Koncocoo

Best Art Instruction & Reference

How to Draw Cool Stuff: A Drawing Guide for Teachers and Students
How to Draw Cool Stuff shows simple step-by-step illustrations that make it easy for anyone to draw cool stuff with precision and confidence. It will be really useful during drawing sessions to guide students in a very practical and methodical way. Some of the ideas given are fun and unique and it is also a stress-free way of learning which makes it very useful guide for those who enjoy drawing and also for those who are trying to get into drawing."
Reviews
"As adults, we over-complicate so much, and this book teaches us that maybe slowing things down and using just the basics can give very surprising results."
"There is a good reason why every reviewer is giving this book 5 Stars. To open the book, the author provides an extensive section on suggestions for teachers helping the beginning artist. From the Introduction: "Through Art we have the opportunity to showcase our personal strengths in a meaningful way." Some of my favorite drawing lessons: The "Ancient Masks" section, the "Basketball Hoop" drawing, and the "Foreshortened person" lesson. ▲ Honestly, Catherine Holmes has produced a MAGNIFICENT book for students and teachers alike. The amount of time spent producing this book must have been enormous."
"A discussion with a friend got me interested in trying out sketching and drawing as a fun and creative outlet. This is a great eBook for two groups of beginners: 1) the instant gratification type: you just got your pencils and sketch pad and you just want to start drawing things. Okay, drawing attempts is a better description, but my bad art is not what's reviewed here :). The second group of beginners are ones who want to learn more, in an easy to digest format. So we can't have it both ways :). The ebook is comfortable to read on the 7 inch Kindle Fire tablet (or anything larger), and you can zoom on the pictures whether you have your device in portrait or landscape orientation. Some of them have a semi-usable image zoom option (Paperwhite, classic Kindle with Keyboard), so if you are patient, you can also go through the drawing exercises with those. The tiny basic Kindle does not have image zoom, so it's not very useful if you are doing the drawing exercises (but still fine if you want to read the text parts)."
"9 year old who is an amazing artist already understood when I showed her the steps."
"Will want to buy the other books in this series now."
"This was a present for my daughter and she said it is the most helpful instruction guide she has ever gotten."
"This book was so awesome that I couldn't stop reading it's the best on the market I even read it when ever I have time."
"Super cool book inspires my son."
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Daily Painting: Paint Small and Often To Become a More Creative, Productive, and SuccessfulArtist
With her encouraging tone and useful exercises, Marine teaches you to: -Master composition and value. -Become confident in any medium including oil painting, acrylic painting, watercolors, and other media. -Choose subjects wisely. -Stay fresh and loose. -Photograph, post, and sell your art online. -Become connected to the growing movement of daily painters around the world. She is a member of Daily Paintworks, a distinguished group of daily painters, and she teaches daily painting workshops around the country.
Reviews
"She sought out advice from well-known artists and over and over again, she was whispered the same thing: do some art every single day. It can be discouraging to be an artist and find yourself with a trunk full of creative endeavors and no where for them to go. That's where Carol's book takes us through the twists and turns of a career as an artist. Not only does it go through the basics of painting (materials, value, composition, color mixing), but the artist-author shares her secrets to becoming a successful artist. She and her programmer husband created an unique website, www.DailyPaintworks.com, where non-juried artists (read: you don't have to prove your talent or be selected by a committee) post their daily works. Big, beautiful paintings are wonderful, but not everyone can afford $10,000 for one piece of art. But, with a small project - a 6x6 canvas - you can play with lots of different mediums, textures, concepts, what-have-you and no matter how it comes out, tomorrow is literally a new day. It showcases Carol's talent, as well as a myriad of others, and shows you the nuts and bolts of being an artist. The final chapters shed light on how to sell your art online, where to go, and how to stage it for photographs."
"So since 2006, Marine has been painting daily, and selling her work online. Marine talks about her experience on painting daily, where she finds inspiration and subjects to draw, techniques involved and how you can sell your paintings online. Tips for better online sales. I really like the idea of painting small. Somethings the size of a blank canvas can be intimidating. It's difficult for a small painting to match a big one in terms of impact, but it's likely to sell better because it's more affordable. However her tips and techniques can often apply to other media as well except for things specific to oil, such as wiping a canvas and starting over again. The best part about the book is it shows you the possibility of selling your work online. It's great to see other artists make a living using this method and it's something that anyone can get into."
"I bought this book in order to learn how to be more 'painterly'."
"A friend looked through the book and immediately went to purchase one for herself."
"Inspiration, first of all, from just looking at the artist's work - she has mastered the art of bringing out color and showing light. and she delivers the information: everything from materials to proportion of saturated and unsaturated color, to placing highlights, to composition and how to get objects placed correctly on the canvas (including illusive ellipses), to her own unique method of what order to paint the various parts of an object in."
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Colorist's Special Effects - color interior: Step by step guides to making your adult coloring pages POP!
60 STEP BY STEP guides/techniques to items commonly found Items commonly found in ADULT COLORING BOOKS... such as: Various gems, clouds, fairy wings, spotted mushrooms, skintone, eyes, waterdrops, gem bugs, flowers, hearts, dazzling mermaid scales, glinting crystals, glowing lanterns, soap bubbles, gold crown, chrome e. PLEASE NOTE: This book is the KINDLE VERSION of the COLOR interior paperback.. therefore you cannot color on the pages themselves...
Reviews
"She has applied many of her art techniques in coloring book form. Water droplets on leaves, gems, balloons, wood grain, sparkly fairy dust, chrome, gold, silver, so many more than I can name."
"I am absolutely amazed as I flip through this book."
"It arrived yesterday, and I spent my usual 2 hours of coloring time after dinner, just devouring the pages of information inside!"
"This book was gifted to me and as a person who designs coloring books I can honestly say that I have discovered that I am coloring challenged ."
"Having said that, I would still buy a book 2."
"I have done quite a lot of colouring, and you never stop learning, but I started the exercises from the beginning and am having so much fun."
"This book is fantastic!"
"The layout of this book infuriates me because the steps are so all over the page and honestly hard to follow ."
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Best Business of Art

