5 comments about The Art of Michael Whelan.

1. "The Art of Michael Whelan" is a great book for art lovers. This book is a enormous and varied collection, divided into Whelan's commercial work of sci-fi and fantasy book covers and his personal paintings, most with a fantasy and nature theme. Additionally, there are interviews with the artist about his materials, methods and history in the field. Every painting is commented on, and the symbolism and story behind each picture adds to the enjoyment of each work, as well as the little preliminary sketches that show different paths the paintings could have taken. If you're a reader of fantasy and sci-fi, like me, you're sure to spot a few favorite books among this selection - Whelan has painted book covers for writers such as Anne McCaffrey, Stephen King, and Tad Williams. The best part of these works is how they can manage to look fantastic and surreal and still make you feel as if you're looking at something that actually exists. Every time I've looked through this book I notice new details. Michael Whelan's other two fantasy collections, "Works of Wonder" and "Wonderworks," are good, but nothing compared to this treasury. I recommend this great book to anyone with an interest in great art and fantasy, you won't be disappointed.



2. This book is truly a work of art!

   The eminently talented Michael Whelan showcases his treasures in this large-size, full-color coffee table book.

   With his superb attention to detail and boundless imagination, MW has created fantastic worlds. Here, he catalogues his numerous book covers (all genres of Science Fiction, and all genres of Fantasy, and other areas), paintings, and assorted works (he paints not just for a living but for his own enjoyment, evident in the many small sketches included throughout the book).

   MW himself describes each piece. He isn't an artist who simply creates a cover when commissioned; he reads the text of the book he will be making a cover for. This is what makes his book cover art so wonderful. In my mind, his cover art for "Catspaw" and "The Snow Queen" are every bit as memorable as the stories they were made for. He details everything minutely: the curling edges of a drying leaf, the dust stain in a fold of clothing, a nick on the blade of a warrior's battle-ax, a snarl in a lock of hair, the markings on a spaceship lifting off from a background launch pad, the clearing sky reflected in a dangling pane of broken glass, the frayed edges of a worn rope attached to a forgotten bell. And that's just the little stuff in the background.

   What sets this book aside from other art books is the fact that this book is made for people who like to LOOK at the art. Nearly half of the pieces featured here are full-page size, with the text/description and sketches, studies, details, alternative concepts on the facing page. Too many art books tend to squeeze pictures into small squares on a page. None of that here. The colors are sharp and vivid. The edges are sharp and crisp. The paper used is heavy glossy paper. There are three chapters (interviews, introduction, technical aspects) printed on heavy parchment-like paper. The book itself is clothbound in matte midnight black, embossed in gold. The publishers spared no expense in making this book.

   And here's something I haven't seen in other art books: the 85+ full page plates are indexed in a back section of the book. Shrunk down to B&W postage-stamp size, you can glance through to quickly find your favorite picture.

   The work represented here covers everything from dragons, winged lions, medieval castles, futuristic alien castles, strange aliens, bustling spaceports, nature settings, warriors of every type, humans and much more. Each picture is worth a thousand words indeed.

   The paper cover/dustjacket features "Passage: The Avatar" (the breathtaking blue ruins) on the front and "The Summer Queen" on the back, both are featured inside the book. This is a plus, as many times the dustjacket art is counted among the represented work.

   Very highly recommended.




3. Michael Whelan's style is gorgeously captured in this state-of-the art book. If you are a fan of Michael Whelan's airbrush art or his private collection, you will find something in this book for you. It includes most of the passages paintings, the more famous covers (even the loathsome fuzzies), and many of Michael Whelan's unpublished work. The latter is what makes the book worth buy - I wish the book contained more of it and less of the cover art. I recommend this book for any fantasy art collector.



4. I have taught Art in High School for 30 years. Micheal's work in this book is absolutely the most creative and detailed I have ever seen. His pictures take into many dreamworlds. You will want to get lost in these paintings. Every inch of Micheal's canvases are detailed with great skill. You won't want to put this book down!



5. ...To look at Michael Whelan's art is to look into a mind so brilliant and vivid that only a hand guided by God could create such pictures... Get this book if you like "actual" scenes from other worlds.

2 comments about Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape.

1. I had been hoping for a comprehensive volume on Durand for years. There are almost always 3 or 4 of his works included in most anthologies of American art of the 19th century and certainly any that focus on the Hudson River School. All acknowledge his importance and I have long admired his majestic forestscapes.
   
   This volume is a comprehensive and historical analysis of his life, art and times. It does disappoint to some degree, due to the inclusion of the numerous portrait paintings of his early career. These are skillful but quite dull in comparison to his landscapes. His brief foray into genre is lackluster as well. This results in a book that really only gains it's raison d' etre at the halfway point. Then it is very enjoyable and gives us what we hoped for; good reproductions of his forest scenes and other landscapes. Like Fredrick Church, he brought a new level of realism and scientific study to the landscape, while still imbuing it with the exalted romanticism that connoted a spiritual essence.
   
