2 comments about Old Testament Figures in Art (Guide to Imagery).

1. Organized into several chapters, the Creation through the Tower of Babel, Abraham, David and Solomon, and others. Each biblical topic is put into context with the Place, Time, Figures, Soursces, and Artistic variants provided. Then for each topic, several representative works of art are shown with explanatory captions. Nice representation of several schools of art, from gothic figures of the late Middle Ages to a heavy emphasis on Italian Renaissance, Northern Renaissance artists, 17th century Dutch masters and a small number of later artworks. Will mostly devoted to paintings, alternate art forms such as engravings, mosaics, sculptures and bronzes are examined.
   Small format makes it a easily portable text.



2. I have used this book in Bible studies. I like it because it is organized chronologically, making things easy to find. It also gives brief histories of the story and the artist's work and explains some of the symbolism. This book contains work from all time periods, so it would be good to use for comparison/contrast of styles.

5 comments about Paint Radiant Realism in Watercolor, Ink & Colored Pencil.

1. Fabulous painting book.Have yet to try the lessons but the instructions are set out clearly and will be easily followed.The quality of the paper in the book make it a must for art students.



2. I had never used watercolor before picking up this book, and now I used the techniques in the book almost exclusively. It's wonderful to be able to combine my favorite mediums and now I'm able to get the look that I was going for in my paintings. The instructions are very thorough and there are also some really nice palette suggestions.



3. I have admired Sueellen Ross's beautiful cat paintings for some time, and was delighted when this book was published. I am a cat artist myself, and good instruction books on how to paint cats are almost impossible to come by. Sueellen Ross has a very unique style which combines layers of ink, watercolour and coloured crayon, and builds a realistic and dramatic finished painting. The book shows step by step, not only how to paint cats, but also other animals, plants and furnishings. I tried using her techniques for a painting of my ginger cat in the washing basket, and was very pleased with the result. However, I feel that it was not quite as easy as Ms Ross claimed, and is most definitely not for beginners! This book will probably inspire you to give her techniques a go, and will therefore help to develop your art skills and knowledge. For those who are not painters, but enjoy good animal and feline art, this book will also serve as a good introduction to the work of Sueellen Ross and is a delight to look at.



4. The artwork is amazing. The best part for most I'm sure is her step by step instructions to create this work. She gives you instruction on her techniques that you could use on not just the work in the book but for your own work, based on your own reference material. It is realism at its best.
   
   It is not for the beginner, you should be confident in your drawing skills, not just tracing or linework. You should know tonal value and be able to create the illusion of 3D...the better your drawings the better chance you have at succeeding with the techniques in the book.



5. Sueellen Ross has presented an excellent demonstration book on her special techniques in painting animals. As a watercolorist I learned quickly to ignore watercolor books that exhibit paintings I don't care for or am not inspired by. So it is my perception that Paint Radiant Realism in Watercolor, Ink & Colored Pencil, did inspire me to experiment using her techniques so that I could approach her desirable style.

No comments about House Proud: Nineteenth Century Watercolor Interiors from the Thaw Collection.

3 comments about Hensche on Painting.

1. This book is about Hensche's thoughts and insights to painting the landscape and about the Portrait and figure. Alot of valuble information in such a little book. Well worth the price. It could be used as reference book, to be reread over and over.There was a chapter on Seeing that I liked very well.Though I am a pastel painter and he focuses on oil, the information is well suited for any medium.



2. Very informative. I agree with his feelings about professors telling you to go get 'm tiger without providing enough basic information and that we need to get back to drawing as a basis for painting.



3. I found this book far less useful for practical painting pointers than those based on the treachings of Hawthorne, William Morris Hunt, Henri and Sloan. Granted, those are tough acts to follow, but there it is. What I did find fascinating was Hensche's perspective. Clearly, he greatly admired Charles Hawthorne as he should. He even went as far as to suggest that Hawthorne in some ways eclipsed Monet and bridged the gap to the abstract expressionists ... maybe in some ways. What I found absurd was Hensche's suggestion that he had gone beyond Hawthorne (and therefore beyond Monet!). Hey, I've heard from some of his students that Hensce was a great teacher and a nice guy ... and I don't doubt that, but in my opinion, as an artist, he never painted anything of tremendous merit. On another topic, the book shed some fascinating, although brief, insight on a rivalry between Henri and Hawthorne that I had never heard of before. Also, there are some refreshingly blunt statements that Hensce made summing up a couple dozen artists from Rubens to Andy Warhol at the end of the book. So, the book is worth a quick read if this sort of thing interests you. I'm glad I bought and read the book (it is brief and inexpensive) even though I don't think it was outstanding.

5 comments about Life with Picasso.

