Currently Browsing: book reviews 7 articles
Update on the Stephen Quiller Color Theory Books I’m Always Recommending
Nothing is ever actually straightforward or simple. Of course now buying Stephen Quiller’s books on color theory now falls into that category. As far as I know he has the following two books on color theory: Color Choices: Making Color Sense Out of Color. Note that this is a […]
Protected: Roz and Her Library of Books
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Wil Freeborn’s New Watercolor Painting Book
I just purchased a copy of artist Wil Freeborn’s new book Learning to Paint in Watercolor with 50 Paintings: Pick Up the Skils, Put on the Paint, Hang Up Your Art. (Quarry, ISBN 978-1-63159-277-5) (The link is to Amazon for convenience, but I’m not affiliated, but it where you can.) I read half of the […]
Summer Reading Suggestions from the MCBA Visual Journal Collective
See the full post for details and links to the 2-part video presentation.
Minnesota State Fair Prep—#8: Information and Inspiration
Left: Minnesota State Fair: An Illustrated History, by Kathryn Strand Koutsky and Linda Koutsky, image ©Coffee House Press. Read below for more details.
I can hear the groans of faithful readers as they click on the blog today, “Another Minnesota State Fair post? What has happened to Roz?” Well, this is after all a blog about my enthusiasms—but I have saved the best in the “preparation series” for last (notice I didn’t say “last Fair post”!): information and inspiration.
It’s time you looked at what other people are writing and thinking about the Fair. And there is no better place to look than Minnesota State Fair: An Illustrated History, by Kathy and Linda Koutsky. (Disclosure: the authors are my friends, but even if I didn’t know them I would have to own this book and give it repeatedly as a gift to people who haven’t yet caught the Fair bug, or who have but don’t know about this book.)
Artists Mining Their Sketchbooks for Inspiration
Left: Book 16 in the stitch and embroidery series of Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn. (image ©Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn) Click on the image to see an enlargement.
I love looking at the sketchbooks and journals of other artists. I enjoy seeing how their art materials choices make differences in their art. I always learn something from their use of the page, page spread, or negative space. I am curious to see how some artists go totally visual and others lay on the words. Pattern, color, texture (of collage) all draws me in. I have a sense that I am watching the artist work his way to a conclusion in a very personal dialog. I am intrigued by process.
Attraction to this material causes me to seek out sketchbook facsimilies and other published records. I was thrilled to find the fabric artists Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn.