Jane Davila's Surface Design Essentials: Explore Paints, Mediums, Inks and Pencils, 15 Techniques for Fabric and More [Spiral-bound]

Jane Davila (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 16, 2010

This is your license to play! Whether you?re a quilter, a textile artist, or you dabble in mixed media, you?re going to love this tool. When you can?t find the exact fabric you need, make it yourself!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jane Davila is a best-selling crafting author and a popular art-quilting and surface design teacher.

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 72 pages
• Publisher: C&T Publishing; Spi edition (February 16, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1607050773
• ISBN-13: 978-1607050773
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #652,582 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book For All Who Feel They Are Creatively Timid!, April 16, 2010

By 

Christine Fegles "ArtPlay with Chris" (Alsea, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jane Davila's Surface Design Essentials: Explore Paints, Mediums, Inks and Pencils, 15 Techniques for Fabric and More (Spiral-bound)

Jane Davila's book "Surface Design Essentials" is a staging ground of creative exploration and the perfect primer for any timid soul. And it's a great refresher course, with updates about current products for the more experienced but out of touch mixed media artists! Jane's book demonstrates expert knowledge with kind encouragement that's easy paced, kind of like a ready-set-go as she graciously nudges you to a jumping off place.

One small thing that I appreciated was that she explains quite simply basic color mixing of paints; primary's, secondary's, tints and shades. Too often this information is bogged down into boring and complex color theory. Another item that got my creative juices flowing was her instruction to using gel medium to fuse fabrics! I also found most all of the various tips offered throughout the text to be "Ah ha" moments of what I referred to earlier as jumping off places.
Expert yet simple instructions for mixed media techniques - it's simply a must have book!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jane Davila's Surface Design, March 27, 2010

By 

V. Aumond - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Jane Davila's Surface Design Essentials: Explore Paints, Mediums, Inks and Pencils, 15 Techniques for Fabric and More (Spiral-bound)

This is a wonderful book with step by step instructions. It is spiral bound, it lays flat so that the instructions are easy to read and follow without fighting to keep my place.. And it has this great finish, I can wipe off the page when I spill some paint on it. The photographs make each technique easy to follow. I am enjoying every lesson.. thank you Jane. Jane Davila's Surface Design Essentialls is a wonderful book for fiber/paint artists and crafts people. vivian

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much Smaller than it Seems!, June 4, 2010

By 

K. Babcock "Queen of Mixed Media Art" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Jane Davila's Surface Design Essentials: Explore Paints, Mediums, Inks and Pencils, 15 Techniques for Fabric and More (Spiral-bound)

I'm all about the art and craft books. Seriously. I can't get enough of them. My bookcase is proof. I will admit to being surprised when this book showed up - familiar with Jane Davila and her work, the size just took me aback when I pulled it out of the box.

However...

After opening the book and paging through it, I quickly forgot about the size. (In this case, size really doesn't matter!) This is a fantastic book, bursting with awesomeness. The 6" x 9" size - with soft cover and spiral binding - is full of color photos, in-depth explanations, and A+ techniques. This is one of Davila's finest books.

There are 15 techniques - a wide variety of interesting ideas. Whether you have loads of "surface design" experience (you already frou-frou up everything within reach), or are just beginning, Davila will expertly guide you through the ins-and-outs of fun, unique ways to art up whatever surface you have in mind. Davila is well-known in the fiber and quilt worlds, so her techniques tend to focus on fiber (go figure!) - but almost all are adaptable to other surfaces. There is not one technique in Surface Design Essentials that you can't easily transfer to paper. Then again, I can see many of her fabulous techniques used on tons of surfaces - and I plan on spending a good portion of the summer playing with the techniques, then using my newly acquired skills on a variety of surfaces.

If you're at all artsy (or just a packrat), you probably already have most of the tools/products she discusses. The book is well laid out - Introduction to Surface Design, Surface Design Basics, Surface Design Techniques, Projects, Gallery, and finally, About the Author. To tempt you further, a few of the techniques she covers: Monoprinting - Additive, Monoprinting - Subtractive, Modifying Commercial Fabric, Making Image Transfers, Creating Background Washes, Using Acrylic Ink (in two parts)...yum!

It's easy to see why Davila is so well-regarded - she'll have you getting your art on with a simple flip of some pages! (The highest compliment I can give this book? Davila makes every technique in Surface Design Essentials seem as easy as turning the pages in the book. That's talent!)