Delectable writing, graceful drawings
927827
Some of the most delectable writing in English about the pleasures of France, including its cuisine, came from the typewriter of M.F.K. Fisher. Therefore it's not surprising that when she suggested that her friend Judith Clancy (who later did the drawings for Peter Mayle's best-selling "A Year in Provence" and "Toujours Provence") draw the bel epoque Gare de Lyon train station and its ornate Train Bleu restaurant a charming book would be the result. Clancy's drawings, collages and artist's notes, introduced by Mrs. Fisher's text, transport the reader to another enchanting time and place.
1612462
The drawings in this book are beautiful. The kindle version includes a few examples of colored pages, and the download is so easy. The reprintable pages are simple and intricate at the same time.
2396976
Ted is one of those wondrous rarities, an artist who can write.  Well.
There are too many books with beautiful artwork and insipid plots.  This is not one of them.  The pen and ink illustrations are beautiful, and humorous, and spooky, and all the other good things you want in a book, but the storyline?  Marvelous and brilliant, with well rounded characters, good suspense, and all the rest.  Including unexpected niceties such as incantations that actually scan (a rarity in even modern books of witchcraft) and are folklorically accurate (again a rarity, even among modern books of witchcraft).
If you liked the Books of Magic, you'll like this, except you'll probably like it better.
2965990
Beautiful illustrations and entertaining comics. The end notes about the author are especially intriguing, as he shares his early attempts at drawing. His passion for writing and drawing comics is obvious and compelling.
3690468
Fresh as a flower and just as vibrant, the colorful 44 cards of the Australian Wildflower Reading Cards are reproduced well from hand-crafted ink prints that have been painted with colors. Cheralyn Darcey is both the book writer and illustrator for these refreshing images. The cards are sturdy yet flexible in use, somewhat large at 3  x 5  inches with rounded corners. They shuffle well and the Flannel Flower card back design is pretty although not distracting when drawing cards. There are no strictly delineated meanings for reversals, with advice for each theme providing both harmonious and challenging aspects smoothly transitioned in a paragraph or two.
The text is wonderfully simple and well organized, with references to the authors oracle website for additional information, such as suggested spreads beyond the main spreads noted. Each card appears in the text alphabetically by the flower name, thus eliminating a need for card numbering, and making looking up the card and meaning by flower name very easy.
The card graphics are cheerful and bright without being garish. Certainly, nature provides flowers in an abundant spectrum of colors and many hues are represented in a fairly faithful manner. That is, it is course the artist rendition and not a stuffy botanical if you will. The energy of the artistand her love for flowers and what they might signify as our teachers and companionsdefinitely comes through with a beneficial and nurturing feeling.
The core meanings connect with our own heartfelt journey of ups and downs; despite the cheerful ambiance of the art, there are real issues touched upon. A sampling of some of these card meanings include:  Resolve, Overcoming, Direction, Partnership, Survival, Faith, Joy, Healing and Forgiveness. The latter card lesson, Forgiveness, is no small life skill indeed.
Cheralyn notes on page 11 of the text that the cards can well serve as a springboard for additional study, beyond the divinatory use; by the second day of playing with this deck I had to get online and see the actual photographs of the flowers and bushes. This helped me in terms of education per se, and also was instrumental in tuning into the flower energetic essence by itself and as it appears as a plant in its environment. In fact, offering these cards overseas might be a very smart selling strategy to draw folks to visit Australia and have a chance to hike aboutseeing these amazing living creatures in person.
This deck comes in an attractive magnetic -closing flip over lid box, and the price is reasonable. The bright red Waratah flower bloom shows off the box top and front cover of the text. The book is modest size, 4  inch x 7  inch and 3/8 inch thick. The Australian Wildflower Reading Cards are a delightful companion for finding wisdom with the questions and conundrums we face on our journey.
4285540
I own three other adult coloring books with nature themes, and I particularly like this one because the author kept to the theme so tightly. Often, coloring book authors will take a vague term like nature and end up drawing little paisley stripes across the top of things and doing things that aren't vaguely natural, while this one really sticks to the theme, with each page having one beautiful, incredibly detailed portrait to color.