   I would have liked more focus on his major works, larger plates or more details and less historical context in this book, but it is still the best existing single source on this important artist.



2. President of the National Academy of Design from 1845 until his death in 1886, Asher Durand had a major influence on American painting in its early, formative years. Durand's influence with his paintings and his writings and work with other can been as second only to Thomas Cole, who was at different times both mentor and competitor to Durand in his long career. Though Cole has the higher reputation, Durand went further in defining the genre of nature painting in this early era, including the Hudson River School, and articulating and exploring its principles, sources, and aims in his writings. A series of nine essays Durand wrote in 1855 for the art journal Crayon: A Journal Devoted to the Graphic Arts, and the Literature Related to Them" are reprinted in the appendix.
   
   One hundred color illustrations of Durand paintings along with more than 80 black-and-white pictures testify to Durand's exceptional touch melding realism and idealism in the nature painting of the first generation of American painters after the United States became an independent nation. "Kindred Spirits," the book's title, is taken from a familiar 1849 Durand painting of the writer William Cullen Bryant and painter Thomas Cole standing on a rock ledge overlooking a valley with a stream running down it. Not only are the two men meant to be seen as kindred spirits representing the brotherly-like love in the new nation, but the two men are meant as well to be seen as kindred spirits with the nature world spreading out around them like an ampitheater. An 1855 painting titled "The First Harvest in the Wilderness" pictures a man working in a field of golden corn or wheat with misty mountains rising around him. In the background is a log cabin with a woman working at something by its doorway. No matter what the subject and scene of a Durand painting, it bathes in an Edenic glow implying being chosen as one of Providence's favorites and boundless promise.
   
   Mostly before he came to the nature painting, Durand did prints, engravings, and drawings too. Forty of these are pictured. "Kindred Spirits" is a full, authoritative study of the life, career, art work, and influence of this leading early-1800's American artist concentrating on his nature paintings.

1 comments about Caravaggio (Library of the Great Masters).

1. CARAVAGGIO showed early signs of the older artist: minimal decoration, such as for his sorrowful "Mary Magdalene" and his Virgin and Child stepping on a snake, and inner moral dialogue, such as reflected on the different faces within "Salome With the Head of the Baptist." Going to the emotional and psychological core worked as well with his "Amor Victorious" mocking single figure as with his complicated compositions: "Beheading of the Baptist," with all the dark-colored or soft-toned parts balanced, John's blood spelling the artist's name, and the viewer typically drawn in, this time by two prison window witnesses; "Death of the Virgin," with the dull colors of deep anguish organized around the expressive center from her hands to her face and enlivened by the overhanging red drape picking up her dress color; "Madonna del Rosario" pyramid of bottom faithful, middle Dominican mediators, and topmost Virgin with Child; and "Seven Acts of Mercy," with figures modeling behaviors around the different concepts. Giorgio Bonsanti's Scala/Riverside published book on this Lord Byron of art gives strong background for comparative reading of Simon Schama's REMBRANDT'S EYES and Arthur K Wheelock's VERMEER. The author indicates that the painter's light- and shadow-painted naturalism and realism with ordinary people and still lifes ended up behind every artistic trend in Europe, as seen by reading Michael Fried's COURBET'S REALISM, Alan Krell's MANET AND THE PAINTERS OF CONTEMPORARY LIFE, James Henry Rubin's COURBET, and Patricia Wright's MANET.

5 comments about Japanese Ink Painting: The Art of Sumi-e.

1. This is one of the best of my 4 sumi-e books. Okamoto creatively covers the basics of ink, brush, and paper. She beautifully describes the primary strokes, how to utilize color and even illustrates the application of sumi-e painting to masterpiece artwork and scenes from every day life. This is an excellent book for a budding sumi-e artist.



2. This book is almost like having a personal instructor. Understandable descriptions of technique throughout.



3. As small children we would make pools of colors on our watercolor paper and then flood them, oh, so briefly with warm water - tipping back & forth, hoping to make a spectacular effect to impress our siblings. Our parents would 'interpret' these and then we, in superior tones, explained their deeper meanings - amateur psychologists we were.
   
   Only one sister has since created "real" art but Naomi Okamoto's book & several other titles (type in "ink paintings") prompt us to channel our impulses in this direction. Just this week a clutch of yellow tulips budding in a hospital room caught my breath, and reminded me of this book and the yellow blooms on page 18: so few strokes captured mood, pristine shape and mindfulness. The back cover implies that this is easy; that I believe is misleading (doubtless the fault of the publisher).
   
   To train oneself to achieve even a fair-to-mediocre copy will bring growing satisfaction. The author is a good teacher; she encourages in 'underwhelming' increments suitable for beginning and/or slow learners. Okamoto also discusses the use of a "chop" - the signature of many sumi-e - and how to design & create your own.
   
