Illustration Books

This book is great for older youngsters, but my 5 year old love it. The pictures are beautiful too. Very informative

The One Small Square series is wonderful: the concept is that you take a hypothetical square foot of an environment- woods, seashore, arctic tundra, rainforest, etc.- and explore it at all levels, from underground to the sky. Each book is extensively illustrated with all of the inter-connected layers of life- from fungus to megafauna- in the Square. On the margin of most of the 2-page spreads are activities that you can do, no matter where you live. Food chains, life cycles & seasons are explored, and the back section has an identification guide to all of the life forms presented in the book.

We took One Small Square: Tropical Rain Forest with us on a trip to the Brazilian rainforest with our 5 & 7 year olds. The book was great- for the grown ups & the kids! We used it as a guide to identify many of the animals & plants we saw, as background to help the girls understand what they were going to see, as reading on the long trips up the river. We did many of the activities- some before, some during, and some after the trip. Our guide was so impressed with it that he ordered a copy for himself, saying that it was hard to find something with so much information that was both accurate and interesting to people at many different levels of knowledge. Highly recommended!

This little book reviews many covers of major US magazines from July 1942 which carried the US flag celebrating the first Independence Day after Pearl Harbor. The patriotism of that wartime era is eerily reminiscent of the wave of patriotism reaching across our Nation after 11 September. I would hope that in July 2002 we will see a similar expression of national unity. God bless America!

After the attack on Pear Harbor, Paul MacNamara, a PR man for Hearst magazines, had a clever idea. On July four of 1942 why not get the Nation's major magazines and comics to show their patriotism (and sell more copies) by printing Old Glory on their covers. Nearly three hundred titles joined in and just over a hundred of them are shown in this lovely book.

The covers are from the author's collection and it is a pity that there are not more shown. Considering that most of the covers show a flag flying in the wind it is interesting to see how the magazine's designers handled the cover layout, some titles (Modern Industry page 86) used a flat design flag and still produced an eye-catching cover.

I would not normally mention cutting up a book but many of the covers that have a dominant flag look so nice that they would really look good mounted on a colored background and framed. They are mostly four by five inches. Maybe something to do for this years July four!

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

This book focuses primarily on technique and on step-by-step methods of shading and colouring with markers, and opaque white paint. It's very well done, and very well illustrated. It also has step-by-step instructions on figure and fashion drawing, and has many interesting tidbits for a designer, and is a perfect resource for the fashion illustrator.

as a student in fashion design, I found this book to be an amazing resource. The detailed instruction is very helpful, and the step-by-step figure drawing guide is perfect for even the beginner. With a little practice, anyone can become a skilled fashion illustrator!

If you're a fan of Masashi Kishimoto's artwork or just Naruto in general, you need this! I just received mine today and it's incredible. All of the familiar characters are present in these lively, marker illustrations that any fan of Naruto is sure to enjoy.

Uzumaki is a Japanese art book that contains many color illustrations of Masashi Kishimoto's hit series Naruto (currently being translated by Viz).

The art is beautiful. The majority of the book contains only color drawings and illustrations (that's why it's an art book). If you aren't familiar with the series or have only read Viz's translation, some characters and illustrations will be unfamiliar. (In Japan, they're up to chapter 277) All the art is from the manga, however. No anime sketches or stills are present.
The paper is high-quality. Naruto is my favorite series so it is natural that I enjoy this book. The colors are great and the the artwork is truly magnificent. It also contains a fold-out poster. The other portion of the book has a follow through of the creation of the cover drawing that shows Naruto and the 4th Hokage's Rasengan. The rest has an interview and comments on the drawings. NOTE THAT IT IS ALL IN JAPANESE.

If you are a fan of the series, I would recommend this books purchase. It's a reasonably good price and is good quality. If you're new to Kishimoto's masterpiece, I'd start with Naruto Vol. 1.

15 years before this book appeared, the author, born in Austria but converted to a love of Victorian architecture upon his arrival in the US, produced "The Gingerbread Age," the first popular volume that dared to express admiration for a period in building then considered the nadir of the art. In his Foreword to this work he talks of the "torrent of fan mail" that followed. It's not saying too much to maintain that his work was responsible for the eventual revival in Victorian architecture which began with the hippies creating Painted Ladies in '70's San Francisco and swept the nation in the mid-'80's. Having established the true quality of post-Greek-Revival, pre-World-War-I houses, he turns here to a deeper analysis and description of the different major styles--Gothic, Italianate, octagons, Mansards, Queen Anne, Richardson Romanesque. Lavishly illustrated with bw photographs, floor plans, and reproductions of period pictures, its text written in everyday language with little specialized jargon, and provided with a large appendix listing where to view existing Victorians and a sound list of books to go on to, the book concentrates chiefly on exteriors, though some views of notable rooms are included. If you're looking for good basic overviews of domestic building of the era, Maass's two books are indispensable to your collection. As a social historian, I consult them often.

