5 comments about Society of Six: California Colorists.

1. Ms. Boas has put together an exceptional book on the Society of Six Painters. It is generously illustrated with carefully chosen examples, most in full color. Close ups, with full bleeds, lead each chapter and will take your breath away. In addition, the book contains many black and white images of the artists working and hanging out.
   
   I'd say roughly half of the book is on Selden Gile and why not? He was likely the most prolific and arguably the best of the group. Ms. Boas describes how the group got together and how they were influenced by European artists, a few California painters as well as Bellows and others. One gets some idea of the personality (even drinking habits!) of each of "the six" as well as their camaraderie, working methods, palettes and materials. On page 97, there is a reprint of the group's manifesto (primarily Clapp's handiwork). It may be the best description of "what makes a painting good" that I have ever come across. In addition, the book is littered with quotes and excerpts from letters. One thing I particularly enjoyed were the many quotes by Diebenkorn and Thiebaud describing the Society's work. I highly recommend this book.



2. Nancy Boas has done the American art scene a great service by producing a beautifully illustrated and printed book about six rugged individualists who did much to build a California school of painting in the early 20th Century. While they are often referred to as impressionists, their paintings are generally far more adventuresome, ambitious and challenging to the viewer than the relatively tame and accessible impressionist school. Whether they had any direct influence from the Fauvists or the Blaureider colorists, they have more in common with those post-impressionist Europeans. Ultimately, it doesn't matter much how they arrived at their approach to color and painting, it was the California landscape and climate that determined their subjects and color they used to interpret them.
   Boas' handsome book does particular justice to the work of Selden Gile, who was the most aggressive and and insistent in his use of primary colors.
   This is a terrific and important addition to any artbook collection.



3. Hazou Gallery, Elie (art dealer) San Diego, CA
   This has been a great reference book for me. I own three artists in this remarkable group, The Society of Six. In addition to all the information in this valuable book, the price was great.



4. I give this book 10 stars! Nancy Boas did a superb job cataloguing the history of this unique & historical California art movement. As one of America's foremost buyers of the Society of Six paintings, I can say this is a "must buy" book. www.LawrenceBeebe.com



5. While many books and much attention has been given to the Impressionists, little mention has been offered to the Society
   of Six - California Colorists. The beautiful illustrations and enlightening text provide a case history for the needed aware-
   ness of these talented and innovative artists. Nancy Boas has
   obviously done a tremendous amount of research resulting in a
   spectacular and much needed work on our California art history.
   A perusal of this title will be richly rewarded.

5 comments about More of the Joy of Painting.

1. I have started painting after seeing bob ross pbs episodes. All the books are good for learning and improving.
   
   Very happy.



2. I found this book a little bland compared to the other ones...some of the work was lacking details or seemed flat in comparison,but I think they all have the basic details to help anyone on the way to produce a little gem.Simple and yet the end results can be worked toyour satisfaction.



3. I just wanted to say that I started watching Bob Ross on tv and got interested in the wet-on-wet technique around 1990 or 91. I sent for paints and some of his books. How anyone can ever say anything against this man , is beyond me. I even miss his little squirrel! I haven't painted for about seven years now. I'am retired and have the time now. I live in West Virginia, moved from Ohio. This is beautiful country here. I'am sure getting the urge to start back in painting. I need to get new supplies. Please send me a catalog. Paul Sensabaugh P.O. Box 6, Wva. 25123.



4. don't buy any bob ross products, he's a crook and a bandit



5. Bob Ross lives through his paintings. You can't beat the price of this many paintings in one book! Both professional & non-professional use his techniques & patterns to continue Bob's legacy in oil!

1 comments about Portraiture (Reaktion Books - Essays in Art and Culture).

1. This book provides an essential overview of the theory of portraiture. Brilliant provides a concise and well written handbook that will help any student who wishes to understand the way people portray people. Although he is a scholar of classical art, he approaches the subject through the full cannon of Western art.

5 comments about Tom Lynchs Watercolor Secrets.

1. in examples of work done from beginning to end. It is filled with the artist's beautiful art work and that Mr. Lynch is a very accomplished painter is definitely not in dispute. However, I found the book tedious to read. Each picture is accompanied with an explanation why the picture had achieved oomph regarding design. Most of the paintings are of urban settings, i.e. of Paris, golf clubs, etc. and I am more of a nature and flower painter. I found the book to be not a complete waste of my money, but there are definitely books I like much better.