   Ink paintings are often a focus point for meditation - the white spaces equate with blocking out extraneous sounds & thoughts; a flower, bird, mountain, etc., might symbolize your Zen Master? The important technique of 'loading' the paintbrush is fully explained. Reviewer mcHaiku is unaccustomed to painting while holding the brush vertical, and a delicate touch is obviously required to achieve a subtle beauty. For someone who may not be painting, these details heighten the appreciation of all that is involved in producing the 'spare' - intriguing - quietly beautiful works of art. Peruse this book often enough and you may find yourself drawn into the circle of "doers."
   
   P.S.: ART is a Universal GIFT, having no national boundaries.



4. I bought this book to go along with a calligraphy and ink set for my niece for Christmas. It seems to be fairly comprehensive - at least for a starter, which she is.



5. 
   Some reviewers carped that sumi-e is Chinese-that the Japanese `stole' it. So the publisher fudged the title. Well, whatever!
   
   The book is good for beginners because I am a beginner. Naomi Okamoto keeps one important aspect of ink painting manageable-the loading of the brush with ink. Getting ink on the brush and then putting the brush to the paper is the most difficult function to learn. She keeps sumi-e from being a chore. Buy the book. Matter of fact purchase a number of different books because each artist has his own way of approaching the same subject.

No comments about A Home: Paintings from a Bygone Age.

2 comments about Chinese Brush Painting Animals Kit (Walter Foster Painting Kits).

1. This Kit helped me get started in chinese animal brush painting. It offers clear directions. The brushes are not the best quality, but using your own brushes is just fine. My 13 year old nephew also enjoyed following the directions in painting a tiger.



2. Great kit. I bought it and Chinese brush painting. My kids and I are doing some art together, and these kits were just what we needed. All you need to add is some newsprint to practice on. A wonderful introduction. If you really get involved, you would want to move on to some advanced texts, but for someone just starting out, I highly recommend these.

2 comments about My Art, My Life: An Autobiography.

1. This book is a mixture of fact and fantasy, the real real and imagined world as conjured by the mind of Diego Rivera as told to Gladys March. The invention of facts, the fabrication of the bits of truth to create a colorful story are the result of a newspaper interview that flourished into a series of interviews over many years. Beginning in 1944 and continuing until his death in 1957 Gladys March spent several months each year collecting over 2000 pages of notes that eventually formed the basis of this book. As another customer reviewer stated this is not the place to start when you reading about the life of Rivera since the lines between fact and fiction are blurred at best. A more accurate picture can be found in "dreaming With His Eyes Open" by Patrick Marnham. If you have a foundation in the life and times of one of the great Mexican artists than this book reflects a colorful and imaginative mind. The brillance of his art aside Diego reveals himself and makes no excuses for the parts of his pesonality that are less than desireable. He talks about his experiment in cannanbilsm, witchcraft, his blaphemous treatment of religion and the church, the communist party, his relationships with world leaders, artists and women, his advetures in Europe, the United States and Mexico, his troubles and ills , including his bout with cancer of the penis and in general the things that made his life as large as his physical presence. A very entertaining book that is easy to read because each small chapter deals with an extensive period of his life. All in all this is a good book to compliment other books on Rivera to get an even more accurate but distorted view of his brilliance. Included are several pictures and paintings from throughout his life. The man , the myth and the artist are here for you to decipher the truth and paint your own picture.



2. If you have not yet read anything about the life of Diego Rivera, don't start with this book. While Rivera's re-imagining of his life is riveting, it is merely one more tall tale. Rivera is known for many talents, however, sticking to the truth is not one of them.

   If you already have a solid background in the artists life, then by all means read this book to get a sharper insight into his mental inner-workings!

No comments about Rethinking Acrylic: Radical Solutions For Exploiting The World's Most Versatile Medium.

1 comments about The Art of John Yardley.

1. Ron Ranson has succeeded in writing yet another excellent book about an artist that he knows personally and admires. An introductory chapter details the artist's attempts to find his unique style and his final decision to give up a life long career as a banker to become a professional artist. The book is lavishly illustrated with full-page paintings and is a worthy precedent to the highly successful book written by John himself a few years later. The book is a "must buy" for any admirer of impressionistic painting.

2 comments about Wildlife Painting Step By Step.

1. This is a beautiful book but not a lot of help if you're learning. It's more for an accomplished artist who would like to fine tune their craft. If I had seen the book before I bought it, I definetly would have saved my money.



2. This is a fabulous instructional book for artists and art lovers alike, specializing in wildlife of all sorts! Lavishly illustrated (both in color and B&W), this book is a rich sourcebook for sketching and or painting a wide variety of wildlife. Consisting of 6 chapters: Choosing a Subject, Collecting Reference Material, Painting Realistic Habitat, Posing and Composing, Techniques for Painting Textures, and Painting Wildlife Step-by-Step, this book contains 136 pgs. Some of the animals featured in this book are foxes, deer, wolves, cougars, wild turkeys, elk, raccoons, chickadees, woodpeckers, robins, grouse, dolphins, whales, and other aquatic life. I love the range of art techniques Patrick Seslar covers in this presentation, making it possible for the artist to "grow" and still benefit from the lessons contained therein.