Over two hundred black and white illustrations blends an architectural survey with a history of Victorian times from 1840-1900, examining the many styles of town and country homes of the times and describing both interiors and exteriors. The Victorian Home In America presents fascinating architectural coverage.

The Visconti Hours, one of the most luxurious and unusual Italian Books of Hours from around 1400, is magnificently reproduced in this facimile edition. The introductory text begins with an excellent summary of the political and social context of the book's production for Giangaleazzo Visconti, its noble owner. It continues with a discussion of the book's structure, iconography, and painting techniques, and includes short biographies of the two artists.

The plates themselves are of particularly high quality, sharp, clear, and brilliant, with gold stamping. The commentaries are informative.

All in all, this book is a must-have for any serious student of medieval illumination, as well as for the simple pleasure of enjoying its outstanding beauty.

The Visconti Hours dates was painted in Italy for the Visconti family of Florence in the early 1400's. This book reproduces the illuminated carpet pages from this manuscript along with an introduction to the history of the book and commenty on individual plates. The plates themselves are very colourful and striking filled with vivid pinks, purples and greens. There were two main artists who produced this book and their work is quite distinctive giving the second half of the book quite a different flavour from the first half.

My main complaints about this reproduction is that the gold ink that has been used to recreate the effect of gold leaf in the original book has somewhat obscured some of the detail in the facsimile plates, and that some of the edges of the pages appear to have been chopped off to forced into the current book size which gives the impression of the illuminations spilling off the page or amputated in some cases.

However, these quibbles aside, this is a striking manuscript, well worthy of reproduction and every time you look at you are astonished at the brightness of the plates and the colours the artists selected. They are very different from the books produced in France and England during the same period. This book, in hardback, with a slipcase, is recommended to anybody who enjoys the striking beauty of medieval illuminated manuscripts.

I have had the opportunity to look at most of Luis Royo's books, and this is my favorite. If I had to give away all of my Royo books but one, this would be the one I keep.

Now don't get me wrong, there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with any of his other books--some are stronger than others but I really don't think there is a weak one out there. This is my favorite primarily because I think the artwork is some of his best. The girls are prettier, their curves are rounder, the colors are richer, and the background hazes are more mysterious. The other main reason I like this book so much is that many of the finished pieces are accompanied by the concept sketches that preceded them. It's a great mix of painting, drawing, and even narrative that all come together to bring a Royo fantasy to life.

Royo's figures are amazing to me--with a few strokes of a pen and a thin wash with a brush, he creates a beautiful figure, and voila--his piece is done. None of his figures are overworked--they all remain fresh. It's hard to find an artist who can scratch out a figure with so few lines, but it makes for a beautiful rendering, and Royo does it well.

If you're shopping for your first Royo book, this would be a great choice. If you're adding to your library, oh yeah--you need this collection. Enjoy.

This is one of the best Royo books. It is a good mixture of everything: sketches (both plain and colored) and finished paintings; futuristic sci-fi and ancient to medieval fantasy; unhappy/worried characters and powerful/confident ones; dark/mysterious pictures and bright pictures; fully clothed and mostly nude; cover arts and independent art; men and women. Still, the works don't get as dark as, say, III Millennium. But it shows much of what Royo is capable of and I recommend it.

Anything by Clive Barker is worth having. This calendar can be displayed anywhere in the house and will definitely provoke comments.

From the mind of Clive Barker to your home... a little rare piece of Clive to brighten your walls for 16 months. Whether or not you are a fan of his art this is a remarkable collection with a choice of two different covers. I had a hard time choosing! The creatures and humans (?) depicted are beyond anything my own imagination could conjure. I look forward to being inspired by these paintings - and for over a year! - in my own art. I just hope they don't affect my dreams...

This fine addition to the Disney Sketchbook series has many of the wonderful sketches done by Disney's animation department for Lady and the Tramp, including many pieces from the storyboards, and several sketches of scenes that never made it into the final film.

Artists that would like to study the Disney style of drawing and animation should find this volume a terrific addition to their collection despite its rather high price. As a student of art, and a fan of the Disney style, I highly recommend any of these books for your library.

