Clip Art Books

This was an OK book...I planned to use it for altered books and art journals, and I'm afraid that the number of images (few) and the types of images (limited) kind of limit this book's usefulness. The thing I didn't like is, there are one, two, even three pages wit hthe same stuff on them. And it's not a bunch of little related images; it's a whole page out of some ancient book that doesn't look like it will lend itself very well to cutting and pasting this or that very particular image out of the whole scene.

If you're looking for many intricate images of the same thing (the human skeleton, for instance, or the mechanical plans of some old-fashioned machine) then this is for you. If you're looking for just 1 or 2 smaller images per topic but with many topics (like most of the other clip art books by this publisher) then you may not find this to be of much use to you.

This book was a valuable resource when I designed a Biology-themed project. The images are well-rendered and the book scans well enough. The variety is good enough for the price, but for less desirable subjects such as fungi, ferns, and even some aspects of meteorology the depiction leaves something to be desired. However, (especially) for dicots, astronomy, anthropology, and ornithology, the drawings are superb.

I just over paid for this book at Barnes and Noble, but after looking at it fully, I'm tempted to just keep it, instead of returning and buying here on Amazon, because i'm that satisfied with it as a source of inspiration. I have a much older Japanese clip art book that is simply blk and white illustrations. This addition is a good addition to the blk/white because it offers not only design possibilities, but color options as well. As a designer and artist, I'd give this the thumb's up. The stock paper used has a quality feel to it as well, which is welcome after the cheapy feeling paper used in the older Dover clip art books.

This book includes very few traditional or vibrant images. Most are dull or uninteresting.

Had I know that there were worms on every plant I would not have purchsed this item. The pictures, when viewed up close are horrible.

Excellent illustrations! Good and great colors and images. I use these for decoupage and they are great.

I was hopeful that this book might add a different aspect to my other quilting books. There are no instructions for the patterns...though any quilter with any experience could easily put the designs together. The patterns appear to be hand drawn...and as a result some of the designs appear to be lumpy. Also, the patterns are not to size, that is unless you prefere miniature quilts. All of the designs are sketched on a page, some have 2 to a page, and are all in black and white. There are no pictures of any of the completed designs. If you plan to use this book for quilting it would make for a complicated quilting motif.

Here is what I will probably do with it:
1. Make a copy of a design so that I can use colored pencils to help me visualize the pattern I want to make. (Keep the book clean!)
2. Make an enlarged copy (or 2) to make freezer paper templates to use in the applique design.

Having said that, had I seen this book in the store I would definitely NOT have purchased it but since I have I will make the most out of it. This is definitely not for a beginner quilter who would need and appreciate directions and guidance on putting the designs together. However, there are a couple of designs that are very pretty and that I will probably make.

This book is not a book for quilters who need templates, but does give 42 black and white picture drawings of vintage quilt designs, and labels the quilts with their respective names. This book was not intended to be an instruction on how to applique, quilt, piece or select fabric, etc; but to provide only the names of various designs.

This book is designs only, in black and white, very little text reference. It could be a good book as a supplemental design for southwest decor artist, but not recommended as a starter. The designs are clearly drawn and good size. Not recommended as a "must have" for southwest native american designs.

This book ws interesting, and it did have quite a bit of information on the subject. Somehow I think that it could have given more information on the designs.

I read the review about the images being purposely skewed and took my chances anyway. So far, most of the digitized images I previewed appear to have been scanned from hand-painted patterns. As such the lines are not pixel precise. If you need that degree of precision, you can always trace them in Illustrator or something.

The images are beautiful but purposely skewed. After spending full retail price for this book and cd (which says "royalty free") I assumed the images would be intact.

Anyone interested in good color and sharp outlines should definitely avoid this book! Reproductions are sometimes dull and outlines often fuzzy. Very disappointing. I returned it immediately.

I truly like this book! It is a 9.5" X 12.5" book in size, with 41 pages, 40 of which have full page with exception of 1" border designs. Only one pattern (Rose Pattern) is narrower. Copyright free designs for personal use, important! and very useful at the copy shop, because the printing is so good that one can extract and enlarge copies at will, this book will not let you down in that respect. Dover gives you wallpaper, tile, fabric & carpet patterns by photograph, very clear, as well as several tapestry designs photographed. Have already enlarged and traced the Cherwell design as well as the Acanthus leaves design for a future tapestry pattern. Perfect! Perfect! Perfect!