What I really like is that for adults, coloring books are more like a meditation in some ways then they are even an art form, though obviously they include elements of both. This one has such tiny detailed bits to draw on every single page that not only is there a lot of room for artistic interpretation, but it really is very soothing and puts you into a meditative place to color in all of the tiny little pieces that are often a similar shape.

The portraits are very clear and appealing. I think this would make a particularly nice gift for an animal lover because the presentation is so attractive, with the gold accents on the cover and backdrop on many of the pages with a few already colored in elements such as a little trail of ivy across the top or a few foxgloves in the bottom corner. It makes it feel extra beautiful and really fun and inspiring to get started.

The pages are a little thicker than typing paper, and are only colored on one side.
357292
<div id="video-block-R35AO9EXW00BSE" class="a-section a-spacing-small a-spacing-top-mini video-block"></div><input type="hidden" name="" value="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/C12rpbEsV1S.mp4" class="video-url"><input type="hidden" name="" value="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71lJm0iARRS.png" class="video-slate-img-url">&nbsp;Attached is my silent and quick flip through video of the entire book of designs.  I hope it is of assistance to you.

This is the second volume of Animal Designs by Blue Star.  The designs are quite lovely and are full of intricate twists and turns.  There are a number of distinctive design styles which makes me think that there are more than one designer involved with drawing these 33 animals.  Some of the designs are bold with broad strokes of the pen while others have an almost delicate quality to them.

The book is printed on a decent quality of paper and, thankfully, the designs are printed on one side of the page with the backside left blank.  That means I can have my choice of types of medium to color them with but I will definitely put a piece of freezer paper or cardstock behind the page as I work.  While the pages are not perforated, it doesn't appear that it will be difficult to remove them from the binding. The designs are centered on the page with lots of blank space left on all sides, so you won't get a cramped hand while trying to color in the last bits next to the binding.

There is a large assortment of animal designs, including the lion on the cover, wolf, seahorse, ram, peacock, owl, swan, and even a pig.  There are so many more that you will probably find several of your favorites included.

I love the relaxation that I obtain when I have been coloring.  It is almost a form of meditation for me.  I focus on the design and let everything else release from my thoughts.  It is a wonderful way to end the day on a good note.
4233155
One of the best art books I've purchased this year! Schellwald is a great pictorial designer, echoing a little Arthur Dove and the NoTan, a little Wayne Thiebaud, a smattering of Russell Chatham, and a healthy dose of Whistler nocturnes coalescing into a beautiful and personal amalgamation of subject, light, and obsession. This is what all sketchbooks aspire to be. Lovely, and an incredible bargain. Six stars.
2300811
This is a delightful cookbook. The writing style is pleasant and drew me in right away. e.g. "Food doesn't need to be complex or elevated to be good. It shouldn't be scary to cook a meal."
The design is gorgeous, and most important, the recipes are delicious. I tried Toffee Bars first, and not only did they fly off the plate, but they were super-easy to make. In fact that's been the case with every recipe I've tried so far--about six or seven. The emphasis, as one might expect from the owner of a B&B, is on breakfasts and teas,but there are also easy recipes for "savory bites" (try the balsamic roasted strawberry crostini and the yummy goat cheese, grape and prosciutto crostini ) and main courses. I'm going to try a simplified Beef Bourguignon and Shepherds's Pie next.
653767
I was given this book as a holiday gift, by a fellow artist, and it is delightful. The author's obvious love of her subject shines through, as the reader is allowed to peer over her shoulder and view a grouping of unique, distinctive and heartfelt personal archives.  Each scrapbook is a private view of a life that was made more meaningful by the practice of collecting and saving small bits of paper, souveniers, photos and ephemera. Most of the books have the un-self-conscious intimacy of private visual journals.  The hand-written inscriptions and at-times inexplicable clippings and carefully-saved what-nots create a mood of unmistakeable pathos. As one who keeps visual art journals, and has written books on this topic ("Artists Journals & Sketchbooks"), I felt this book added significantly to my thoughts about why people need the emotional outlet of hand-made archives to express their innermost thoughts.
1003476
Nikki McClure is one of my favorite artists, and I've been giving this journal to numerous friends over the years. They all have praised it for the beautiful drawings, and non-prescriptive writing space.  A lovely alternative to traditional baby journals.
1697639
This review was taken from my site ChronicallyBatgirlColours. I was given a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Artist - Toc De Groc
Pages - 90
Publisher - PromoPress/Peribo Books