The Lady & the Tramp sketchbook is just a beautiful book to add to any Disney fan's collection. This book is HUGE and it is full of wonderful sketches of all of the characters (even minor ones) and full color photos from the movie. This is an excellent book for anyone who loves Disney animation.

I first fell in love with the art of Wendell Minor while I was reading books by the children's nature writer Jean Craighead George. Spectacular watercolor art added a new dimension to Ms. George's stories about the Arctic (like ARCTIC SON and SNOW BEAR), the Everglades (EVERGLADES), great horned owls (THE MOON OF THE OWLS), and wildlife throughout the country (MORNING, NOON, AND NIGHT). In each new book that I read, the colors were rich and the illustrations accurately portrayed the worlds which the author was describing. Then, as I came to recognize Minor's distinct, one-of-a-kind type of art, his work suddenly began to show up everywhere, in innumberable picture books and emblazoned on book covers. Now many of the book jackets in the bookstores and libraries don't seem as if they're scattered around in disorginization, out of view because the spines are facing outward on the shelves, or hard to find because the book might have gone out-of-print. That's because, to my relief and delight, there's a whole book of Wendell Minor's book jackets that have been compiled over the past twenty-five years. ART FOR THE WRITTEN WORD contains more than 100 of Minor's astounding watercolor, acrylic, and oil paintings. His distinguished work has appeared on a wide range of novels--fiction, nonfiction, biographies, thrillers, humor, cookbooks, natural history--many of them well-known stories by some bestselling authors. The artwork is reproduced in full-color on the oversized pages. There are pictures of famous people, houses, landscapes, wildlife, midwestern farms, towns, cities, wide open skies, automobiles, and scenes from the stories behind the covers. All of them are carefully rendered, detailed and thoughtful. You can look at a painting many times and each time notice something new. Along with the gallery of artwork, there's plenty of commentary from the people who wrote the stories that lie between the covers. Most of the authors' comments are filled with admiration and gratitude that the literature they spent so much time creating wasn't marred by an ugly or false jacket illustration. Some of the authors whose book covers are featured include David McCullough (who writes an excellent introduction), Ray Bradbury, Harper Lee, Garrison Keillor, Sherman Alexie, Mildred D. Taylor, Eve Bunting, Mary Higgins Clark, Pat Conroy, Toni Morrison, Patricia MacLachlan, Martin Cruz Smith, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, and countless others. They all basically agree that they were proud and thankful that Wendell Minor did the covers for their books; he read the stories and researched his topics before making the illustrations and contributed to the success of their books. Many of them have added his jacket art to their private collections, sworn never to discard a Wendell Minor book jacket, and shown off their "most prized possessions" to friends and family. Some comments are just gushing with elation, like two letters, placed 17 years apart, from John Jerome, who was obviously delighted that Minor so accurately depicted the blue pick-up truck for his book TRUCK. Garrison Keillor lends his kind of "Prairie Home Companion" lightness to his story of the covers for his books WE ARE STILL MARRIED and WLT: A RADIO ROMANCE. Some illustrations--like the ones for Nancy Price's SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY and C.J. Koch's THE DOUBLEMAN--seem to have almost subliminal meanings. WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN? and Brooks Stanwood's THE SEVENTH CHILD are quite frightening, while W.P. Kinsella's THE DIXON CORNBELT LEAGUE and Bill Bryson's THE LOST CONTINENT are breezy and pleasant. The varieties are endless; for example, the illustration for Timothy Findley's HEADHUNTER is completely different from Jim Shepard's PAPER DOLL. But, in my opinion, the illustrations that really stand out are the landscapes, which Minor always embraces in his picture books and in the book covers for Laura Kalpakian's THESE LATTER DAYS, THE PRINCE OF TIDES, and countless others. You can tell just by looking at any one of his big skies, rolling ocean, or blue mountain pictures that Wendell Minor is someone who has a passion for America's great lands, from Alaska to Florida. In each painting you feel like you're there, either watching a mockingbird fly from a tree, as a sliver of moon rises, like you're hearing the cicadas buzzing on a hot southern night, as in Harper Lee's classic TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Or you're racing through the woods on a snowy winter night with a red fox, as in Eve Bunting's children's book RED FOX RUNNING. And if you're not there, you'll certainly want to be. It's a wonderful feeling to look at a painting like that that is so real, so familiar, so close. In the end, the only wrong thing I can see in this book is that there is not another one like it; there are dozens of book covers that weren't included in this collection, and there are still more coming out every month it seems! Still, as I've said earlier, part of the excitement of seeing a Wendell Minor cover is the surprise and the immediate recognization of his unique style when you're browsing through a bookstore or a library. It is my hope that someday I might write a book with a Wendell Minor cover to enliven its face.