2. "Tom Lynch's Watercolor Secrets" is a 5-star watercolor technique book for visual learners. Alas, I am not a visual learner, and so much of the impact was lost. If you are, I strongly recommend you get this book.
   
   All lessons are displayed mainly in comparison pictures: the same scene done two ways, once without the recommended technique, and once with the recommended technique. This is the "salvage paintings" stuff that other reviewers mention. These painting comparisons are scattered throughout the book and cover all topics. The comparison pictures are very effective pictoral representations of the technique lessons described herein.
   
   For myself, I don't like landscapes and I wasn't particularly impressed by the author's painting style. Still, this book has a lot of useful advice on painting technique. You might also consider Painting What You Want to See (Practical Art Books), which is the best watercolor technique book I've found.



3. When you get into reading this book to learn his "secrets," some of the information is really thin. It has some really great parts that give insight, like his section on color. It opened my eyes to new ways of painting -- outside of the box! With many of the pictures, a few step by step "in progress" points would have been super helpful -- that's where it just misses. If you have a lot of skill, you may be able to read "the picture" and see things from other chapters and get the deeper concept. I, being new, can NOT even begin to do that yet, so it is a great read and gives good insight, but it is a book to read after reading some of the conceptual walk-you-through-it books that exist. So, not allllll of his secrets really are revealed. :-)



4. A great concept with wonderful illustrations by Tom Lynch but lacking descriptions of the techniques and pigment use employed. Like the other reviewer I found the secrets still secrets and not revealing enough information. This publishers books seem to follow this pattern as with Alvaro Castagnet book Watercolor Painting with Passion (beautiful and inspiring illustrations by Castagnet but lacking decent text of the techniques and use of pigments used).

   However, aside from the lacking technical information, Lynch's work is wonderful and inspiring.




5. THIS BOOK NEEDS MORE DETAIL AND TECHNIQUE IN MUCH BETTER FORM. I APPRECIATE GOOD ART BOOKS AND THIS ONE COULD BE A LOT BETTER..

5 comments about Light Up Your Watercolors Layer by Layer.

1. The artist is a master a lighting up watercolors. Easy to follow instructions, informative and enlightening. Suggested great reading for the novice watercolorist and exceptional reading for the master.



2. Enamoured by the beautiful watercolor paintings in this book, i purchased it as a learning resource. The concepts of color theory & using color, & light, explained here are useful. However,instructions with more details would definitely have helped understand the artist' technique, as well as further my painting experience.



3. It is very important to me as a serious artist to be able to understand thru detail of how am image is painted. Why buy and spend the money for a book unless it is completely useful. I can look at pictures all day and try to figure out how to paint it but if I buy a book to show me, I expect to learn a lot.



4. I LOVE Moyer's work, unfortunately the mini lessons provided in the book, while useful, will not lead to a rendering of images anywhere close to those you'll drool over in this book.
   I enjoy just looking at her work and aspiring to paint in this style, but this book is not in-depth enough or step-by-step enough to get you to this level of work.



5. I used this book as a resource. Her techniques are very different from the relaxed teachings of my earlier days. I am more able to see the effects layering will have on my final results. I am able to better see the end effect of layering several colors over one another in my mind since completing these lessons. Much of it is admiring the beautiful and observing "mini lessons" which really do need to be full lessons. I would recommend at least some painting experience for this book.

4 comments about Journal of Delacroix (Arts & Letters).

1. In reading this work it could be said that Delacroix's writing was as insightful as his art. He was not one to hold back his interpretation of the world around him and my empathy towards Delacroix strengthened the deeper I read into his journal entries.
   
   I strongly recommend this book to anyone with a creative spirit; or if you're just curious about getting inside the mind of one France's greatist painters.