1. (.....please take note that due to legal constraints, there was no public tie made between this book and the movie "Surviving Picasso" starring Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore - I just wanted to give you all a little footnote here, because that movie *is* this book, virtually scene by scene, and almost word for word....and they did a fantastic job.)
   
   This is a beautifully articulate book. I have read it four times. If you have interest in the mentality of Pablo Picasso, this book is one of a handful which you should take the time out to consume. It goes without saying that being written by an ex-lover there is some bias involved.
   
   I'm not so much a fan of the man's work, but I have always been fascinated with his psyche.
   
   Francoise Gilot is a very dynamic and insightful person and her work is as interesting to appreciate as her writing.



2. It is refreshing and empowering to see the words with which Picasso descirbes his arts and his talents, and the talents of his contemporaries. If you have artistic intutions, but, you can't really put a word to what you mean sometimes, it might be very helpful to read this book.
   
   For he is thoughtful. And he is egotistical.
   
   And, being both, he has quite a precise verbalization of the intellectual and analytical techniques he uses to make himself so successful. He paints be emotion, to be sure, but, when he steps back and evaluates his own work he is an accurate, and precise, and viscious critic. His own ability to express what his work lacks - and then address that identified issue - is inspiring and educational to artists and to scientists alike.
   
   In the later years (the book is chronological), Francoise will spend more time talking about the children and her emotional relationship to Picasso. In this, there is less value to 'take away.'
   
   But in the beginning two-third of this nonfiction narrative - with its intimate and intelligent insight into Pablo, Matisse, and Rembrandt (as well as those artists whom Picasso does not like) - is a treasure and I have gone to it many times to research half-remembered bytes of information.
   
   To be human, too, it is a wonderful depiction of an unsual love and courtship.



3. Francoise Gilot is a legend as an artist and a feminist (my term...not hers). This book opens up a world about Picasso and Gilot's time together in a way that is almost impossible to put down.



4. I read this book with a certain guilt as if prying into the intimate world of others I had no business looking into. But the fascination with the life of the great artist, and the whole subject of creativity kept me reading on even when I felt a bit disgusted in doing so.
   I don't think it is my prudery that led to these feelings. The Picasso of this work is an egomaniac, a moral monster, who shows absolutely no consideration whatever for those closest to him. The people who have helped him in the past do not count for him. The people who are involved with him in the present are manipulated by him for his own purposes. He is tremendously ambitious, greedy financially, stingy, sexually driven and demanding without necessarily being interested in the feelings of the woman he is with . Gilot is no innocent, and her relation with Picasso comes not only one feels out of her own ambition as an artist but her desire to be next to the big- deal the big- name the great genius of art. It is instructive how she cans the two aunts who raise her when the great Pablo demands exclusive attention. This is not to deny her genuine love for him or his passion for her, though no doubt this was never particularly exclusive. Picasso was a great user, user of materials and situations for his art, and user of people for his life. His work has a cruelty his life shares. And it seems to me that that cruelty means his work in the deepest sense does not reach the highest level, the level where Rembrandt and Michangelo and Raphael are. And this because the great draughtsman is not a great reader of the human soul . He is rather a twenty- second technical man a supreme master of means who knows how to put the machine in himself to use to cut up and recombine the world for his purposes. Gilot goes too as do all the previous wives and mistresses, the agents and friends. And Pablo takes and takes to the end .
   Gilot is a tough character and in a way her presentation of herself as one who stands up to him at points gives the work a certain dramatic power. But in the end the feeling is that the greatest art cannot come of or dwell in the kind of sordidness of spirit which Picasso so often displayed. And thus the reading of this work gave me the sense that generations hence though they may admire the work of Picasso will not be inspired by and love it as we do with the work of the very greatest artists.



5. Not being very well educated in art, the book helped me better understand some of what Picasso was trying to portray in his artwork. It is an easy book to get through once you get into it, the way it is written it can be long and tedious at times but the information Francoise Gilot gives is quite sincere and in depth. The book will give you a better incite to Picasso's twisted and passionate life, leaving you with a newfound knowledge and idea about Picasso.

2 comments about Acrylic Painting: A Step-by-Step Instruction Book (His the Artist's Painting Library).

1. I have to say that I was a bit disappointed in this one. For a book that is geared towards the beginner, there was surprisingly little information about actually getting started, with the main focus being on exercises and demonstrations. Speaking as a novice, if this had been the only book I had purchased, I would have been totally lost.
   
   I don't want to say that this book is completely useless, however. The basic information about paints, supports, brushes etc. is good, as are the glossary terms. But beyond that, in comparison to other "How To" books that I've purchased, this one just doesn't measure up. To be fair, some of that can be attributed to personal taste. As someone who is interested in abstract art, the lessons (all still life and landscape) simply didn't interest me. Furthermore, almost half of the photos are black-and-white, including some of the demonstration pages. It's a stretch to expect the reader to understand the difference between opaque and transparent painting techniques by looking at rather poor quality black-and-white images. It just didn't work for me. For the novice painter, there are much better books out there.



