2 comments about Gustav Klimt: Erotic Sketches / Erotische Skizzen (Erotic Sketchbook).

1. I bought this book because I saw the exhibit at the Musee Maillot in Paris in 2005 and stupidly didn't buy their book of the drawings as I thought I could buy it here it here in the US. (Which isn't possible). This is an extremely disappointing pick of very few of his drawings, all of which were certainly not my favorites. There were so many which better demonstrated his skill in catching the expression, the sexuality and the beauty in very few lines I am surprised at all the inclusions and the exclusions. In my mind he picked the weaker drawings. And yes, they didn't even catch an obvious drawing inserted upside down, which unfortunately states a lot since there are so few of them.



2. The presentation is great - I thought this would be a treat. Great binding, nice ribbon, and maybe this would make a good introduction to Klimt's erotic figure-work BUT . . .! There are only 56 drawings, most of them have been seen and reproduced in other books. An index gives specific information about the images but since the pages are unnumbered, good luck trying to match a drawing with its description.
   
   The drawings are not in chronological order so you can't see Klimt's style change. The drawings are cut off and cropped sloppily and set on the page arbitrarily; some in the middle of the page, others shoved to the top or bottom for no particular reason. Actual image quality varies since the drawings are taken from a variety of sources; some look as if they were hastily run through Photoshop to clean them up. (But if you tell this was done, if you can SEE the digital manipulation, that doesn't say much, now does it?) Judging by the screen dots and other indicators some drawings show, a lot of these drawings were scanned from other books, run through a Photoshop-type of program to fill out the page - and not very diligently. I think the publishers were trying to be artistic. Or something. They've failed miserably.
   
   Thames & Hudson did an Egon Schiele book a while ago that shows you CAN do this kind of thing well, at a great price and with tons of illustrations, not just 56. In April of 2006, they are going to release a Klimt book. Skip this feeble Prestel book and wait for the T&H book.
   
   One last observation about the book at hand: the drawing on page 34 is badly placed at the bottom of the page . . . and is UPSIDE DOWN.

1 comments about Painting Romantic Landscapes.

1. Be aware that this is not a book on classic Romanticism. It has adequate instructions for painting sentimental gardens, cute fuzzy bunnies, and old fashion grist mills. It would be a good introduction to simple landscape art for a beginning decorative student, but falls short of offering assistance to the intermediate or advanced artist.

No comments about Color Your Own Gauguin Paintings (Coloring Books).

5 comments about Painting Spectacular Light Effects in Watercolor.

1. Really good and sound illustrations and excellent explanations of techniques. It was very helpful to me and taught me a lot of the wonderful styles he uses. I would recommend this video to anyone, beginner or master to learn more about light effects.



2. This book has a lot of interesting observations on the interactions between light and various surfaces. The value of this book is in these observations, which help the artist notice more. For example, what shadows look like, and how reflections and transparency impact water and metal and glass. These observations focus mainly on topics that will be useful to people interested in painting still life, buildings, and perhaps nature scenes. These observations will be less helpful for painters who are interested in figure painting, as the interplay of light on skin & hair is not addressed. Overall, this aspect of the book is very well done and deserves 4 to 5 stars.
   
   The watercolor technique aspect of this book is not as well done. The main teaching technique used are step-by-step paintings. These are done better than most but, frankly, I fail to see the value of step-by-step instruction. For me, these fail to generalize the author's knowledge into useful watercolor techniques. The step-by-step instruction appears to be aimed at a beginner painter, whereas the rest of the book is intermediate to advanced.
   
   Overall, this is a very nice book that is well worth purchasing. "Painting Spectacular Light Effects in Watercolor" is particularly nice as an inspirational book for watercolor artists.



3. This is a review of his *VIDEO*, "Painting Light & Landscapes".
   I couldn't find it on Amazon.com so I'm putting the review under his book.

   This title is separated onto two videos, part 1 about 1 hour 15 min, part 2 about 1 hour. (I couldn't get an exact time count for tape 2. It varied every time I timed it. Maybe the tape material was stretching?)

   It begins with a brief bio of his training and awards, showing several of his painings in the background.

   Then, a brief intro to some basic techniques, flat wash, graded wash, wet in wet, but nothing else.

   Then he begins to demonstrate his painting, a foggy landscape, mostly done wet in wet.

   The value of these videos is to see his demonstration of him actually painting. You see every stroke, which is very good for learning. Camera angles and audio are excellent.