Art Money & Success: A complete and easy-to-follow system for the artist who wasn't born with a business mind.
• Connect with your right buyers. • Increase your $$$ income today. • Sell art easily and negotiate nicely. • License your art and get paid multiple times for one artwork. • Implement powerful money and business practices. • Trust your own creative intuition. If you are interested in generating more money and success from your art, then ART, MONEY & SUCCESS is for you!
Reviews
"I get so excited whenever I pick up this book!"
"So this most Californian of how-to books that focusses on how the author went about selling her surf-loving husband's art should have rubbed me – a cynical Old World Brit who merely dabbles in water colours when he's had too much to drink – up the wrong way. And yet, despite the odd mix of woo-woo spiritualism and crass Yankee commercialism (you have to emanate true love for other people before you can close the deal) I found myself, dare I say it, agreeing with her."
"Some of her advice I was already practicing before I read the book, but I also picked up a lot of great ideas from her book. What I really like about her book though, is that it’s full of great advice, without the condescending tone of some other art business books I’ve read."
"One of my friends let me read some of this book on her Kindle. Before I finished the first page I ordered the paperback, as this is one of those rare books that you need to read and re-read Filled with ideas, real life examples and information that is amazing to have in one book."
"Maria Brophy is unique in her field of art consulting in that she is actively managing the career of her artist husband in real time and, in that capacity, works firsthand with buyers."
"Most of what we read/hear about marketing and growing a business deals with the big picture mindset stuff, which, while definitely important in its own right, doesn't really allow us to take that next step with concrete ideas."
"I am an older artist finally following through on that dream I had when I was a teenager. "Before life got in the way"."
"Art Money & Success is the book I have been looking for over 20 years - one based on the business of being an artist."
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Best Art Collecting

Confessions Of an Art Addict
Here is a book that captures a valuable chapter in the history of modern art, as well as the spirit of one of its greatest advocates.
Reviews
"Well written and honest account of a singular woman who lived fully a life of purpose."
"I bought this book because it was cheap and because we were just about to visit the Guggenheim Bilbao."
"She lead an interesting life in an interesting time for the development of American art."
"Well told about the people she knew, places she lived and all she did to support artists."
"Her flamboyant lifestyle and harsh business ways in collecting art depicted by other writers makes for exotic reading."
"I was interested in the artists and Ms. Guggenheims relationships with them."
"First-person account of an unconventional life."
"Certainly a more interesting character then an author, Guggenheim details the art world when it was a more genuine and quirky place."
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Best Color in Art

