was the 5th but when i got it i was wrong. they gave me the 4th.



2. This is the kind of book that I will look at frequently. It gives me such a global idea of my craft.



3. Now in a fully updated and expanded fourth edition, Ten Thousand Years Of Pottery continues to be a wonderfully lavish and illustrated history of pottery making from its antiquarian beginnings with the earliest Near East and Middle civilizations to the present day. A global perspective is taken with representations from the Mediterranean, Asian, Islamic, Meso American, neolithic Britain, to the Wedgwood and de Morgan factories, contemporary Africa, India, Scandinavia, and Australasia. Ten Thousand Years Of Pottery concludes with detailed and comprehensive analysis of the development off ceramics as a medium of personal expression by present day artists and studio potters. Ten Thousand Years Of Pottery is an essential historical, critical, scholarly, and very highly recommended reference drawing upon the immense informational resources and artifacts from museums, collectors, and practicing potters.

1 comments about Ceramics: A Potter's Handbook.

1. A wealth of knowledge can be found in this timeless book that covers all the major aspects of ceramics.

   For the novice, it covers the the world's history of ceramics. Discusses clay and glaze compositions and gives step
   by step explanations of the various techniques from wheel throwing to hand building to making plaster molds for
   slip casting.

   For the advanced ceramist, there is good information of various kilns and their construction. It offers analysis of
   several major clays, frits, and feldspars as well as other useful reference tables including some recipes for
   glazes from low fire to high fire.

   I first bought the book in '82 as a college freshman and it has proven a valuable aid ever since. It is on the top of
   my "required reading" list for anyone interested in getting involved with studio ceramics.

4 comments about The New Maiolica: Contemporary Approaches to Color and Technique.

1. I found this book inspirational.The tips are well worth the price of the book. Excellent photos and illustrations.
   Thanks,
   Nancy



2. While I prefer traditional Italian maiolica to contemporary, this book is still excellent. It is filled with glaze recipes and practical technical information. This book is worth it's purchase price just for it's 8 page Troubleshooting chapter.



3. I recently purchased four or five books on ceramics. This was by far my favorite. The beautiful work is inspiring and well presented with clear how to information. He even shows what brushes he uses for each and every stroke.



4. I found that the artwork is beautifully featured in this book and many of today's finest potters' work can be viewed. In particular, I truly enjoyed Ostermann's feature on up and coming Ontario potter-Richard Mund. His beautifully decorated work makes this book a new favorite for reference, inspiration and knowledge.

4 comments about The Pin-Up Art of Bill Ward.

1. For those who can't get ahold of the hardcover, now-sold-out _The Glamour Girls of Bill Ward_ (also edited by Alex Chun) or who can't afford the huge _The Wonderful World of Bill Ward_ (published by Taschen), this is a cheap, readily available alternative with enough of Ward's classic glamour girls to satisfy all but the most hard-core, completist fan of Ward's work. The book is published in trade-paperback format, so the illustration reproductions are not as big as in the other two books, but the quality is quite satisfactory.
   
   As he did in _Glamour Girls_, Chun has chosen to focus on the art that Ward is most famous for, and the art that Ward himself loved the best; the voluptuous, elegantly dressed, Ekbergesque (as in Anita Ekberg, one of the inspirational models for Ward's beauties) lovelies that populated the pages of so many men's magazines in the 1950's and 1960's - and not the raunchier work that he did in his later years, much of which he did strictly for the fee. These classic cartoons, by contrast, were done as much for love as for money, and it shows; there's an elegant lushness in them that doesn't show up in his later X-rated work. The selection includes a healthy number of Ward's (in)famous "telephone girls". While some of the cartoons and drawings chosen for this book are the same as in _Glamour Girls_, many of them are new to book publication; thus, if you really love Ward's girls, you'll want to get all three of the books that are currently in print. Definitely a "must have" for fans of pinup art.



2. If you're a baby-boomer or older, chances are you've seen Bill Ward's art, even if you didn't necessarily know the name. Ward was one of the premiere and pioneering artists of what came to be known as Good Girl Art in the 40's and 50's. Good Girl Art refers to those comics depicting attractive women in various stages of undress or, quite often, in some form of bondage. These covers were quite popular in both pulp magazines and comic books of the era and are highly prized among collectors today.
   
