Painting-the

Another great Heartwarming Expressions book. I have neglected my housework much to the dismay of my family because of these wonderful books.
They are ideal if you are stuck for ideas for a craft project. As soon as I pick these books up, I instantly start thinking of all the things I can make ... and magically I forget about my housework. :0)

A great series of books and I am so happy that I finally have them all, I wouldn't trade them for anything or to anyone.

C.

I am so glad that the creators decided to go beyond Book 1 with this series! I love Book 2 just as much as the first one. You can copy graphics and sayings right from the book (the owners thankfully give you permission to do so for personal use) or you can trace them using a light box onto your scrapbook page itself. Or just use this book as a reference for ideas for titles and sayings for your scrapbooking. A great booster for journaling ideas. There are also full border pages to copy and use as backgrounds, stationary or pre-designed layout pages. Book 2 is organized into different topics like "Life's Like that", "Critters", "Occupations", "Funny Bone Ticklers" (my personal favorite) and more. I love the list of ideas at the front of each of these books about "99 places to put expressions" because as a scrapbooker I am always on the lookout for great sayings and would love to use them in other places as well. (...)

It's always nice to be able to add a little personality to your crafts and this book will help you to do that. It's easy to adapt to your skill-level: you can trace, enlarge/copy, or freehand draw any of the designs presented to use on just about any type of craft that you can think of. Of course, the primary thought would be for scrapbooking, but inside the front cover, the author lists 99 places that you could potentially use these sayings and clipart. In fact, included are a few projects for flower pots and a cross-stitching guide for five alphabets. If you're motivated enough, you can enlarge some of the art and use them for paper-piecing in your scrapbooks. Some topics: babies, country, school, Christmas, pets, and fishing/golf...and there are many more!

This is the book I use the most. I love it and it even gives you 99 fun places to use the expressions in the book.
With all these books you are only limited by your imagination.

Another must have from Sandy.

C.

I really like all of the books in this series from Crafty Secrets. This was the first book and it is a great addition to the Scrapbooker's Reference Set! The books say that they have expressions for "crafting, painting, stitching and scrapbooking" and while I can see how they would be great for all these uses and more, they are PERFECT as a resource for scrapbookers! You can copy graphics and sayings right from the book (the owners thankfully give you permission to do so for personal use) or you can trace them using a light box onto your scrapbook page itself. Or just use this book as a reference for ideas for titles and sayings for your scrapbooking. A great booster for journaling ideas. There are also full border pages to copy and use as backgrounds, stationary or pre-designed layout pages. The book is organized into different topics like "Angels", "Love", "Sports", "Housework Stinks" (my personal favorite) and more. I especially like that the book includes tips for using pens & markers to develop a personal writing style and tips for lettering. This seems to be one of the areas that scares scrapbookers the most! (...)

This book was only the beginning to a wonderful "Heartwarming Expressions" series! As an avid scrapbooker I am always in need of a quick, catchy title or saying for a page. This book is so easy to use with the themes grouped together that I don't have to spend much time "thinking" about it! Not to mention the many lettering ideas and adorable images that you can either recreate yourself or photocopy to make things even easier! Great addition to your Scrapbook, Idea book Library!! What more can I say?!

The Strand Book Stall at Bangalore was having its yearly sale in DEC.2003. I was out there browsing when I ran into this gorgeous elephant on the cover of this book. I get this feeling about books and knew I had to buy this one - it reminded me of the book by Ernest Thompson Seton that I read way back in 1986. It set me back by INR 1,615, but what the heck; the "Lions of the Serengeti" on pp. 12-13 itself recovered the cost of the "investment"!

The more I go through this book, the more I am amazed. Somehow, Kim Donaldson has come out with a masterpiece on Nature in Africa in all its glory and has been able to capture the many animals and their many moods in their natural habitat in a style that makes you feel that you have "walked the walk and experienced the silence" of Africa. Here's Kim's idea of a painting: "The way I decide the worth of a painting of Africa is by the feeling it evokes - whether it makes me homesick."

There are real gems right through the book. Tucked away at the top of the painting titled Grevy's zebra on pp. 154-155 is this African song of praise to the zebra:
~~~~~
You, who are night & day in one body
You, who are dark & light in one form
You, who are good & evil in one shape
Animal of two colors, animal of perfect harmony.
~~~~~

I browse this book at the junction points of a day: dawn and dusk. It reminds me of Sri Ramakrishna's observation that Nature is a majestic expression of divinity. It also reminded me of a particular verse in the Bhagavad Gita. So I hunted for the same in the copy of the Bhagavad Gita that I have, which is a translation by Barbara Stoler Miller (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553213652/104-8977925-4483157).

