Customer Reviews

The Art of Rowena

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

...continuing from my review title: not just fairy-tale scenes, but most of Rowena's art has a magical touch, lavishly detailed.

Rowena's fantasy world is like the colors of her paintings: rich, vivid and beautiful. A harmonious and sometimes even light-hearted approach is always present even in the face of danger. It seems that this talented artist believes in the victory of good over evil, which her high quality work is a testimony of.

Male artists predominate in the main stream of fantasy art - the kind you see on the paperback book covers and the like. I use the word "predominate" only in its numerical sense, that women form a small minority within that group. The female fantasy artists that come to mind, however, stand second to none in craftsmanship, wit, and artistry. That group includes Julie Bell, Olivia DiBerardinis, and Rowena Morrill.

This book offers an wide-ranging and enjoyable sampling of her work. Although womanly sinews occasionally ripple here, as Bell so often depicts, Rowena also does well with the softer or more playful side of her heroines. One or two of these paintings approach Olivia's cheesecake sensuality - though present in most of Rowena's pictures, however, that sensuality rarely goes beyond the native grace of a young, strong figure. She also revels in dragons, mermaids, and the other staples of fantasy art. Much to my surprise, this book's last section presents commissioned portraits, in which the subject (Anne McCafferey, Isaac Asimov, and others) appears in some significant but fanciful setting. Although I enjoy her fantasy work, I found these pictures to be the most moving in the bunch.

The unique thing about Rowena's body of work, to my way of thinking, is the fact that so many of her subjects are having fun at what they do and in themselves. Fantasy art all too often focusses on moments of combat, evil, or seduction. Instead of the painted characters seducing each other or the viewer, however, Rowena herself seduces the reader with her meticulous artwork and pervasive sense of play.

-- wiredweird

This is a very beautiful art book of Rowena art works. The painting she did are seem so real and they got a fantastic atmosphere to it and the colored are great. I wish one day I can draw and paint has good has Rowena.

I have been a fan of Rowena for a few years now. Found her artwork on the internet. When I saw this book I had to have it and was not disappointed in the quality of her work. I'm not a big fan of the stories however but I will put up with them for the sake of the artwork. I perfer using my imagination to interpertate her artwork. I would recomend this book for anyone who loves fantasy art because it dosent' disappoint the fantasy fan. I could not ask for more except for more artwork in the books.

To this day I consider The Art of Rowena to be one of my favorite books. Each page features one of the more famous Rowena illustrations. I never get tired of pondering these pictures as each reflects great thought processes of history. I feel certain that many people would find this collectible book enjoyable.

Rowena is an essential reference in the fantasy art field.

SPECIFICS:

Page Count: 112

Number of images: 91

Small images: 15

Half page images: 20

Full page images: 45

2-page spreads: 11

BW images: 6

TEXT:

Foreword: 1 page

Introduction: 1 page

Biography: 5 pages

Epilogue: 2 pages

Title, year and small paragraph for each piece

ART:

15 images: 5 stars

57 images: 4 stars

19 images: 3 stars

0 images: 2 stars

0 images: 1 star

Overall: 4 Stars

The book is full of colorful more recent works of the artist...has some text at the beginning of the book.Overall, it is a nice addition book for someone who enjoys Rowena's artwork.

Rowena's paintings depict the fantasy and surreal darkness of the world, focussing on monsters, myths, and legendary creatures which are unusual and warm. This gathers Rowena's many contributions to the fantasy world, and the full-page color reproductions of book jacket covers and other items will draw many already familiar with many of her works, who may not have viewed her art under one cover. A beautiful keepsake presentation.

Rowena Morrill is a very fine artist with an excellent eye for detail, just how good is revealed by her portraits of Isaac Asimov & Anne McCaffrey . I do have a couple of miner gripes some of her characters assume rather contrived poses, take the cover for example. Could anybody smile beatifically and thoughtfully drape a lily , while an animated statue grasped your leg ? The colours she uses are extremely vivid and some of her monsters are so garish they tend to Kitsch rather than visceral. But I`m a sucker for Brom and compared with his creations anything short of Giger looks tame, so feel free to disagree. These quibles apart this remains a collection of some extremely well done paintings and would be a worthy part of any fantasy art collection.