Luxury Houses: Country (Luxury Houses)

Customer Reviews:

Twenty-Two Beautiful Houses.......2006-01-20

With room to spread out; often a view of the ocean, valley, mountain or lake; fewer restrictions on things like building codes, the opportunity to develop fantastic houses away from city life has long been popular. At one end of the scale is a crowded campground or small house in a crowded area. At the other end are the houses shown here.

In this book the author has selected twenty-two houses that I believe any of us would call luxurious. From a 16,000 square foot house in upstate New York overlooking a valley to homes with a view of the sea in Hawaii, Italy and other places, the homes here are fantastic. Each house is profusely illustrated with color pictures.

This book is produced by teNeues. The teNeues books are truly beautiful. The company is headquartered in Germany and they bring a sense of quality to their books that is not common. The books are printed on heavy paper using very high quality printing techniques. While this is essentially a coffee table picture book, or perhaps an idea book for the house you are planning, it is beautifully done, almost a work of art.

Luxury Dream Homes: 154 Luxury Home Plans from Eleven Leading Designers (Home Plans)

Average customer rating:

Diverse plan resource

Luxury Dream Homes: 154 Luxury Home Plans from Eleven Leading Designers (Home Plans)

Manufacturer: Home Planners
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

House Plans | Home Design | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1881955168

Customer Reviews:

Diverse plan resource.......2005-03-30

Excellent home plan book for anyone looking for luxurious mini-estate home plans. This book covers a wide variety of styles but mainly concentrates on homes in the 3,000 - 6,000 square foot range, with a few homes in reaching into 7,000 square feet plus. Overall, a good resource for anyone looking for ideas to help in the creation of their dream home or for someone with a general love of architecture.

Average customer rating:

Great Book

Watercolor Basics: People
Butch Krieger
Manufacturer: North Light Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Watercolor Painting | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Portraits | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Themes | History & Criticism | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Painting People (Watercolor for the Fun of It)

Painting Watercolors That Sparkle With Life

Painting Watercolor Portraits That Glow

Painting People in Watercolor: A Design Approach (Practical Art Books)

The Figure in Watercolor: Simple, Fast, and Focused (Simple Fast & Focused)

ASIN: 1581801483

Book Description

This new title in the Watercolor Basics series provides artists with all the step-by-step guidance they need to bring people and portraits to life through the beauty of watercolor. From achieving proper proportion to rendering skin tones, author Butch Krieger makes mastering the basics--value, shape, line and color--a snap. Seventeen complete demonstrations and thirteen mini demos take readers through every step, everything from selecting materials and mixing colors to creating effects. Whether the reader is an absolute beginner striving to paint people realistically, or a more advanced artist looking to improve a specific technique, Watercolor Basics: People will make a noticeable difference in the quality of their work.

Customer Reviews:

Great Book.......2002-06-10

This book is a great step-by-step guide for portrait painting in watercolor. The importance of value is well illustrated. A wonderful book for the beginner and experienced watercolor painter.

Basic People Painting: Techniques in Watercolor (Basic Techniques)

Average customer rating:

Basic People Painting: A Brief Overview
This book will make a dramatic difference in your portraits.

Basic People Painting: Techniques in Watercolor (Basic Techniques)

Manufacturer: North Light Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Watercolor Painting | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Watercolor | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Portraits | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0891347313

Customer Reviews:

Basic People Painting: A Brief Overview.......2007-02-23

The cover of this book caught my eye as an artist just mustering the bravery to paint people. The suggestions of human movement, without minute, photo-like details, suggested the book was a super way to start incorporating people into one's paintings. Simple strokes suggest people and their activities.

However, the book does even more than that. It discusses and illustrates how bodily proportions vary at different ages, provides samples of people in various cultural dress, and even discusses facial shadows, etc.

For the beginner people watercolorist -- this book may be all they will need to achieve results that are satisfying and vital.

This book will make a dramatic difference in your portraits........1998-06-01

Having stumbled upon this book quite by accident, I was thrilled to find that the clear format, easily followed instructions, and wonderful graphics resulted in instant improvement of my watercolour portraits. There are suggestions about layers of color, highlighting, organizing your image, to name a few, that will add life and dimension to your work quickly and easily. This book will be a welcome addition to any reference library that a watercolor portrait artist is compiling.

Watercolour Basics: People (Watercolour Basics)

Average customer rating:

Watercolour Basics: People (Watercolour Basics)
Butch Krieger
Manufacturer: David & Charles Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Watercolor Painting | Instructional & How-To | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Watercolor | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0715312456

Basic People Painting: Techniques in Watercolor

Average customer rating:

Basic People Painting: Techniques in Watercolor
Rachel Rubin Wolf
Manufacturer: North Light Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KXZ0V6

Book Description

Ghost in the Shell takes as its premise the idea that the outer person is a reflection of the inner. Tracing the modern photographic portrait over the past 150 years, the book reveals the many ways the photographic arts have investigated, represented, interpreted, and subverted the human face and, consequently, the human spirit. Artists have used the genre not only to convey familiar emotions such as fear, love, sadness, and anger, but also to explore complex subjective states such as passionate individuality and psychological withdrawal. Different avant-garde movements have enlisted farce, masks, and masquerade in their charting of the human character, and many postmodern works employ irony and ambiguity to deal with issues of identity, gender, and dissociation.

The book, which accompanies an exhibition opening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in October 1999, is organized roughly chronologically around the traditional, modernist, and postmodernist views of the face, although the primary approach of one period often appears in the others. The artists discussed include, among others, Diane Arbus, Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Curtis, Salvador Dali, Duchenne de Boulogne, Dorothea Lange, Annie Leibowitz, Bruce Nauman, Orlan, William Parker, Irving Penn, Lucas Samaras, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, and Edward Weston.