After some searching, I found the verse:
~~~~~
Deluded men despise me
in the human form I have assumed,
ignorant of my higher existence
as the great lord of creatures.
~~~~~

Imagine my shock when I noticed that the number of the verse was 9.11 (Chapter 9, Verse 11)!

Africa: An Artist's Journal comes from Kim Donaldson, a renowned wildlife artist who grew up in Zimbabwe on a ranch. His lifelong passion for capturing wildlife in art lends to a journal that covers the wildlife, culture, and history of Africa as a whole. A highly recommended pick for any interested in wildlife art.

This book is for anyone who loves Africa, wildlife and or artwork. It has pages and excerpts from his field sketchbooks, drawings, sketches and paintings. The artwork is exquisite. What makes it a must have is that you also get a well written brief history/description of the countries, the national parks, animals and people residing in each region interposed with Kim Donalson's personal experiences. It makes you feel like you have been there.

Nice for studies and examples of others work but value is underpriced. One must consider the value to the person collecting the china.

A must-have for collectors and antique dealers alike. This book details the history, production, and decoration of American handpainted porcelain, all with beautiful photographs and helpful illustrations. A key component is the identification and valuation of handpainted items.

Even though I had been collecting since 1984 I discovered how much there is to know about the subject. Full of history, insights, examples and references, plus beautiful format and photograpy.

There are two things about this book I think make it a great book for any watercolorist's library. One is the sheer variety of paintings shown and the other is the numerous 'assignments' at the end of each chapter.

As another reviewer stated this book does not show you only one or a few artist's techniques. Rather it covers a broad range of techniques, art styles and artists and shows a diverse array of watercolor paintings. Everything from traditional representational paintings to contemporary and experimental works are shown. And all are used to illustrate that chapter's main point that they appear in. Works from famous artists to current living ones are displayed.

Each chapter ends with exercises designed to let you practice principles, techniques or styles the preceding pages discussed. Now some people don't like or need such 'assignments'. But other people, like me, enjoy them as a challenge and as a way to see that they've not only read the chapter but can practice till they've learned it. If you don't care for such things it's easy to skip over them. But I actually found some of these projects fun to do.

I have a sketchbook of watercolor paper that I use strictly for trying out projects from my various watercolor or other painting books. It is separate from my other sketchbooks or paintings and its sole purpose is strictly to practice, even copy, the demo projects and assignments. Even the greatest art masters learned first by copying the masters before them. There is so much to learn from this book. Not only how to paint in watercolor but also some art history as well. Definitely a recommended buy.

This is one of the best books on watercolor I have read and I have read a bunch. Many watercolor books give demonstrations and descriptions of a limited range of techniques used by that particular author. The authors' focus is primarily on showing you how they painted particular sample paintings. You learn, but mostly how to paint the sample paintings and a little about the author's technique but not much else.

Mr. Le Clair provides the kind of instruction I would expect from a college watercolor class. He covers much more than just the basics but, nevertheless, the book could well serve as an introduction to watercolor. If I had to choose one instructional watercolor book this would be it. The second book I would choose is "The Watorcolorist's Essential Notebook" by Gordon MacKenzie, but it needs to be supplemented with a more basic book.

Perhaps the strongest effort I have read to date for instruction on watercolor technique.(David Dewey's book is also outstanding!) This book is for the advanced watercolorist, as well as the intermediate student. It offers art history, studies in color, tips on still life, specialty items such as how to flatten a buckled paper, and more! Although I have been a watercolorist for many years, Le Clair has brought new insight into working with and teaching the medium.

I've never airbrushed before I got this book, but I feel like I have a head-start after reading it. It explains things very well, like the may types of automotive paint, and demonstrates the use of stencils and freehand sheilds. He even has a computer that he can make designs with! I always thought everything was done freehand. He also explains and demonstrates how to highlight and very effective use of shading and shadows. He even shows how to do a carbon fiber effect. Very cool! I highly recommend this book. Thanks!

This book is one of the best. It motivates a person to paint-paint-paint. This book has great tips, illustrations, directions and good common-sense.

This is one of the best books of it's kind! I absolutely love this book! I've been a fan of Craig Fraser and Jon Kosmoski for years, and they(mostly Craig) have done a wonderful job compiling information and demonstrating various techniques in the field of automotive airbrushing. Though focused mainly on the automotive genre, these techniques can be used in any field of airbrushing!! Craig is one of a kind, and he has been a tremendous mentor to many, and a terrific teacher to "airheads" everywhere. For the price of the book, you will get priceless information! It's well written, informative, and loaded with the coolest tips and tricks!!!

This is my first Norman Rockwell artbook, and wow... after years of his inspiration I have to say this book gives one of the best Rockwell prints you can get out there.
The pages are printed on excellent glossy photo paper, and the images are all vibrating. Some paintings are revised in photography, so you don't get the same old yellowish rusty image from the 1970s reference.
If you simply is a Norman Rockwell fan or know someone who is a painter... I would say this book is the best there is. it contains a section of sketches - portraits, painting sketch, brainstorm ideas...etc. And the chapters are separated according to his years of career, from the early 1920s to the late 1960s...

I had hankered after a good book on Norman Rockwell for years. I think out of all the books available on the artist Norman Rockwell this has to be one of the very best. While other books have gone for quantity rather than quality, using plenty of black and white pictures to fill them out, this one has quality and colour with many of MY favourite pictures whilst also showing plenty of black and white preliminary sketches. It is wonderful. And the speedy delivery from Amazon has fulfilled a big gap in my "library".

The first time I heard about Rockwell was from a French Popular Song. Since then, I was dying to discover his world and I found this book. It was a lovely one just made for me. If I have to criticize the book, well, I would say it lacked a little bit of <> of themes presented, and hoped there were more of his works.. Anyway, I would say it was terribly interesting.

I purchased this book as a gift for my father in law, an artist and it was very well recieved. I did not get to peruse it at my leisure becaue it was wrapped in plastic, but once I did I regretted not buying a copy for myself.

This small scale (though weighty) tome is a compact , wide-ranging survey of Western art in the most personal of terms - self portraits of artists both well known and obscure. The brief essay by Julian Bell sets the overture tone for this enlightening stroll through art history from 2350 BC to 1997 AD. And though we know well the self portraits of Rembrandt, Durer, van Gogh, Andy Warhol, and Cindy Sherman, it is a pleasure to explore the vast frescoes of the Middle Ages and the commissioned paintings of the Renaissance and find subtle artist self portraits in the crowd scenes! Another aspect of this important survey is the inclusion of women painters from history and recent past/present. We all know the stature of Artemisia Gentileschi, but who has had the pleasure of viewing Judith Leyster, Sofonisba Anguissola, Catharina van Hemessen, Elisabeth- Louise Vigee-Lebrun in context with Goya, Velasquez, Carravagio, Whistler, Ingre, Freud, Bacon, Saville, etc.? The reproductions are rich, intimate, often enhanced by well-cropped details if the painter's image is one face in a huge canvas. How better to take quietly study art development, technique, subject matter, social commentary than to slowly page though this engrossing collections of artists as they viewed themselves. Buy this book, before it goes out of print!

This is a simple book but very satisfying. There is very little text. The 6 page Introduction by Julian Bell is the only narrative but it is a wonderful introduction to the subject of self-portraiture in western art. Each picture has a brief caption that lists the artist, her/his birth and death dates, title and date, a brief description of materials and size, and the location of the original. The portraits are arranged in the book in rough chronological order. At the end of the book is an index by artist and a list of acknowledgements.

Each page consists of one self portrait as large as the page will allow with its caption description. One of the drawbacks to the book is that it is only 4.5" x 7", and the reproductions are small as a result. A larger format would have allowed for larger prints but would have cost more to produce.

Sadly, the work limits itself primarily to western art and I was left wondering about the role of self portraiture in African and Asian art. Outside minor limitations of physical size and scope of coverage, the book is exquisite candy to the eye and mind.

By century, the works break down as follows: 24th c. B.C.E. - 1; 9th c. - 1; 11th c. - 1; 12th c. - 1, 14th c. - 4; 15th c. - 35; 16th c. - 57; 17th c. - 78; 18th c. - 57; 19th c. - 89; 20th c. - 193. The compilers put all of an artists self portraits side by side. There are 10 Rembrandts, 4 Van Goghs, and 4 Picassos. There are also 45 self portraits by women.

Geographically, the artists are from 36 countries. 26 of these countries are in Europe, 4 are in the Western Hemisphere, 3 countries are in the Middle East, 2 are in Africa and one in Asia. The index in the back of the book lists the countries the artists were born in or worked in, as well as their occupations and specialties. The countries represented are Armenia, Austria, Belorussia, Bohemia, Britain, Canada, Cuba, Egypt, Finland, Flemish Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Moravia, The Netherlands, North Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, South Africa, South Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine.