   But he doesn't teach design, composition, value sketch, color mixing theory, etc. If you want to learn these basics of painting you are better off with Tony Couch or Tom Lynch videos. But it is valuable to see Paul do his demo because he talks about his thinking process as he paints. It is always valuable to see how a painter thinks about his painting, his process, rather than just staying with cold techniques. These videos are excellent for that.

   He points out how the water & paint behaves, how he corrects or covers up mistakes, how he layers paint to get rich values, how he choses colors he is using, how he changes his designing, etc. Its amazing how he gets his effects with his huge brushes and lots of water.

   He usually names the colors he uses, mostly Winsor & Newton. But as he doesn't talk about color mixing theory, or quality of paints, he doesn't talk about permanant or fugitive clolors. At one point he mentions he is now using a *permanant* Alizarin Crimson, a historically fugitive color. (Genuine Alizarin is fugitive, which means it will fade or change over time with sunlight shining on it, and you shouldn't use it since there are permanant substitute paints for this color. *Premanant* Alizarin is most likely made up from these permanant substitue paints, but companies preserve the old name so thay can make money.) But then he uses *huge* amounts of Winsor Violet, which I belive is made of of Dioxazine, which is a fugitve color! (I hope I'm correct in this and not making a fool of myself. If I am, I appologize in advance.) According to Michael Wilcox's book, "The Wilcox Guide to the Best Watercolor Paints", he states that Dioxazine is a fugitive color. So why 1) does Mr Jackson use it if he switched to a *Permanant* Alizarin, and 2) why does Winsor & Newton continue to put out fugitve colors for sale at all???? (Read Wilcox's books to learn how to mix violets and purples using permanant colors as well as find out which paints are fugitive and which are permanant.)

   While it is wonderful to see Mr. Jackson demo his painting, the whole video is *continually* broken up everytime he needs a break to dry his paper with *numerous* silly interviews of clients and samples of his paintings. These breaks happen at different times, after 5min, 12min, 17min, 24min, etc.

   Showing samples of his beautiful paintings at these breaks is acceptable, although time consuming if you want to keep the actual demo on *one* VHS tape. You can go to his web site to see all his paintings. But the interviews are totally frustrating.

   The interviews are of some of his clients/patrons: eg. Gov of Missouri, his 1st Lady, and several Doctors. These are more like infomercials. All they say is how wonderful Paul Jackson is, how much they like and are amazed by his art work, how his art is so detailed "it looks like photographs", how he paints upside down even though "that's impossible, but he does it!", etc. These "infomercial" commentaries are TOTALLY USELESS!!! They take up valuable video time and waste the viewer's time. These are all distinguised people, clients, patrons, nice people who really appreciate his work, but with all due respect, who cares about their comments! They are not artists. I bought the video to see Paul paint, not hear non artists babble on and on singing his praises and their amazments! I already know how wonderful he is and am amazed by his art myself, otherwise I wouldn't have bought the video and his book! I don't need nor want their comments. Its a total waste!

   These breaks are short, 30 sec to 1 min each, but are so numerous, between 20-30 of them or more, they break up the flow of the video. I tried to time them to see how much time they took. Between the two videos, the infomercial interviews totalled to about 8 min, and the gallery of his paintings totalled to about 8-10min. Not much time total, but because there are so many of them, they are very frustrating and intrusive.

   If the tapes had totally eliminated these useless interviews/comments and edited down the samples of his gallery of paintings, he could have fitted his *actual demo* onto a single 2 hour tape. Why, we need to ask, was it spread out onto 2 tapes with so much filler?

   I rated the video with 4 stars instead of 5 because of these useless interviews. I would recommend this set of videos to actually see him paint. You just need to ignor the interviews. You can learn a lot just from observation and hearing *HIS* comments! If you get his book, you will get more step by step instructions.

   If he ever does another video, which I would love to see of his tighter style, I would recommend: 1) DROP THE USELESS INFOMERCIAL INTERVIEWS! LET YOUR ART SPEAK FOR ITSELF. LET YOUR PAINTING DEMO SPEAK FOR ITSELF. and 2)show more of your planning, design stage. This is just as important as seeing you actually paint.




4. I am an intermediate level painter. I appreciate the technique and artistry that goes into the paintings in this book. I also study them and read the artists comments and recomendations. They are sometimes vague and it is more of a read than a workshop book. I do not use it nearly as much as I hoped I would. This book does contain very impressive work and I would like to apply some of what I see to my own art.



5. This is the best watercolor book I have found yet. The light effects are stunning and inpiring. I really learned a lot and improved my skills after reading this book.

5 comments about Painting Glowing Colors in Watercolor.