Colored Pencil Painting Bible: Techniques for Achieving Luminous Color and Ultrarealistic Effects
Take colored pencils beyond the ordinary with Colored Pencil Painting Bible ! ALYONA NICKELSEN is an award-winning artist whose work has been featured in numerous national and international exhibitions as well as in most of the country’s major art magazines, including American Artist, American Artist Drawing, The Artist’s Magazine, International Artist, American Art Collector, and Art Business News.
Reviews
"I also liked the fact that it said Colored Pencil PAINTING, because I have always thought the style and technique I favor - a heavy, opaque coloring, rather than a soft sketchy style - was more akin to painting than the drawing/sketching that most people think of when they think of colored pencils. I knew that when I was last heavily involved in this medium, a good 25 or so years ago, this style or approach, and the colored pencil medium in general was still considered a relatively new medium (in the general scheme of artist's media through the ages) and that people had been experimenting and pushing the techinique envelope, and new products had been developing as well. Not only does this book cover the ultrarealistic effects and luminous colors that are the author's forte, it also gives a good overview of principles of design, composition, color theory, fundamentals of light, shading and shadows, and other topics that are applicable to just about all visual art media, not just colored pencil. The focus of the book, as promised by the title, is on colored pencil drawing (painting), specifically with "dry" wax or oil based pencils (not watercolor pencils) So naturally a lot of pages are devoted to materials, media, supplies and tools. It covers the difference and similarities between wax and oil based pencils and specific brands thereof - including hardness, blendability, color range, and the "feel" of the pencil on the page plus an appendix with charts of all the major manufacturers' colored pencils and their ratings for lightfastness. This book is an essential in the library of anyone who is interested in making art with colored pencils."
"(Hopefully you can see that without my help) also I included a sample of a crystal candle stick, a leaf with a water droplet or two, pears, an apple, a brass pitcher, we'll you can tell what they all are except maybe red , yellow and blue peppermill."
"May I suggest additionally using the same techniques with water and watercolor pencils too, if you don't feel like getting fancy."
"cherry, orange-peeled and unpeeled, red pepper--cut and uncut, peach--cut and uncut, strawberry, indian corn in husk, dandelion, mortar and pestle, brass pitcher, crumpled paper, white eggs, glass of water, multicolored glass shaker, swirled marbles, and decorative perfume bottle."
"If you're an intermediate or advanced artist with colored pencil experience this is a good book. If you're new to colored pencils like I am this is not the right book for you. And it shows one small photo of the drawing. You need a lot of experience drawing and working with colors and so much else to create drawings that look ultra realistic."
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Best Figure Drawing

How to Draw What You See
Today, generations of artists have learned to draw what they see, to truly capture the world around them, using de Reyna’s methods. Rudy de Reyna is the author of many Watson-Guptill classics, including Magic Realist Drawing Techniques .
Reviews
"It was brought to my attention originally by a member of my class and that is why I ordered it."
"the recipient of this loved it."
"Shipped by stated date and good instruction."
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Best Art Reference

Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking: 1
For all practical purposes making art can be examined in great detail without ever getting entangled in the very remote problems of genius." The book's co-authors, David Bayles and Ted Orland, are themselves both working artists, grappling daily with the problems of making art in the real world. Their insights and observations, drawn from personal experience, provide an incisive view into the world of art as it is expeienced by artmakers themselves. Art & Fear has attracted a remarkably diverse audience, ranging from beginning to accomplished artists in every medium, and including an exceptional concentration among students and teachers. David Bayles is an accomplished photographer, author, workshop leader, and conservationist.
Reviews
"It will challenge you to reevaluate your expectations and reframe your artistic pursuits in a manner that will allow for perpetual growth and minimize potential for burn out or "losing it"."
"This book is amazing."
"An excellent insight into the thought processes and predicaments of art."
"A neatly written nice little book on just what the title suggests."
"I know of many full time Arts Faculty (specifically Performing Arts) that still create and share their artistry outside of the classroom."
"This was recommended by a writer friend, but the wisdom in the book applies to any art form or issues of creativity."
"Art & Fear should be in every artist's bookshelf."
"Art philosophy and psychology making for a noteworthy read."
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Best Art Study & Teaching

Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking: 1
For all practical purposes making art can be examined in great detail without ever getting entangled in the very remote problems of genius." The book's co-authors, David Bayles and Ted Orland, are themselves both working artists, grappling daily with the problems of making art in the real world. Their insights and observations, drawn from personal experience, provide an incisive view into the world of art as it is expeienced by artmakers themselves. Art & Fear has attracted a remarkably diverse audience, ranging from beginning to accomplished artists in every medium, and including an exceptional concentration among students and teachers. David Bayles is an accomplished photographer, author, workshop leader, and conservationist.
Reviews
"It will challenge you to reevaluate your expectations and reframe your artistic pursuits in a manner that will allow for perpetual growth and minimize potential for burn out or "losing it"."
"This book is amazing."
"An excellent insight into the thought processes and predicaments of art."
"A neatly written nice little book on just what the title suggests."
"I know of many full time Arts Faculty (specifically Performing Arts) that still create and share their artistry outside of the classroom."
"This was recommended by a writer friend, but the wisdom in the book applies to any art form or issues of creativity."
"Art & Fear should be in every artist's bookshelf."
"Art philosophy and psychology making for a noteworthy read."
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Best Art History

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
This #1 New York Times best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing. #1 New York Times Best SellerAmazon's Best Book of 2014 in Crafts, Home & Garden. "Ms. Kondo delivers her tidy manifesto like a kind of Zen nanny, both hortatory and animistic." a literal how-to-heave-ho, and I recommend it for anyone who struggles with the material excess of living in a privileged society. A totally reasonable, scary cult that works, doesn’t kill people (a bonus), but does drastically change your life. the Japanese expert’s ode to decluttering is simple and easy to follow." "Reading it, you glimpse a glittering mental freedom from the unread/uncrafted/unworn, buyer’s remorse, the nervous eyeing of real estate listings. "All hail the new decluttering queen Marie Kondo, whose mess-busting bestseller has prompted a craze for tidying in homes across the world . "How could this pocket-sized book, which has already sold over 2 million copies and sits firmly atop the New York Times Best Seller list, make such a big promise? Marie “KonMari” Kondo runs an acclaimed consulting business in Tokyo helping clients transform their cluttered homes into spaces of serenity and inspiration. With a three-month waiting list, her KonMari Method of decluttering and organizing has become an international phenomenon. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is a best seller in Japan, Germany, and the UK, with more than two million copies sold worldwide, and has been turned into a television drama for Japanese TV. She has been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time , featured on more than thirty major Japanese television and radio programs, and profiled in the Sunday Times , Red magazine, You magazine, the New York Times , USA Today , NPR's Here & Now , Slate , Family Circle , and the London Times, who has deemed her “Japan’s preeminent guru of tidiness, a warrior princess in the war on clutter.”.
Reviews
"I grew up in a cluttered house and married the King of Clutter (he's the type of person who'll open a credit card bill, pay it online, and then just leave the empty envelope, inserts, and bill itself randomly strewn on whatever surface happens to be nearby). It's a breath of fresh air and positive energy that brings real joy to the process of "tidying up." My clothes are all mine (which also means that they're in nowhere near as terrible a state as other things in my house), so going through them affects only me and involves only my own feelings. Her advice may sound silly at first, but if your belongings inspire feelings of unhappiness, guilt, etc., her anthropomorphism of them can really help you change your viewpoint in a positive direction. That is likely to carry a different level of meaning for someone in Japan than in the U.S. Other references to spiritual practice and feng-shui are not likely to resonate the same way for an American audience. There is a lot of discussion of travel toiletries, but very little about kitchen utensils, toys, or other items found most often in a family home. I'm now a week in, and 6 months seems like hardly enough time to tackle all the junk in my house, but I can fully see how this can be a life-changing process."
"I was browsing Pinterest one day and stumbled upon the "konmari method" and was intrigued, so I bought this book for kindle and read it in about an hour. I always thought I was a very organized person (because everything I owned had a designated, labelled place and my house was always super clean), but after reading this book I realized I was nothing more than a skilled hoarder. I probably discarded well over 100 bags of clutter in that 6 weeks and earned over $400 selling the big-ticket items via social media, which I used to make my house prettier."
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Best Museums & Art Collections