I would have liked to have read this book with an encyclopedia of artists at hand. This is a valuable addition to any art library. Highly recommended.

I especially appreciate the format of ANDREW WYETH. Examples of Wyeth's work are arranged chronologically throughout the book accompanied by comments in a conversational style by the artist about each individual painting. Much of the commentary is about those special places which the artist loves in both Pennsylvania and Maine as well as about his friends, neighbors and members of the Wyeth clan. The separate chronologies of Wyeth's personal life and his exhibitions are extremely helpful. I recommend this book to admirers of the artist and also to those who are just becoming acquainted with Wyeth. He is truly an American legend.

This is a book that will give any Wyeth fan pleasure. When I finally got a copy, it was wish fullfillment. To see 138 of the artist's works with his own comments is a great pleasure. And some of the comments are quite provocative! The prints are top quality and follow the artist's career chronologically. The book also includes a personal chronology of Andrew Wyeth's life, as well as exibitions and a bibliography for those who want to know more. Definitely a keeper!

I got this book from my old boyfriend for Christmas one year. We used to sit in Borders every day after school and drool over the beautifully drab New England paintings this Wyeth boy created. Thus started my fascination with Andy, now my favorite artist. This book is not only chock-full of his paintings; it includes a paragraph or two for each painting from the artist himself, letting you peep into Wyeth's mind and understand every aspect of his paintings -- and his life. In it Wyeth explains the Helga and Christina (from "Christina's World") series, as well as some of his personal and childhood experiences. An all-around great book, and if you want to learn more about him be sure to check out Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life by Richard Meryman as well.

Infamy, death, darkness, desire, self loathing, knowledge, art, and most importantly, words. An astounding book with all the elements of life. Wuthering Hieghts was my identifying novel at sixteen. This is the mascot for the mid-twenties. Perhaps at thirty I'll look back recognizing my silliness??

This is the 4th work by Mr. John Banville that I have read, and I am nearly finished with his fifth. There is much that is factual about this writer, amongst these would be, his intellect, his range as a writer, and the competency he writes with while ranging through very different subject matter and material. As others have noted he is adept with metaphor. I feel his talent is not that he uses the device so frequently, but does so with such a subtle touch, it is more akin to absorbing his thoughts, as opposed to checking them off, or making a list.

This is easily the most difficult of his works that I have been through. This is not because he is vague, or style overrides substance. He is clear in what he says; placing it all into proper context and order is another matter. I do not suggest this book is an exercise in chaos. I do feel it is a reading experience that is in fact as far from definitive as the book jacket suggests it to be. Another reader has suggested that prior to reading this book that, "Ghosts", and "Book Of Evidence", should be read first. I am sufficiently unsure that I came away from the book with the Author's entire message, so if you can read the other two first, it may help.

Primarily written in the first person in the voice of, "Morrow", a new name to distance himself from a past, allows the reader to listen in as he recounts his period of time with, "A". At times we witness events in the present, but more frequently we are told of what has already taken place, what decisions were made and why. Just the explanation of how Morrow arrived at his new name will either bore you, or entice you into Mr. Banville's narrative style. For Morrow nearly everything is the result of, or likened to another, be it an event, a person, a name, or a moment in time. The relationships he devises are indicative not of a man who was an unsuccessful felon, but more of a mind bordering on that of an Oxford Don.

Regardless of how well educated our narrator is, he is also willing to engage in a relationship with "A" that evolves into what some may compare to Nabokov, although this time age is not the issue. And then there are the balance of the cast all that are creatures that might be termed, "Banvillian", just as Marley and Drood are classified Dickensian. Dickens players had their kinks just as Banville's do, although Banville's are closer to seriously bent than kinked.

The plot line that is sketched on the jacket of our Morrow and some paintings of dubious status together with a mention of "A" does not begin to explore the depths of this work. As has been the case with all the books I have read, his writing is so well constructed, his characters so well detailed, that even if the surface storyline is as far as you choose to go, you will be rewarded. However, to do so would cheat you, of all that is there to be interpreted, and all that is almost there, or almost definitively referred to.

This Author's more existential work may be more of an acquired taste, than, "Doctor Copernicus", or, "Kepler". In any event any reader who enjoys talented writing will find time well used that is spent with Mr. Banville's work.

Banville writes exquisitely. Athena should be read slowly, like a fine meal. Interested readers might be advised to read his Book of Evidence, then Ghosts, before turning to this one.