Patterns are: Angel With Scroll(painting),Rose Pattern(tile),Daisy Pattern(tile), Daisy design(for wallpaper),Trellis design(w), Marigold(w), Vine(w), Acanthus(w), Apple(w), Ceiling Paper designed for St. James' Palace, Wallpaper(same), Wild Tulip(w), Bruges design(w), Pink Rose(w), Honeysuckle(chintz), Bird & Anemone(chintz), Strawberry Thief(c), Wandle(c), Rye(c), Acanthus(velvet), Cherwell(velvet), Velvet broche, St. James design for silk, Kennet design(s), Cross Twigs(s), Tulip & Rose for tapestry, Anemone(tapestry), Bird&Vine(t), Peacock&Dragon(t), Dove&Rose(t), Lily(t), various carpet designs.

Dover Publications is a friend to anyone looking into the past, with its incredible array of reprints of books -- some seminal, some highly idiosyncratic -- in art, architecturre, crafts, math, science, technology, and much more. And they're always affordable.

This one captures a point in time more than it inspires. It appears to be largely a collection of wallpaper (or stencil) designs, in mainly muted colors, with each design consisting of from one to three hues.

Among the stylized and abstracted natural forms you expect from art nouveau are a very few realistic, kitchy, chocolate-box roses and hollyhocks. They are jarring, the kinds of designs you'd see on your great-aunt Pearl's bread box or your great-grandmother's collection of postcards.

Herr Wolfrum -- or his customers -- liked swags, ribbons, classical elements, and vases of cut flowers. One or more of these is part of nearly every design.

All told, whether it's the muted colors or the predictable step-and-repeat of the designs themselves, there seem to be few inspiring images. That said, there are individual design elements worth study, from the way a blossom is abstracted to the form of a leaf-spray (the pattern on the cover shows you what I mean).

And certainly this collection will be of use to anyone interested in a showcase of vernacular art of the era, unadulterated by today's tastes. Unfortunately the era is hard to pinpoint, since the original book had no date, but I'm guessing 1910. You get all the chic colors of the time: dark olive, brown, tan, dusky red, deep lavender.

You never know... in time, everything comes around again. Maybe in 2055, these designs will find their way back to an ecstatic audience. They'd certainly give an inimitable backdrop to the darker Ibsen and Strindberg plays.

First, I don't recommend this for the average Joe. It is too free, too open, too nasty. What is the point in showing animals sphincters? The only thing more revealing would have been dissections, which by the way the author has graciously left out. Its good art work, don't get me wrong. There are some really neat animals, some I have never heard of. So it has its ups but surely, also has its downs. 368 Animal Illustrations is a superbly rendered convenient archive of remarkable illustrations gatherd around 1766 by Georges-Loius Leclerc, Compte de Buffon, a natural scientist from Montbard, France. Buffon's pictorials range from the domestic cat and the Great Dane to our more wild mamals, such as the unique looking Lion-Tailed Macaque, who belongs to the primate family. No matter which of the 368 illustrations you happen to be looking at, you will notice the life-like detail and splendid qualities with which each has been created. The pictures printed within are rich with the exact detailed quality of the original copper plate engravings from which they come, and were created and chosen by Buffon himself. Each carefully chosen depiction is precisely accurate and neatly displayed in a natural setting deemed suitable for its subject. Although several of the illustrations are somewhat revealing in their poses, let's thank Buffon for skipping those he could have chosen of the much more revealing anatomicaly dissections.

This Dover book is not as good as some of their others because most of the artwork is very odd and couldn't be used for anything. And the artwork that is OK (fruits, flowers, butterflies, shells, cats dressed up in bows) is not organized by subject matter so you need to search thru the whole book to find what you're looking for. The artwork is all from the Victorian era so some of it is quite strange (a dog dressed up like a horse jockey). However, it's still worth the money for the images that are good, but I recommend the Dover Holiday Vignettes over this because its very useful for decorating blog pages for the holidays and is organized by subject matter, with several pages for each holiday.