The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History
At the same time Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. (Coincidentally or not, this book appears only briefly after Ilaria Dagnini Brey's The Venus Fixers: The Untold Story of the Allied Soldiers Who Saved Italy's Art During World War II , Reviews, June 1.). Our task, I believe, was truly important - we were restoring to Europe evidence of its own civilization, which the War seemed virtually to have destroyed - and I was lucky to have had a chance to participate. -- Anne Olivier Bell "Highly Readable ... a remarkable history" * Washington Post * "Engaging and inspiring" * Publishers Weekly *.
Reviews
"The book pretty much ensures that a reader will both understand the logistical difficulties (no actual unit, no access to transportation, constantly having to ask other military personnel for help), the danger (booby-trapped caches of loot, dank salt mines filled with art and explosives, German soldier ambush), and the heroic nature of the Monument Men's job (especially those who worked in Germany and had to reconcile risk to life and limb to save cultural heritage sites like Aachen Cathedral after touring devastating places like Dachau). I particularly enjoyed learning about Lincoln Kirstein (my name doppelganger) who I thought mostly of as a ballet guy, but who turned out to be more of a Renaissance man in his abilities and proclivities than I had understood."
"And thereafter during the war, it was their responsibility to locate the five million movable works and cultural artifacts that were stolen by the Nazis, which included works by Leonardo Da Vinci, Jan Vermeer, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Donatello and the pieces that were the highlight of Edsel’s book, the Ghent Altar pieces, Bayeaux Tapestry, and painting of Mother and Child. And their training such as Stout’s focused on understanding raw materials, degradation and cause of deterioration, and preparation to prevent deterioration and damage, which would be beneficial once he delved in the race against time to save the artworks. For the Kindle edition, maps may have been helpful and the photographs may have been dispersed within each chapter rather than at the end of the book."
"My major criticism of this book, and the reason why I could not award the fifth star, is the actual writing, both on the sentence level and the paragraph level, even the chapter arrangements. As a retired Professor of English I was frequently reaching for my non-existent red pen (I read the book on Kindle) to make the sentence-level writing clearer, and also frequently looking back to earlier paragraphs to check on dates and events because the chronology had become confusing."
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Best Erotic Art

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
This #1 New York Times best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing. #1 New York Times Best SellerAmazon's Best Book of 2014 in Crafts, Home & Garden. "Ms. Kondo delivers her tidy manifesto like a kind of Zen nanny, both hortatory and animistic." a literal how-to-heave-ho, and I recommend it for anyone who struggles with the material excess of living in a privileged society. A totally reasonable, scary cult that works, doesn’t kill people (a bonus), but does drastically change your life. the Japanese expert’s ode to decluttering is simple and easy to follow." "Reading it, you glimpse a glittering mental freedom from the unread/uncrafted/unworn, buyer’s remorse, the nervous eyeing of real estate listings. "All hail the new decluttering queen Marie Kondo, whose mess-busting bestseller has prompted a craze for tidying in homes across the world . "How could this pocket-sized book, which has already sold over 2 million copies and sits firmly atop the New York Times Best Seller list, make such a big promise? Marie “KonMari” Kondo runs an acclaimed consulting business in Tokyo helping clients transform their cluttered homes into spaces of serenity and inspiration. With a three-month waiting list, her KonMari Method of decluttering and organizing has become an international phenomenon. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is a best seller in Japan, Germany, and the UK, with more than two million copies sold worldwide, and has been turned into a television drama for Japanese TV. She has been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time , featured on more than thirty major Japanese television and radio programs, and profiled in the Sunday Times , Red magazine, You magazine, the New York Times , USA Today , NPR's Here & Now , Slate , Family Circle , and the London Times, who has deemed her “Japan’s preeminent guru of tidiness, a warrior princess in the war on clutter.”.
Reviews
"I grew up in a cluttered house and married the King of Clutter (he's the type of person who'll open a credit card bill, pay it online, and then just leave the empty envelope, inserts, and bill itself randomly strewn on whatever surface happens to be nearby). It's a breath of fresh air and positive energy that brings real joy to the process of "tidying up." My clothes are all mine (which also means that they're in nowhere near as terrible a state as other things in my house), so going through them affects only me and involves only my own feelings. Her advice may sound silly at first, but if your belongings inspire feelings of unhappiness, guilt, etc., her anthropomorphism of them can really help you change your viewpoint in a positive direction. That is likely to carry a different level of meaning for someone in Japan than in the U.S. Other references to spiritual practice and feng-shui are not likely to resonate the same way for an American audience. There is a lot of discussion of travel toiletries, but very little about kitchen utensils, toys, or other items found most often in a family home. I'm now a week in, and 6 months seems like hardly enough time to tackle all the junk in my house, but I can fully see how this can be a life-changing process."
"I was browsing Pinterest one day and stumbled upon the "konmari method" and was intrigued, so I bought this book for kindle and read it in about an hour. I always thought I was a very organized person (because everything I owned had a designated, labelled place and my house was always super clean), but after reading this book I realized I was nothing more than a skilled hoarder. I probably discarded well over 100 bags of clutter in that 6 weeks and earned over $400 selling the big-ticket items via social media, which I used to make my house prettier."
Find Best Price at Amazon