2. Professionals tend to use no more than a dozen of the ACRYLIC PAINTING colors. Watercolor paper's slightly rough texture brings out the precisely fluid color of drybrushing a green pepper and the scrubby back-and-forth strokes of scumbling a peach. An Old Master technique monochromes lights and shadows before color glazing a kettle. The trick to painting glass or water is using the same mixtures as the background for patches of light and dark, but with more white for lights and middle tones. These are some of the tips that Wendon Blake shares as he follows artist Rudy De Reyna's demonstration paintings through covering shapes with flat tones, modeling lights and darks, and adding highlights, textures and details. The author also covers special techniques, such as cloth dabbing; correcting by darkening, lightening or repainting; impasto; paper crumpling; scratching; spattering; and sponging. He says good painting means working with cleanly stored supplies; chemically stable colors on acrylic gesso-coated hardboard, chemically pure 100% rag stock watercolor paper, or real artist's canvas; and museum-quality mat boards for taping with glue-coated cloths or homemade drawing paper strips with white water soluble paste. He has covered just about everything needed for going on to Earl Grenville Killeen's THE NORTH LIGHT BOOK OF ACRYLIC PAINTING TECHNIQUES, Barclay Sheaks' THE ACRYLICS BOOK, and Rachel Rubin Wolfe's THE ACRYLIC PAINTER'S BOOK OF STYLES AND TECHNIQUES.

5 comments about Watercolor Painter's Pocket Palette.

1. Whether you are a beginner or a more experienced artist, this little book is an essential part of any watercolorist's library.



2. This is a lovely practical guide. Most books on color or on watercolor color never quite get to the point of what you want out of it, which is plain information and palettes of color.

   The Pocket Palette sets up a palette and clearly shows how each color looks when mixed or glazed (painted over another). There honestly isn't another book of this size and practicality out there. This is not necessarily a book on color theory. It is covered but is not the aim of this at-a-glance, application kind of book.

   As this book is concise, this review will be concise! This book, plus a color wheel and a short book on color theory (a Walter Foster book will even do) should fill out your arsenal for dealing with watercolor color. (That might seem like a lot, but for a lifetime of using watercolors it is the least you can do for yourself.) This book is an excellent value, even if it is short, and it IS portable, perfect to bring along with your sketchbook and notes.




3. I purchased this little book with high hopes that it would be a timesaver, but I was disappointed enough to return it. There are several types of problems. First, although I could find no statement of this, all the paints used are Winsor & Newton; if you use even similarly named paints from another company, the printed results of mixing and overpainting will be irrelevant. Second, only the Winsor & Newton names for the colors are given, and no pigment information is supplied. This is inexcusable, since formulations change even with a single manufacturer, and "Bright Red," fpr example, means one set of pigment ingredients and properties for Winsor and Newton, but completely different ones for paints from other companies. Third, a statement is made that all paints depicted are durable. This is untrue and potentially disastrous for anyone who trusts this statement. For example, it is well known that alizarin crimson and genuine rose madder (both in the primary palette oin this book) are easily damaged by light; permanent alternatives must be used if a painting is to be hung in a normally lit room. Finally, results will vary depending on the paper you use, and -- this one is not the fault of the book -- color reproduction in printing can never truly match what really happens on the paper. It's a pretty little book, well put together physically, but it is often misleading and is in no way a valid substitute for making your own notebook of color mixes and relevant information. This is essential both for understanding the properties of your pigments and paper in the first place but also for recording the compositions and behaviors of mixes used in your paintings.



4. If you want to learn how to mix watercolor without getting "mud" then this is for you. It is not a substitute for the real experience of mixing colors for yourself and watching what happens (such as any blue with cadmium red. Did you get a purple? Hmmm! Interesting!)

   The section on mixing flesh tones is especially helpful. It's fun just to browse this book and enjoy the tonal variety. A really nice book, in a small, portable format. One of my favorites.




5. Being new to watercolor painting, this book has been extremely helpful to me in determining the mixtures to use to create the colors I need. I've just sent one to a friend who is just beginning classes in watercolor and I'm sure she'll enjoy it as much as I have.

No comments about Game Development Essentials: Gameplay Mechanics.

1 comments about Landscape Painting.

1. This was recommended by the leader of a workshop I took. It had been out of print, so I was happy that it had been reissued. However, I feel that a number of newer books were more helpful to me than this one was. As a new painter, I feel the need for more definitive guidance. This was a little chatty and vague for me.
   
   Also, these days, most or all pictures are in color. These are all black and white. It shouldn't make a difference, but it does.

No comments about Watercolor Made Easy: Expressive Color: Discover easy methods for keeping your watercolors fresh & lively (Watercolor Made Easy).