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81 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Few Appetizers of Eternal Truths, October 18, 2001
A lot of reviewers give their reaction to the book reviewed. While that's helpful I'm going to do something a bit different. I'm going to show a few examples of some of the "eternal truths" the author gives. 1. The author on beginning a painting of a ballerina and after explaining in detail several of his measurement techniques continues, "Believe Your Eye. But Trust Measurements - ...every professional artist I've ever seen, without exception measures. You need to do it too. ...it will save your artistic life." 2. From the chapter 'Composition - Who Needs It?' - "Not Everything Should Be Equal! - We have a natural (though distressing) tendency to equalize everything in art, which is a problem. Placing equal amounts of warm and cool in a painting, and equal amounts of light and dark, can make a painting look weak and indecisive. Face it: dominance of color or value is easy to talk about, but much harder to pull off. That's one reason why many pros do one or more, sometimes many more, small studies to arrive at one powerful visualization of the intendeded work. Then they'll follow the little study closely to avoid their natural tendency to equalize." 3. From Chapter 6 - "Edges, in case you haven't figured it out by now, are among the half-dozen most important things in a painting."... "The more gradually an object turns away from the light, the softer and wider its shadow edge will be"... "As a shadow goes from light to dark, the soft transitional edge is called the 'core'... "These principles go way back in art. The Impressionists understood them well. Hardly an artist in history, painting a nice pink cheek, would miss the opportunity to make it pinkest just where it goes into shadow." 4. From "30 'Magic' Solutions to Common Problems" - 2. We've all seen the stereotypical artist holding his thumb before his squinting eye. He may be measuring proportions, but he might have something else in mind: comparing relative values of the objects before him. His thumb has a constant value to compare them with. Try it right now and see the revelation." Hopefully this gives an idea of some of the insights this book contains. It's chock full of step-by-step examples demonstrating all the hints, tips and tricks. I re-read this book frequently. Often I'll pick a page and then critique a picture I'm working on to see if I've forgotten or misapplied one of the principles mentioned on that page. Sometimes I'll do the same for a technique. It's a good way to reinforce what I've learned and strive to improve. Artists of any medium can benefit from this great book.
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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My eternal truths to the reading of "Harley Brown's ...", August 7, 2001
OK, so the title of this review is cut off. It should say, "My eternal truths to the reading of "Harley Brown's eternal truths for every artist"". First, a few lines about the author: I like this "guy" (with all due respect, Mr. Brown), just as I like people who are passionate about what they do. For artists, it is a must, because more often than not, people "do arts" because they love it. About the book, all I can say is, "GET A COPY FOR YOURSELF, YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT". Read the table of contents on this page (by Amazon.com) to know what is in it. As far as HOW to read it, these are MY ETERNAL TRUTHS TO IT: 1) This is a GREAT reference book, treat it as it is. In my opinion, it is full of great principles, but not simply a how-to book. 2) Apply these principles frequently until they become your second nature. For instance, Chapter 2 is about drawing skill. It amuses me to think what if Mr. Brown throws in a number of the percentage of "claim-to-be" artists who in fact do not know how to draw what they see. You'd be amused to hear some of the excuses when asked why what they draw is not what "we all see". 3) OK, so how long do you think it will take for you to nail Chapter 2? That is, how long would it take you to be able to draw accurately what you and I see? Yet there is more, such as light, shadow, composition, and then passion, confidence, and so on and so forth. And we are only at Chapter 2. Need I say more? To sum it up, I REALLY like this "guy", and do not call this a how-to book. It is not. It is a great reference book, in my opinion.
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38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best "how to" books on art I've read, April 12, 2001
Well, I'm only up to page 39, but I can tell that this is a gem of a book. Harley Brown is an award winning artist that works mainly in pastel--and is very opinionated in a wonderful way. Lewis Lehrman, and artist himself, is a seamless writer--bringing out the very best of Harley Brown's personal teaching style. Though Harley Brown works mostly in pastel, the book doesn't dwell on specific pastel techniques, instead it addresses major issues of design, color, composition and lots of other wonderful "eternal truths"--Actually, I wouldn't call them eternal truths, just the "doink" I knew that, why don't I take that into consideration when I paint! I work in watercolor and find what I've been reading to be invaluable. The section on color alone is worth the purchase. If you are just beginning, some of the content may not be of value, as beginners are just learning to be comfortable with their mediums. I wouldn't get this book if you're looking for specific art techniques. This isn't a painting 101 type book, its more a graduate level type course. Don't get me wrong, even beginners could learn from it, it has been designed so well. But if you are an intermediate painter, or even an advanced painter, looking to rethink your methods of creativity and trying to push yourself to the next level of creativity--this really is the book for you. The writing style is refreshing, with two different colors of text, the black being the formal, complete sentence descriptions, the red is the humorous and short--but meaningful re-interpretation. Then there are little tiny footnotes at the bottom with very personal asides and running up the sides of the page, in the margin, inspirational quotes. Its pretty neat, definately something to read over and over again, and in short, about the best "art how to book" I've read. Its almost like being in the same classroom with the authors.
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