Best Religious Art

The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece
An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value, a painting lost for almost two centuries. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, moving from one rooming house to another, constantly in and out of jail, all the while painting works of transcendent emotional and visual power. Prizewinning author Jonathan Harr embarks on an spellbinding journey to discover the long-lost painting known as The Taking of Christ–its mysterious fate and the circumstances of its disappearance have captivated Caravaggio devotees for years. Told with consummate skill by the writer of the bestselling, award-winning A Civil Action , The Lost Painting is a remarkable synthesis of history and detective story. [you'll] enjoy Harr's more clearly reported details about life in the city, as when--one of my favorite moments in the whole book--Francesca and another young colleague try to calm their nerves before a crucial meeting with a forbidding professor by eating gelato. "Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and taste--and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. In 1992 a young art student uncovered a clue in an obscure Italian archive that led to the discovery of Caravaggio's original The Taking of the Christ , a painting that had been presumed lost for over 200 years. Broken into short, succinct chapters, the narrative unfolds at a brisk pace, skipping quickly from the perspective of 91-year-old Caravaggio scholar Sir Denis Mahon to that of young, enterprising Francesca Cappelletti, a graduate student at the University of Rome researching the disappearance of The Taking of Christ . But while adept at coordinating dates and analyzing hairline fractures in aged paint, Harr often seems overly concerned with the step-by-step process of tracking down The Taking of the Christ , as if the specific artist who created it were irrelevant.
Reviews
"It is hard for me to understand why admirers became addicted to Caravaggio or any artist."
"I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery and academia, and can think of nothing better than spending hours in the basement of an Italian provincial villa reading through ancient accounts...(really)."
"A refreshing non-fiction book on the discovery of a Caravaggio masterpiece, the story flowed like a mystery."
"This true story traces the dogged detective work required to track down a lost Caravaggio painting worth tens of millions of dollars."
"Reads like a spy novel."
"Wonderful non-fiction."
"Insightful plotting renders this exhaustively researched saga a page-turner with its heart in art history."
"Slow Going."
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Best Painting