I first fell in love with the art of Wendell Minor while I was reading books by the children's nature writer Jean Craighead George. Spectacular watercolor art added a new dimension to Ms. George's stories about the Arctic (like ARCTIC SON and SNOW BEAR), the Everglades (EVERGLADES), great horned owls (THE MOON OF THE OWLS), and wildlife throughout the country (MORNING, NOON, AND NIGHT). In each new book that I read, the colors were rich and the illustrations accurately portrayed the worlds which the author was describing. Then, as I came to recognize Minor's distinct, one-of-a-kind type of art, his work suddenly began to show up everywhere, in innumberable picture books and emblazoned on book covers. Now many of the book jackets in the bookstores and libraries don't seem as if they're scattered around in disorginization, out of view because the spines are facing outward on the shelves, or hard to find because the book might have gone out-of-print. That's because, to my relief and delight, there's a whole book of Wendell Minor's book jackets that have been compiled over the past twenty-five years. ART FOR THE WRITTEN WORD contains more than 100 of Minor's astounding watercolor, acrylic, and oil paintings. His distinguished work has appeared on a wide range of novels--fiction, nonfiction, biographies, thrillers, humor, cookbooks, natural history--many of them well-known stories by some bestselling authors. The artwork is reproduced in full-color on the oversized pages. There are pictures of famous people, houses, landscapes, wildlife, midwestern farms, towns, cities, wide open skies, automobiles, and scenes from the stories behind the covers. All of them are carefully rendered, detailed and thoughtful. You can look at a painting many times and each time notice something new. Along with the gallery of artwork, there's plenty of commentary from the people who wrote the stories that lie between the covers. Most of the authors' comments are filled with admiration and gratitude that the literature they spent so much time creating wasn't marred by an ugly or false jacket illustration. Some of the authors whose book covers are featured include David McCullough (who writes an excellent introduction), Ray Bradbury, Harper Lee, Garrison Keillor, Sherman Alexie, Mildred D. Taylor, Eve Bunting, Mary Higgins Clark, Pat Conroy, Toni Morrison, Patricia MacLachlan, Martin Cruz Smith, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, and countless others. They all basically agree that they were proud and thankful that Wendell Minor did the covers for their books; he read the stories and researched his topics before making the illustrations and contributed to the success of their books. Many of them have added his jacket art to their private collections, sworn never to discard a Wendell Minor book jacket, and shown off their "most prized possessions" to friends and family. Some comments are just gushing with elation, like two letters, placed 17 years apart, from John Jerome, who was obviously delighted that Minor so accurately depicted the blue pick-up truck for his book TRUCK. Garrison Keillor lends his kind of "Prairie Home Companion" lightness to his story of the covers for his books WE ARE STILL MARRIED and WLT: A RADIO ROMANCE. Some illustrations--like the ones for Nancy Price's SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY and C.J. Koch's THE DOUBLEMAN--seem to have almost subliminal meanings. WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN? and Brooks Stanwood's THE SEVENTH CHILD are quite frightening, while W.P. Kinsella's THE DIXON CORNBELT LEAGUE and Bill Bryson's THE LOST CONTINENT are breezy and pleasant. The varieties are endless; for example, the illustration for Timothy Findley's HEADHUNTER is completely different from Jim Shepard's PAPER DOLL. But, in my opinion, the illustrations that really stand out are the landscapes, which Minor always embraces in his picture books and in the book covers for Laura Kalpakian's THESE LATTER DAYS, THE PRINCE OF TIDES, and countless others. You can tell just by looking at any one of his big skies, rolling ocean, or blue mountain pictures that Wendell Minor is someone who has a passion for America's great lands, from Alaska to Florida. In each painting you feel like you're there, either watching a mockingbird fly from a tree, as a sliver of moon rises, like you're hearing the cicadas buzzing on a hot southern night, as in Harper Lee's classic TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Or you're racing through the woods on a snowy winter night with a red fox, as in Eve Bunting's children's book RED FOX RUNNING. And if you're not there, you'll certainly want to be. It's a wonderful feeling to look at a painting like that that is so real, so familiar, so close. In the end, the only wrong thing I can see in this book is that there is not another one like it; there are dozens of book covers that weren't included in this collection, and there are still more coming out every month it seems! Still, as I've said earlier, part of the excitement of seeing a Wendell Minor cover is the surprise and the immediate recognization of his unique style when you're browsing through a bookstore or a library. It is my hope that someday I might write a book with a Wendell Minor cover to enliven its face.