Art

Two More Art Books

I impulsed picked The Modern Flower Painter because it was pretty and I love watercolors. The book is super pretty and super detailed and if you want to learn how to paint flowers, this is your book.

Drawing and Painting Beautiful Faces is fabulous if you want to improve your ability to draw and paint faces. Duh. Jane Davenport is fabulous, really. Great book (which explains why it’s constantly out of stock.)

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2 Non-Fiction Books

Explore Mixed Media Collage was pretty good. The projects themselves weren’t really my style and none of the techniques were new to me — but, it was a pretty book and there were bits and pieces of projects that I really liked and will probably end up doing myself, at some point.

Then, Leonard Nimoy died and TW said RESERVE ALL THE BOOKS so I reserved all the books available in my library system. Turns out the books she wanted weren’t in our library system so, poop. I’ve already seen a zillion images from The Full Body Project but figured what the heck — I have the book. Nimoy died. I’ll read it. And it was ok. I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it. I’m not sorry I read it.

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Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them

I grabbed Pen & Ink from the new arrivals shelf just as an impulse pick — because I knew RJ would be at our house and I thought she might be interested in it. I think she read it. I’m not sure. But I very much loved it. The stories behind the tattoos were fabulous. Really good stuff (and a quick read, which was important after some very long work days.)

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Handmade Nation

I have no idea why Handmade Nation was on the new arrivals shelf at the library. It’s old, old, old, old. But there you have it. It was there. I was amused. I checked it out.

I was even more amused when I started reading it. Everyone was so young! All of those sites were so new! Things have really grown and changed!

I kept stopping to see if featured artists/crafters/makers were still doing the type of work that was featured in the book, (sometimes yes, sometimes no.)

I found myself watching old Craft Lab videos with Jennifer Perkins and giggling like crazy.

I enjoyed the stroll down memory lane. 😉

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Three Non-Fiction Art Books

I’m so bad at reading over the holidays so I made sure to have some easy flip through art books on hand and I’m extra glad I did because I was feeling a little reading withdrawal by the time Christmas was over but family was still here to hang out with.

The one I loved, loved, loved was The Art of Whimsical Lettering. Have you noticed I generally like any books about lettering? I’ve noticed. I’m taking that as a sign that I should spend more time playing with lettering in 2015.

Next was Mixed-Media Self Portraits and it was interesting. I liked it. I might check it out again in a few months and try some of the projects.

Least favorite, Wise Craft. It’s divided into seasons and I found maybe one project for each season that I was interested in. The rest was pretty ho-hum. I did really love her zombie Barbies. JMP and I will do this some day.

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A Couple of Sketchbooks for Doodlers

20 Ways to Draw a Cat and 44 Other Awesome Animals and 20 Ways to Draw a Tree and 44 Other Nifty Things From Nature are fun books. I just wish I’d had more time to play with them before they had to go back to the library. The whole series looks pretty cool. I might have to check one out every month and really make myself take time to doodle. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?

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4 Art/Craft Books from #readathon 2014

Let’s see… in the order in which I read them:

Washi Tape: 101 Ideas… If you’ve never really hear of Washi Tape, used Washi Tape, seen Pinterest ideas for Washi Tape, or have very little imagination — this is the book for you. Super basic, nothing new. Pretty photos, though.

Washi Wonderful is a much better choice for those who have used Washi in the past and want some new ideas or newish ideas that further trigger your imagination.

Just Paint It was a nice book — lots of ideas to try and great photos. I’d be tempted to buy this one…

Making Handmade Marks was disappointing. I didn’t love the tool ideas and I loved the actual pages done with the tool ideas even less. Nothing really inspired me and that’s unusual.

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Steal Like an Artist

I’m on an e-Book roll! I have no idea how long Steal Like An Artist has been in my Kindle cloud but it was a fun read during the five and ten minute breaks I took from cleaning my house today.

Super fast read. Nothing really groundbreaking or revolutionary. I did smile a lot about the calendar/log book section — I’ve gone back to paper journaling and filofaxing for all of those reasons.

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