Daily Painting: Paint Small and Often To Become a More Creative, Productive, and SuccessfulArtist
With her encouraging tone and useful exercises, Marine teaches you to: -Master composition and value. -Become confident in any medium including oil painting, acrylic painting, watercolors, and other media. -Choose subjects wisely. -Stay fresh and loose. -Photograph, post, and sell your art online. -Become connected to the growing movement of daily painters around the world. She is a member of Daily Paintworks, a distinguished group of daily painters, and she teaches daily painting workshops around the country.
Reviews
"She sought out advice from well-known artists and over and over again, she was whispered the same thing: do some art every single day. It can be discouraging to be an artist and find yourself with a trunk full of creative endeavors and no where for them to go. That's where Carol's book takes us through the twists and turns of a career as an artist. Not only does it go through the basics of painting (materials, value, composition, color mixing), but the artist-author shares her secrets to becoming a successful artist. She and her programmer husband created an unique website, www.DailyPaintworks.com, where non-juried artists (read: you don't have to prove your talent or be selected by a committee) post their daily works. Big, beautiful paintings are wonderful, but not everyone can afford $10,000 for one piece of art. But, with a small project - a 6x6 canvas - you can play with lots of different mediums, textures, concepts, what-have-you and no matter how it comes out, tomorrow is literally a new day. It showcases Carol's talent, as well as a myriad of others, and shows you the nuts and bolts of being an artist. The final chapters shed light on how to sell your art online, where to go, and how to stage it for photographs."
"So since 2006, Marine has been painting daily, and selling her work online. Marine talks about her experience on painting daily, where she finds inspiration and subjects to draw, techniques involved and how you can sell your paintings online. Tips for better online sales. I really like the idea of painting small. Somethings the size of a blank canvas can be intimidating. It's difficult for a small painting to match a big one in terms of impact, but it's likely to sell better because it's more affordable. However her tips and techniques can often apply to other media as well except for things specific to oil, such as wiping a canvas and starting over again. The best part about the book is it shows you the possibility of selling your work online. It's great to see other artists make a living using this method and it's something that anyone can get into."
"I bought this book in order to learn how to be more 'painterly'."
"A friend looked through the book and immediately went to purchase one for herself."
"Inspiration, first of all, from just looking at the artist's work - she has mastered the art of bringing out color and showing light. and she delivers the information: everything from materials to proportion of saturated and unsaturated color, to placing highlights, to composition and how to get objects placed correctly on the canvas (including illusive ellipses), to her own unique method of what order to paint the various parts of an object in."
Find Best Price at Amazon

Best Sculpture

Make Animal Sculptures with Paper Mache Clay: How to Create Stunning Wildlife Art Using Patterns and My Easy-to-Make, No-Mess Paper Mache Recipe
Join thousands who have rediscovered their creative talent, using Jonni's revolutionary techniques and recipes. The sculpting techniques shown in this book have been used by middle school kids, university art students, theater prop-makers, and adults of all ages who have rediscovered their love for sculpting, using methods and materials that are affordable for everyone.
Reviews
"this book is about a new type of papermache recipe making it easy to. create any thing you have ever wanted to copy and make yourself in an. easy to follow description,with easy to obtain ingredients."
"She gives clear, precise directions, lots of pictures, and really walks you through everything thoroughly."
"When I became interested in paper mache."
"My 7-year-old made the MOST AMAZING penguin sculpture for a class project based on the information in this book."
"Extremely good value for the money."
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The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss
The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who "burned like a comet" in nineteenth-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost the only thing remaining of their vast empire was a collection of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox. Ephrussi and his cosmopolitan family were imprisoned or scattered, and Hitler's theorist on the "Jewish question" appropriated their magnificent palace on the Ringstrasse. Amazon Best of the Month, September 2010 : At the heart of Edmund de Waal's strange and graceful family memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes , is a one-of-a-kind inherited collection of ornamental Japanese carvings known as netsuke. He's also drawn to the story behind them, and for years he put aside his own work as a world-renowned potter and curator to uncover the rich and tragic family history of which the carvings are one of the few concrete legacies. Beginning with his art connoisseur ancestor Charles (a model for Proust's Swann), who acquired the netsuke during the European rage for Japonisme, de Waal traces the collection from Japan to Europe--where they were saved from the brutal bureaucracy of the Nazi Anschluss in the pockets of a family servant--and back to Japan and Europe again.
Reviews
"His efforts with the innumerable German, Viennese and French words in de Waal's book go from bad to comically miserable to utterly mystifying."
"Instead of a predictable tale from Mitteleuropa about lost grandeur, the author takes a (slightly Proustian) shortcut that leads to unexpected and sometimes deeply moving places. One of the illustrious ancestors collected tiny but incredibly intricate Japanese carvings called netsuke used in early modern Japan as toggles for purse strings. Through this device, De Waal manages to both narrate the story of the rise and fall of the Ephrussi and also sketch the myriad objects they owned and collected during their century and a half of eminence."
"Having just completed this book, I feel so genuinely overwhelmed with a strange emotion and expect, that for the near future, my perception of life will be altered from what it was before."
"I read the paperback version, using Google to follow along when paintings/artists were mentioned: the fate of his mistress; the identification of the young JEWISH girls in Renoirs portraits, etc."
"This is the story of the author's amazing family history, which opens up art, architecture, and the history of the last 140 years in Paris, Vienna, and Japan. The book is also the story of his obsession with researching his family around the world."
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