Customer Reviews

Great Book of Fairy Patterns: The Ultimate Design Sourcebook for Artists and Craftspeople

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Too stereotyped. These are fairies everyone has seen before. Plus, the artwork itself it not terribly great, not something I'd want to imitate.

For wing patterns and any other textures found in nature, I would go to the source itself instead of getting the info second-hand in a book like this. To study wing shapes and patterns, try A World Of Butterflies by Brian Cassie, et al; The Butterfly Handbook by Dr. Lee Miller; or Night Visions by Joseph Scheer, which has incredible close-ups of moths. The figures of the fairies themselves can be handled by learning simple figure drawing, and there are plenty of magazines and books with models in them to give you a reference. For beginners with a good eye, Human Anatomy Made Amazingly Easy by Christopher Hart is a good place to start.

Focusing only on fairies will limit your artistic sensibility and talent. If you learn the parts, then you can create based on your own imagination and not on how someone else tells you things should look.

The art was not as refined or advanced as I expected it to be. I bought this for my daughter, who is an artist and enjoys creating 'fantasy-style' art through various media. I hoped this might inspire her and give her ideas to advance her skills, but her own work is already much more advanced than the patterns in this book. She is interested in patterns for clay sculpture and wood-carving, as well as sketches and oil media, but the 2 dimensional sketches in this book don't really support more than a beginner's guide to sketching fairies. If you are a beginner in the art of drawing fairies, this is probably a good choice. If you are intermediate or advanced as an artist, I suggest you look for something else.

I am a fantasy artist and I use alot of patterns. This is the greatest pattern book I have ever seen. Tons of patterns and very good sized. There's an editorial on fairies, wing styles section, fairy outfit helps section and a pattern for a fairy manikin that you can make and pose to help draw your own fairies. The patterns are very well drawn. The cover and pages are thick and good quality paper. Its a large book. I would strongly nudge anybody whom is into crafts and hobbies or art to buy this book. It is well worth the money +. I also bought Lora's other book "Great Book of Dragon Patterns" I give it the same rave I gave this book. Do yourself a favor and buy her books.

I agree with a couple of other reviewers that the art work in this book is not inspired, not is it particularly good. There are a lot of patterns in it, unfortunately they appear as though they came from a coloring book for children, only a very few are of a caliber that I would want to duplicate. It was disappointing, and I don't think it should be advertised as the "ultimate" anything. It's not for fine artists. It might perhaps be of use for inspiring small children to draw and paint fairies.

This book is outstanding.
The faeries are beautiful, and the directions for using them in crafts is very detailed.
An excellent addition to any faerie lover's collection, especially those who are into arts and crafts.

The strongest part of this book is the wing patterns and what kind of fairies have these wings. Not only does it tell the size the wings should be, but also where and how to place them. There are also some nice references to angels. My favoriite part of the book is how to place different kinds of fairies in a scene, however, I would have liked to see more information devoted to this. I must agree with a previous reviewer that the faces are ugly. Obviously the artist has a problem with drawing faces. I knew this when I bought the book and can draw my own faces. The small amount of colored pictures in the book are not very advanced. The book does well in stretching one's imagination in costuming and poses. My personal objection is the author's use of the word patterns when copyright prevents one from using it as patterns unless you know how to break it up and mix and match. If one can do that, then it is useful.

In all fairness, this book is a very good rescource for craft painters who paint on wood, slate, etc. And it is also a very nice rescource for anyone who wants to paint a room/ make stencils to decorate and doesn't know how to draw them freehand. Many of the drawings are not perfect (the sewing fairy has her wing drawn in front of her hair on one side)and I would not rely on the fanciful descriptions about the fairies(to me anyway)they are mostly filler to get the feel for what you are working on. (If you want to learn about real fairy folklore I would suggest getting "Fairies" By Brian Froud or looking for a title on Irish fairy tales.) I had expected a much thinner book at first, but it turned out to be more than that. It is also a good source of inspiration for more accomplished artists wanting some new ideas.

A must have if you like fairies! glad that i purchased this book!

While a Christmas present for someone special, I have yet to hear a bad word about receiving such a great gift.
Lots of good ideas regardless of what craft(s) you persue.

I received this book last week, and have already used the 'praying angel' to do a stitchery as a gift for a child making her first communion. Now my daughters are each demanding one - and I intend to use several designs in a quilt. I am using them as they are presented in the book, but also the author has explained how to change the pose/wings, etc., of a particular fairy if you want to. The fantastic variety of detailed designs in here are simply beautiful, I see many stitcheries being made, straight from the book. Easy to trace due to the size, too - always a bonus. I will probably use them in applique as well, perhaps enlarging some.