3 comments about Brush With Watercolour: Painting Landscapes the Easy Way.

1. I have many reference books to help with my watercolour technique, but this book is undoubtedly the best I've seen. Explanations are easy to follow, including colour selection, mixing, brush use, and numerous other valuable tips. I definitely will be getting more of Terry Harrison watercolour books.



2. Terry Harrison's book has opened new doors full of ideas for any artist in watercolour who want to add texture and great brush work to there own paintings. The information in Painting landscapes is well worth reading and re-reading as there is plenty of ideas for the artist to try out. Terry's use of colour and brush work is great and his book helps get the information across. Terry Harrison's book Painting Landscapes the easy way is well worth five stars and six if I could.



3. A new approach which inpires me in a British Way

1 comments about Mary Cassatt.

1. A collection of interesting essays (and representations of her works) on the artist and her life give the reader good, broad and varied sense about who Mary Cassatt was and how important she was in helping America to discover impressionism. MC is an artist that merits to be better recognized and this book serves a good purpose. - Yet for people that have already studied MC and want to learn more on detailed aspects of her art, this book will probably not be sufficient - Griselda Pollock has written a book i found very useful called 'mary cassatt painter of modern women' which has some well-founded arguments about her works and intentions and is very interesting and more original than this collection of well presented and nevertheless good essays.

1 comments about Hudson River School: Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

1. Loved it. The large color plates make me want to acquire more on the Hudson River School. KC

1 comments about Close Reading: Chuck Close and the Artist Portrait.

1. Martin Friedman has written and composed a book about his friend and honored colleague Chuck Close that reads as a fine biography. Friedman, previously with the highly regarded Walker Art Center and now an important art historian and curator for other museums, began his 'conversations' with Chuck Close in 1969 and grew into a close personal as well as professional relationship with the artist and this relationship is evident in the quietly detailed information about Close's well known bout with paralysis and subsequent recovery to the point of continuing to be able to paint. The quality of friendship is palpable.
   
   But Friedman does not limit his writing to simply the personal issues that make Chuck Close a hero in the realm of overcoming tragic blows. This book, better than any of the other many volumes on this innovative artist, provides solid information on the development of Close's technique of producing vast canvases out of pixilated portions, explaining in fine detail how he approaches the portrait from inception through painstaking process, to completed work. No one has explained and illustrated it better.
   
   Once Friedman has shown us process he then shares some of Close's important portraits of fellow artists such as Francesco Clemente and Cindy Sherman and accompanies these experiences with valuable illustrations of the works in addition to Friedman's own conversations with each of the artist models in a way that only a man who has the depth in contemporary art that Friedman can make informational and rational!
   
   For this reader the most satisfying portion of this superb book is Friedman's discussion of the Self Portraits of Chuck Close, works that provided significant bridges between his struggle against physical challenge and emotional recovery. It is not only insightful psychologically; it is a true homage to a contemporary hero. Throughout the book the pages are filled with copious excellent reproductions of the materials discussed.
   Highly Recommended on many levels. Grady Harp, November 05

1 comments about Tom Thomson: Trees.

1. Having read numerous travelogues of Japan in the past few years, I began to despair that each one felt that it had a need to carve out a specific niche in the realm of travel writing on Japan. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does lead to increasingly stranger ideas for armchair travel.

   As a result, I found it a nice touch that "Japan Diaries" is essentially a transcribed daily journal of two month-and-a-half to two-month trips taken to Japan across a ten-year stretch (1987 and 1997). Without being condescending or offering "the key" to understanding Japan (as far too many Japan travelogues try to do), this book offers a very readable, very day-to-day view of visiting and living in Japan - especially when you come to the country with minimal first-hand experience with Japan itself.

   However, if it doesn't offer an arrogant viewpoint it's also not the most insightful book on Japan, either. Not that the author doesn't work hard to give a good background on the various things she talks about - and to be very clear to lay out her own biases in everything she talks about - but she also occasionally fails to understand what's going on around her, such as the background reasons for why foreigners find it so hard to rent an apartment in Japan.

   On the whole, though, this is definitely light, interesting reading, perfect for a couple of days on the beach or a long airplane flight. Sherman does as good a job as anyone else I've read of making you feel like you were taking the trip with her. And when it comes down to it, isn't that what travel writing's really all about anyway?

No comments about The Elements: Earth Air Fire Water (How Artists See).

1 comments about Van Gogh Paintings: 24 Cards (Card Books).

1. It is real good to have giftwrap paper related to Van Gogh's painting. The cost is cheap and is worthful.

1 comments about The Structural Conservation of Panel Paintings: Proceedings of a Symposium at the J. Paul Getty Museum 24-28 April 1995 (Symposium Proceedings, Getty Conservation Institute).

1. This book collects the proceedings of an important congress organised by the Getty Conservation Institute in 1995. The High level of the invited speaker and the excellent work they made in preparing their intervenctions make this text an unavoidable tool for people and students approaching the conservation of paintings supported by wooden panels.

No comments about Hooked on Painting!: Illustrated Lessons & Exercises for Grades 4 and Up.

1 comments about Into the Wilderness: An Artist's Journey.

1. PRINTS.COM highly recommends this book. Stephen Lyman's artwork is a celebration of the beauty our earth provides us in it's many forms. Forward by Bev Doolittle.