January 29, 2026
September 2, 2025
Museum Masterpieces: The Metropolitan Museum of Art presented by Richard Brettell
A Great Courses presentation that walks you through several of the significant pieces of their collection discussing their places in history and their significance. It is enjoyable and very informative.
June 8, 2025
Writing the Action Adventure Film: The Moment of Truth by Neil D. Hicks
Hicks is writing a book, ostensibly for writers of action-adventure films. I feel it applies to any genre, although the examples are all taken from movies.
The book defines what an action-adventure film is and talks about different styles. It breaks the story into several parts and discusses the protagonists role and how it works.
One of the more interesting parts of the book to me was when it discussed the genre with respect to other cultures, mostly European. It talks about why their versions often fail and how they interpret the films. Although interesting, this as a minor portion of the book.
The book will be of interest to anyone interested in how the genre works or who wants to learn more.
September 5, 2022
July 22, 2022
Drawing and Painting Trees in the Landscape by Claudia Nice
I’ve always liked Claudia Nice’s books, her art is good, her instructions clear and to the point. This book’s focus is on trees, tackling many different types of trees in different seasons. She uses step-by-step examples to walk the reader through the painting process showing the palette and easy-to-follow steps with examples at each stage of the painting. There are examples in a variety of media, including pen and ink, pastel, oil, acrylic and watercolor.
June 5, 2022
The Instant Printmaker: Simple Printing Methods to Try atHome… by Melvyn Petterson and Colin Gale
This book presents a light introduction to a large variety of printing techniques. It discusses safety measures in detail when needed and provides well-detailed step-by-step techniques with images to walk a novice through the techniques with a list of all necessary pieces of equipment. At the end of each section the book includes images from different professionals using the covered technique.
The downside of the book is that it wastes a lot of space with large photos and light documentation, many of which could be eliminated.
Overall, it did seem like there was a lot of wasted space. But I found the book interesting, the images are good and there is something here for everyone.
November 3, 2021
Paint Pouring: Mastering Fluid Art by Rick Cheadle
This is a great introduction to the techniques of paint pouring. It provides clear techniques with plenty of examples of what you (or at least a professional) can do with the technique.
February 19, 2021
How Did You Paint That?: 100 Ways to Paint Seascapes, Rivers & Lakes
This book is part of a series that promises to explain the inspiration, interpretation, design and process for creating a painting. Unfortunately it doesn’t really deliver that. Each of these categories is only allotted about two dozen words or less. There isn’t enough to get value from the text.
Each page contains 1 painting taking up about half the page allong with the authors text on the subject and a diagram of the paints/pencils/pastels or whatever he used in the process. Too much is allocated to his tools and far too little on all other aspects of the art.
The book does have some good values. As a picture book, there are 100 nice photos. Each done by a different author in a different style. The art is reproduced well. I think the book would have been better as a picture book with a little information about the painting.
Another nice feature is that most artists have a listed link to a webpage, so it’s easy to find more information about the artist and his other works.
December 4, 2020
Composition by David Friend
Composition discusses some of the finer points of painting composition not well understood by casual artists. Most sections consist of two parts. The first is a light introduction to the section’s topic and includes exercises. The second section (usually) takes a famous painting and compares it to an initial sketch. The pair demonstrate the section’s topic and the artist’s solution to the problem.
The book is well done and very informative. My only issues is that some of the exercises can take several days and makes the book more of a workshop than just a read. I wasn’t prepared for that and ended up skipping or rushing the exercises. If you go in with the time and preparation, the book would probably be a good workshop. Even without taking the exercises as seriously as I should, I found the book very informative and useful.
September 26, 2020
No Plot? No Problem! by Christ Baty
This book walks a writer through the process of participating in the National Novel Writing Month each November. The goal is to write a 50,000-word novel during the month.
The book does deliver on its promise. It discusses the process of getting started, strategies and psychology of each week, and a winding-down process when done. Each chapter includes a key take-away recap.
The book has a lot of good points and uses her style of humor to help drive them home. She uses stories of several past participants to illustrate her points, and adds inspirational quotes from a number of participants in the key chapters. However, the humor is used to excess, even getting a bit old at times, and the points are few. With fewer than 200 pages, there isn’t a lot of content in the book.
The book is an easy read, it is enjoyable and the points it makes are good. I believe it should make more points and fewer jokes.