Published in cooperation with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Customer Reviews:

A tour guides opinion.......2000-12-28

As a former tour guide for the Ghost in the Shell exhibit, i can honestly say that this book is a grat compilation of the works. While the pictures alone show the depth and richness of the exhibit, the text is used well and provides a great source of info for the reader. It is a great addition to any colletion of art books.

Visual Feast.......2000-04-02

I found this book to be a very rich and inspiring perspective on the historic use of photography. Wonderfully illustrated with examples from the beginnings of photo-experimentation to masters like Richard Avedon, this tome is worth buying for the illustrations alone. If you like this comprehensive analysis of the frisson between representation and being, I also recommend "Pictures of the Body, Pain & Metamorphosis" by James Elkins.

Ghost in the Shell: Photography and the Human Soul, 1850-2000: Essays on Camera Portraiture

Average customer rating:

Ghost in the Shell: Photography and the Human Soul, 1850-2000: Essays on Camera Portraiture
Robert A. Sobieszek
Manufacturer: Los Angeles County Museum of Art / MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O93RYS

Ghost in the Shell' - Photography and the Human Soul 1850-2000 (Paper)

Average customer rating:

Ghost in the Shell' - Photography and the Human Soul 1850-2000 (Paper)
RA Sobieszek
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQGZUE

Average customer rating:

Ghost in the Shell: Photography and the Human Soul, 1850-2000
Robert A. Sobieszek
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQJQ46

Book Description

Charizard is a cross between a bull and a buffalo, but with three tails! In this latest Pokemon adventure, a pack of arguing Tauros must work together to counter a challenge from the star.

Book Description

Part how-to, part memoir, this book describes the repair and rebuliding of a 32-foot catamaran sailboat wrecked during Hurricane Georges in 1998. The boat was overturned and then tossed ashore, crushing the mast and the superstructure, holing the hull, soaking the interior, and ruining the outboards, electrical system, and electronics. The book follows the owner's effort to salvage what remained of the hull, get an insurance settlement, and repair the wreck. The owner, author David Harris, decided to carry out repairs himself because his location in the Florida Keys provided limited and very expensive repair options. It was a daunting task; Harris had no boat-repair experience, but he had a homeowner's handyman skills and a willingness to learn. First, he tackled the structural repairs to the fiberglass hull at an area boatyard. When the hull could be refloated, he brought it home to work on it in the canal behind his house. Further repair consumed many more month! s. Harris replaced some parts (mast and rigging, hatches, lights, fans, refrigerator, electronics, the two outboards, the mainsail) and repaired others, including the cabinets, hardtop, and plumbing and electrical systems. During the repair process,he upgraded and customized the boat to fit his family's needs. When repair was complete, a marine survey carried out for insurance purposes valued the boat at $148,000, not much less than its original purchase price. Even better, Harris kept the more than $60,000 of the insurance settlement not spent on the repair. Black-and-white illustrations and an entertaiing narrative offer an engrossing story of large challenges met and inventively mastered.

Customer Reviews:

Surviving every boat owner's worst nightmare.......2007-01-21

I imagine every boat owner has a nagging worry about what would happen if the forces of nature severely damaged or destroyed your boat? How do you get the boat salvaged and repaired without being eaten alive by all the pirates out there? David Harris tells the story of how his family's beloved sailing catamaran was wrecked when Hurricane Georges swept the Florida Keys, and the long journey to reclaim and rebuild his boat.

Perhaps the first third of the book deals with the loss, and the amazing struggle that follows after calling his insurance agent and being told his insurer is "off-shore" and the agent would have nothing to do with the claim. While the boat was damaged enough to be a complete write-off, the repair work turned out to be far easier than the effort to get his claim settled and his boat back.

The remaining two thirds describes the rebuilding of his boat. For anyone considering restoring or rebuilding a boat, this material is quite good in that it describes the processes involved in redoing a complete boat. There are many "how-to" books out there (and he recommends a few) that tell you the specifics of a given task, but in this book you get the big picture view of the whole job.

As for the criticism of the illustrations, yes, they have been done in an old-fashioned grainy sepia look, but they don't detract much from the story. Part of Harris' approach was not to name names. Some folks he came across were honest, competent and helpful; others weren't. The grainy photos prevent the identification of the guilty as well as the innocent.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. My wife did as well, although she skipped some of the technical discussions. It's a good read for anyone who works, or has thought of working, on their own boat.

Disappointing Quality.......2002-11-07

After reading Wreck and Resurrection, I was disappointed with the quality of the publication. Illustrations are of a poor quality by the publisher: Tortuga Books. They are such poor quality, that the book would have been more enjoyable without them. It was interesting reading about David Harris's experience in dealing with the insurance settlement process.

For anyone who has ever contemplated rebuilding a boat.......2001-05-22

Five days after hurricane Georges savaged the Florida Keys in September 1998, David Harris was on the sea in his dinghy and trying to locate his boat, Top Cat. His 32-foot catamaran sailboat had been anchored in a shallow, protected cove before the storm hit. When Harris finally found his boat it was up on the shore, upside down, and with a hull spiked by mangroves. Declared a total loss by the insurer, Harris refused to give up his beloved craft. With little more than a homeowner's carpentry, electrical, and plumbing skills, Harris repaired Top Cat, spending less than half the insurance proceeds in the process and ending with a "profit" of more than $60,000. What he learned as a result of this amazing nautical restoration and repair project also resulted in improvements and upgrades making Top Cat an even better boat than before the hurricane! Illustrated with black-and-white drawings and diagrams, Wreck And Resurrection: How I Made $60,000 Repairing My Sailboat is "must" reading for anyone who has ever contemplated rebuilding a boat of their own either out of necessity or just for fun!

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