2. In order to get something worthwhile out of reading Delacroix's Journals, the reader should know something about Delacroix other than that he was a 19th century painter of the first rank. Ingres found Delacroix's work execrable and cast aspersion upon him by saying that: Delacroix was an apostle of ugliness who had come to 'end' painting as the French and the Europeans in general knew it. Today, Delacroix's work occupies a huge chunk of the Louvre's halls -- outstripping Ingre's portion. The fact that Delacroix in fact did fulfill Ingres' curse/prophecy may say something about the nature of death/life and rebirth/resurrection in art.
   I read this wonderful book over ten years ago and so powerful was the impact of Delacroix's insights into the nature, perception, creational origin, and fate of art that much of it still remain with me. Delacroix in his day was not revered as he is today. He did not have people knocking down his doors to see his work, nor did he always have it easy trying to show it publicly. One day, after a bad review, to console himself, he wrote that (I paraphase) a great work of art in history is like a plank of wood held under water -- it is kept down when the powers-that-be hold it down. But that power ('political agenda' in contempo art-babble) does not last forever and must sooner or later let go of the plank whose nature is to float to the surface for all the world to see. He seem to have had the same intuition about the nature and fuction of art as the Greeks did: that art is light, that which shines of its own, and by which power that which 'sheds lights' and 'explains' what is around it rather than something that needs to be explained.
   He never married but was looked after by a doting housekeeper. Not exactly a recluse, but most certainly a man of breeding descended of a noble stock who was careful about the company he kept, Delacroix spent much time, as artists and thinkers do, with his own thoughts and feelings, and expressing them. He was famous for his cordiality and urbanity, and among his friends in town (Paris) were Chopin, Georges Sand, and other individuals who would leave a mark (or in some cases, a mountain) in the arts one way or another. In other words, Delacroix was an agreeable man and as sociable as any thoughtful man would be but no more. Delacroix's social life is visible in these pages as is the Parisian milieu in which he lived and worked.
   But the really great thing about Delacroix's Journals is that one gets to see something about how a great artist sees and feels things. Although he is over a century removed from us, his work and thoughts serve as a reminder that art is not always about anything socially or politically itchy; that art is just art; and that art is not something one needs to get hysterical about or merely a medium to carry an agenda. The fact that, historically, art was always commissioned by the aristocracy, and executed by those who were aristocratic in feeling and sensibility is one that is largely ignored today. Read this and see the significance of this fact, and why the term democratic art is ultimately an ugly oxymoron. Those who would champion the 'demos' sometimes think too highly of art and the need for "the people"'s participation in it.
   In my humble opinion, if Delacroix were alive today, I think he would have loved Rauschenberg's and Jean-Michel Basquiat's work and their strong democratic origins but he would detest the democratization of art as such as found in Van Gogh umbrellas and calendars so loved by those who "love" art. He wouldn't go to Mozart Festivals either.



3. Critic Roger Kimball called Delacroix's Journal "perhaps the greatest literary testament any painter has left." See Roger Kimball, "Delacroix Reconsidered," The New Criterion, Sept. 1998, p. 10.



4. This journal is a surprisingly accessible account of Delacroix's life. It has been well edited and covers a time frame spanning his early years, then his later life. Within these pages he includes his observations of Paris and the French countryside in the mid-nineteenth century, the people he knew like Chopin and Georges Sand, as well as his passionate reviews of works of art that influenced him. He offers sublime meditations on the nature of creativity and ruminates over ideas he has for new works. His outpourings capture the essence of the romantic movement. As an artist, even though separated from him by over a century, I found him to be a kindred spririt.

No comments about What Great Paintings Say (Taschen 25 Anniversary).

1 comments about Acrylics Workshop II (PRACTICAL ART).

1. This is an up to date book on the latest acrylics painting materials and methods. The first section is called "Starting Points" and deals with materials, working with paint, developing color, groundwork, and essential techniques. Later sections are on "Still Life," "Life and Portrait," "Landscape," and "Contemporary". Each section contains a step-by-step demo of a painting project and there are lots of good tips and techniques to try. I've been working with acrylic paints for many years and I was delighted to find several things new and exciting to try. It's a lot of info packed into a fairly compact book. The size of this book is 10 inches by 7 5/8 inches and 128 pages. But the color photos are clear, bright and plentiful. I recommend this book for beginners to intermediate level painters.

1 comments about Watercolor Mixing Directory.

1. This Directory is by far the best of the books on mixing watercolor paint. It has more basic colors, more mixes than other books I have looked at or have bought. The mixes are very close to the actual paint - and always close enough to know approximately what you will get when mixing two colors together.

No comments about Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, 1874-1904; Sources and Documents. (Sources & Documents in History of Art).