Book
This book is lovely and peaceful to look at. At a square 25cm x 25cm and 90 pages, it is a good size and weight, no matter where you prefer to colour.
The cover is a dustjacket in a bright white with a few spots of colour in deep green, pink and silver. The inner cover is a glossy card in a similar style.
The binding is a marvellous type called 'lay flat' binding - what this means is that no matter where you open the book to, the pages will lie flat! A great addition and wonderful convenience, particularly when it comes to those double page spreads!
The paper is bright white and lightly textured. I was able to build up 5 layers of coloured pencil easily with no indentation on the next page. I experienced no bleeding and only the slightest of shadowing with fineliners and waterbased markets. Alcohol markers and watercolours will bleed, so make sure you aren't very attached to the image on the back and pop a few sheets of paper behind it to protect the next image.
As mentioned, the images are double sided, which is a shame because each and every image is absolutely adorable and I can't imagine not wanting to colour one! Pages are also easy to remove from this style of binding.

Images
As the title suggest, this book is all about nature. But it doesn't just contain your standard flowers and leaves. You'll also find a fruit bowl, a Vespa carrying flowers, a gramaphone playing butterflies instead of music and an assortment of hats decorated with flowers and birds. The variety in this book is quite amazing, as is the artists ability to incorporate the theme of hidden nature into every page!
One of the features of this book is the cat. There is a little drawing of a cat on every page. In some images he is hiding, in others he is in plain sight. In one image, he is hiding within an image of a cat. It's quite fun to page through and pick the cat in each picture, as it's not too difficult, but fun!
As the artwork has been completed by one artist, the book is very consistent in its style. Each image has a trademark 'doodle' feel to it, without being a doodle image, if that makes sense! No matter the subject matter, the art style remains the same, leading to a lovely sense of consistency.
The linework in this book remains moderately thin throughout, although there are no tiny spindly lines thankfully! Intricacy varies a bit, but on the whole, there is a fair division of larger and smaller, more detailed spaces in each image.

Health
Nature is such a lovely theme to colour when you are having a bad day. Not only is the theme something that is soothing, I find the colour palette that goes with it quite calming also.
The added bonus with this book is that the nature theme is often accompanied by another object or theme, one that you may find more interesting or distracting. The variety in this book is one that makes it fantastic for those with fluctuating concentration levels, as you can choose just one area to colour, or a less detailed image if you are having trouble focussing.
The line work and detail mean that those who suffer from vision or fine motor skills impairment may struggle with this book, but as ever, please do check the images before deciding!
377203
A marvelous story, fascinating illustrations, an honest work of historical importance and a scene in an Automat - what's not to like?

I am a big fan of Sydney Taylor's "All-of-a-Kind Family", but of course in an extended prose work you have a lot of room to set scenes and develop your characters. How do you do that in a picture book with only so many pages of drawings and room for only a sprinkling of a few words? Well, I guess you start here with the remarkable illustrations. They have a vaguely old world European feel to them. They are sketches and caricatures, with odd perspectives, unusual angles, simultaneously simplified and exaggerated. This distortion adds to the feeling that this is a memory piece, reduced to its essentials, and intended to create a general sense of Rifka's life in the Yiddish Theater.

The same is true for the writing. There are snapshots of prose that highlight bits of memory. So you have mother and father putting on costumes, actresses in their dressing rooms, the backstage, the prop basement, the smell of old costumes, the magic of weird abandoned and forgotten props. And the sum is a complete memory piece that captures and preserves a special lost time and place.
So, if you want to go to Second Avenue, if you want a reminder of the love between parents and child, or if you just want to explore someplace neat with a nice girl, it seems to me that this book is well worth your consideration.

Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.
4409466
A sparkely, shiney sketchbook. What's not to like? Yowsa!
1688584
When I received this gorgeous book, I was impressed with the quality of the paper, the detail in his drawings-the care and love involved in creating such great whimsical works of art. Truly a book to purchase for yourself, friends and children. To be enjoyed and treasured.
342404
Another in the series of memorable art books fromWatson-Guptill, "DOG" follows the format of"CAT", "ZOO", and in cogent writing, excerpts ofpoetry and literature, all to tie together an exploration of how we have viewed dogs through the eyes of artists over the past several hundred years.  Etruscan sculpture from 500 BC is placed beside photographs by Muybridge, medieval tapestries, paintings ranging from Bruegel, Bosch, Durer, to David Hockney, Miguel Conde, and other fresh contemporary young painters.  Author Iain Zaczek has a scholarly but endearing writing style that allows this litle book to sing.  For the legions of dog owners this is a sensitive celebration.  As a means to introduce children (of all ages!) to fine art, this is a valuable tome.  END
2710098
"Intuitive Journal With Cards" by Elaine Clayton, an award-winning children's book illustrator, is deeply powerful, a very living creation that will rock your perception of 'still life' and former perceptions of two-dimensional energy which may not, after all, BE restricted to two dimensions; dreams and archetypes; the collective unconscious that pulls EVERYMAN together no matter who they are or where / when they've come from.

My friend, a brainy university calculus professor and art devotee, was over last weekend; I was showing her the image cards from the "Intuitive Journal," and her extemporaneous response was compelling. She raptly studied at least half the cards -- there are 40 altogether -- for around half an hour. She would trace the curve of a line and make a camera lens with her thumbs and index fingers to zero in on a portion of a scene as though assessing its composition. She finally said, "I have never seen ONE artist channel so many different artistic styles. This is phenomenal, from both a mathematical and psychological standpoint, because it's not one or two but a dozen different `personalities' coming through.

"Here," she said, "you have a formal portrait like an oil painting; here a less formal, more candid portrait with a completetly different color palette and energy; look at this abstract line drawing" [I explained that the abstracts are called 'gesture paintings']... "here is a sketched landscape, here a stylized lighthouse; and this one is a sort of combined surrealist / expressionist genre -- not exactly like Van Gogh, but reminds me of another French or Russian master -- not Kandinsky or Matisse -- what's-his-name? Well it is authentic, so no previous artist's work captures it really."

I showed her how the author (Ms. Clayton) teaches, in the introductory chapters, that the idea is to shuffle the cards almost as though they are playing cards or Tarot cards, and to randomly PICK ONE to see what it might evoke, almost like playing a word association game. The woman was overcome with a flood of thoughts. I showed her the first card I ever worked with as soon as the book arrived in my hands -- the image of a young `toy' soldier with his bayonet -- and explained how that image conjured, all at once, the childhood memory of a rabid dog, a hike in the Rockies where I first held a shotgun, a painted foal who contracted pneumonia that I nursed in my arms until she died in her sleep; my ancestor's sabre from the Battle of Bunker Hill hanging when I was a child on my brother's bedroom wall high up next to the ceiling; and many other swirling vistas of wars and annihilation, perhaps from past-life memories since they were quite real and I have never fought in a war nor seen battle first-hand.

I told her how I had learned to jot down `code' words for each of the freeze-frames as they flooded in, so that I wouldn't forget any by the time I could journal about it with full attention. Calculus Brain sat at my computer and ordered the book from Amazon.com, on the spot.

These are only some of the topics I discussed vis-a-vis the "BOOK" over a period of two hours with a university math professor whose first response to the book's visual treasures rendered her speechless for nearly half an hour. This woman is a TALKAHOLIC! I've never seen anything steal away her constant flow of chatter this way! FUNNY and very telling!

Let me also say that you don't have to be artistic or know anything about art to be moved by the inner fire this book and these paintings / eketches ignite. If you are a journaler already or have never committed to the daily routine, this is one way to plumb your soul and learn about things inside you that you might never have dreamed were there............

Cynthia Alcott Urich
Fayetteville, AR