1. Beautiful book. Detailed help in learning to underpaint - showing all colours used. Great exercises to copy to learn the technique. Inspiring.



2. An absolutely beautifully illustrated and written book. Did I learn anything? Well, yes, I did learn quite a bit on color and setting up my pallette. But to actually paint...not yet as I am a beginner. I think this is a great book to hold onto when one becomes more advanced especially in learning how to use the fabulous colors Penny uses to get the great effects in her paintings. I highly recommend it.



3. Although this book is a little too far advanced for the beginning watercolorist, it is full of good instruction for the beginner. Penny uses a lot of different colors. I suggest the beginner study Penny's palette and choose only 1-2 colors in each range. Later more colors can be added. Overall the book is good instruction.



4. Although I loved the paintings and the transparency, even I who have been painting watercolors for more than 10 years found the number of paints used are too many and, in trying to do them, found the demonstrations too complicated. I remember an instructor saying that 3 colors to mix was enough. I wouldn't recommend the book to a beginner.



5. I received this book for my birthday. It is one of the best watercolor instruction books I have. She gives very good instructions on how to paint with glowing colors. She has several other instructions and suggestions on composition, drawing etc. This book was carefully thought out and the illustrations are wonderful.

1 comments about Painting Angels in Watercolour (Fantasy Art).

1. This small tome makes an excellent coffee table book just on the merit of beauty alone. While a beginning watercolorist might find the art a tiny bit intricate, the clear, step by step instructions would guide them to a sucessfully finished project. Everything is covered; surfaces, paper, brushes, paints, mediums, techniques & colors, to how to use the illustrations to draw your own pictures. An expert might bypass the basic instructions but surely would find inspiration in the artwork and palette.

No comments about Watercolor (Artist's Library series #02).

4 comments about A Pacific Northwest Nature Sketchbook.

1. Jude teaches through this book that nature is where you find it. Sure, taking in an amazing vista in the Pacific NW is a inspiration to be sure. But you take away the feeling that your own backyard, kitty asleep on the couch, local park, birds at the window or just some stones in your pocket hold just as much promise and beauty. She makes you feel like this is something you owe to yourself, just create for the sake of the happiness it brings. She urges you to not get caught up in the "correct way" or whether or not it will ever hang on a wall, just look, listen, feel and put it on paper the way only you know how. It will be just perfect! What a fun approach, full of freedom, acceptance and promise. Only you can capture the moment like only you see it. Very rewarding to read, see her sketches/paintings AND to practice the approach.



2. I was revisiting my hometown region (Pacific Northwest) and came across Jude Seigel's book. Although I'd never painted before (well, since grade school) I immediately had to have this book and before I left Seattle, I'd invested over $100 in Winsor and Newton paints and brushes.
   
   Since then I've purchased other books (and many more paints...!), but still find myself gravitating to Pacific Northwest Nature Sketchbook for the casual, authentic, do-it-now spirit in which it was written. Jude's style embraces every level of artist--you do what you can and the more you do it the better you get--but the message is clear: everything you create is precious and represents your vision at a single moment in time.
   
   Thanks, Jude, for this inspiration and for a lovely, timeless book.



3. Jude Siegal writes about how a painter observes, how shadows and mists interact with colors and shapes, and how taking time to absorb the beauty of place enriches our lives. Her ability to appreciate details and broad vistas and her expressive word of language and color make this a great book for writers and admirers of the Pacific Northwest as well as painters.



4. This book is an excellent introduction to Nature Journaling. The author sets out her method in easy-to-understand steps, taking the mystery out of buying paper, brushes, and paints, and how to set up a palette, make a palette map, and get started drawing the natural world.
   
   The illustrations are Jude Siegel's own vibrant drawings and paintings. This book made me reach for my pen and watercolors!

2 comments about Game Development Essentials: Game Simulation Development.

1. This books' structure does a great job at making you think actively about game and simulation, what makes them tick, which simulation strategies are successful or a turndown and why so, etc. It offers an indepht view of the genre through a thorough classification, experts comments and quotes, tips and useful case studies. Finally, it describes nicely past, present and future trends along with technology bottlenecks.
   A must have for training managers and learning system developper...



2. This is a poor book. Written to explain someone who has live for years inside a hidden jungle what game simulations ARE. It doesn't address at any moment how you should face development of such kind of titles, it just show you the many types of titles that could match simulation games.
   
   If you expected to learn something from this book, just move on to another one.

1 comments about Charles Burchfield's Journals: The Poetry of Place.

1. Organized by topic, this is a must-have if you wish to understand Burchfield. Beautiful production job.