   Ward's most famous creation was "Torchy" Todd, the sexy blonde bombshell who made her first appearance in the mid-1940's. Torchy's run in comics was cut short by the crusade against sex and violence in comics in the 1950's. Leaving comics, Ward moved on to work for editor Abe Goodman's Humorama line of magazines that included titles such as Gee-Whiz, Romp, Snappy, Laugh Riot, and more. There he began his prolific run of sexy one-page cartoons featuring his stunning Good Girl Art.
   
   The Pin-up Art of Bill Ward from Fantagraphics packs 260 pages of these classic one panel pin-up cartoons into the book. The Ward female of these cartoons is classic 1950's pin-up: large breasts, thin waist, wide hips, and a round bottom. The classic hourglass figure complete with the pouty lips and eyes that can make any man melt. These women are bawdy and busty and make no apologies for utilizing their physical assets. Fetishists will love Ward's hilarious series of spanking cartoons, which are often girl-on-girl. In one, an angry boss with a black eye is spanking his secretary and telling her, "This will teach you to let my wife catch you sitting on my lap!" In another, a bank President is showing his gorgeous blonde customer what the penalty is at his bank for overdrawing her account.
   
   Among the other cartoons in the book is Ward's series of telephone girl gags. These generally feature one of his gorgeous models lying on a bed or sofa in a negligee or other type of lingerie, talking on the phone. There's also a fair share of Ward's burlesque stripper cartoons. In one, two men are ogling a dancer clad only in panties and pasties. One exclaims, "This is one thing television will never replace!"
   
   Wardss pin-ups are truly the 50'sand 60's American male view of the perfect female. These classic cartoons and drawings have lost none of their humor even after some fifty years.
   
   Reviewed by Tim Janson



3. Typical for a Bill Ward book, this contains a terrific representation of his gorgeous pinup work. The main drawback of this volume is the rather small size, but the great selection of artwork mostly makes up for that. Recommended for any fan of Ward or pinup art.



4. Now that Alex Chun's first book on Bill Ward is sold out Fantagraphics have wisely decided there is a market for a cheaper edition. This is not a straight reprint of the original, 'The Glamour Girls of Bill Ward' (ISBN 1560975318) which was a large size portfolio edition, beautifully printed. This current title is much smaller with an edited intro from the original but what looks like a different selection of art. Still good value if you like Bill's art.
   
   Considering that he can only really be considered on the fringes of quality girly art it is amazing that three books of his output have been published in the last three years. Ward claims to have drawn thousands of pin-ups over the years so I expect there will be more titles in the future.
   
   The two from Fantagraphics are good but Eric Kroll's The Wonderful World of Bill Ward, King of the Glamour Girls (Various)with its chunky size, comprehensive illustrated biography and hundreds of pin-ups must really be the last word on Ward.

4 comments about Soda, Clay and Fire.

1. We purchased this book and were very impressed with the quality of the information. Tells you everything you need to know.



2. This book is a marvel. It's going to take a while to digest all the incredible information that Gail Nichols has shared from her years of exploration into soda firing. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in vapor firing.



3. Gail Nichols' volume is a welcome compendium of the rather sparse information published to date regarding soda fired clay. And although it is a first, it hits the target nicely. She balances technical information with aesthetic information (in the form of well-shot photographs) so that it will appeal to the soda pyromaniacs as well as the gallery enthusiast. Soda fired clay is a relatively new phenomenon growing out of the tradition of salt glazed ware. However, technically and aesthetically, the two traditions are not twins, nor even siblings. They are more like cousins. Nichols' research on the subject provides a wealth of data from which anyone serious about soda firing clay will benefit. Take her up on her offering. Read this book!



4. This book is an excellent source of information for anyone interested in Soda firing. I am new to atmospheric firings and found this a valuable resource. I would urge experienced and novice ceramacists to check out this book. There is a lot of very in depth information for seasoned soda firers, while enough general information to get anyone started down the right path.

No comments about New Media Art (Taschen Basic Art Series).

No comments about Breaking the Mould: New Approaches to Ceramics.