Basic Perspective Drawing: A Visual Approach

Book Description

A brand-new edition of the popular illustrated guide to basic perspective drawing . . .

Basic Perspective Drawing uses a clear and accessible visual format to help students and professional artists, illustrators, designers, and architects gain a firm and thorough grasp of the major principles and techniques of perspective drawing. Moving logically from simple concepts to specific tools and methods, it shows how to construct perspective views one step at a time, with illustrated examples that cover every key part of the process.

This Third Edition comes with dozens of drawings that make it easy to learn by doing, plus all-new chapters on freehand sketching, scaling the human figure, shading techniques, computer applications, and more.

An ideal coursework or self-study companion for students as well as a valuable reference for professionals, Basic Perspective Drawing, Third Edition provides an invaluable orientation and foundation for understanding the optical world and how it works.

Customer Reviews:

I give it an A..........2006-12-30

I needed this book for one of my college classes and the Amazon price was almost 3/4 cheaper then in the schools book store. This book was only used for about 3-4 months and from what I saw from the textbook... it was great. I learned a lot and I might keep it around just in case I need it for a future math class. But overall, I give it an A...

An education in perspective.......2005-09-20

This is one of the best and most informative books on the subject of perspective I've read or studied. Thank you very much for making this book available.

Clear guide to basic perspective.......2004-06-18

For some reason, perspective is the boogey-man of many people learning to draw. It doesn't have to be that way. This book will help you put that sense of solidity and reality into a drawing.

This book gives a clear, step by step introduction to the basics of drawing in perspective. Interior and exterior; 1-, 2-, and 3-point; they're all here. The techniques are all graphical, and require only basic ability to handle simple drafting tools.

As the title says, this covers just the basics. It covers them thoroughly, so the hard-working reader should come away from it with very usable skills.

Not just for engineers and architects........2003-02-02

I got this book because I had a floor plan that I wanted to make into a 3D or at least 2D home elevation. I've never taken a drawing course and before this, everything I drew was rubbery or floating. :-)

I found this book to be a great help, even in drawing circles, cylinders and curves. It explains shading and light sources, multiple vanishing points, intersecting just about anything and even gives you an idea of how to draw unique shapes in a 3D perspective. All the examples are step-by-step progressions of each concept and really show you how to do it.

You don't have to know sines and cosines, and you don't need a compass or protractor (although they might help). All you need is a pencil, ruler and eraser.

About 85% of the book is dedicated to shapes and structures, but there are also examples of furniture, cars and even people.

An excellent starting point for drawing in perspective.

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BASIC PERSPECTIVE DRAWING A VISUAL APPROACH
John Montague
Manufacturer: Van Rostrand Reinhold
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000IYUHEC

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Basic Perspective Drawing: A Visual Approach, 2nd Ed.
John Montague
Manufacturer: Van Nostrand Rheinhold
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UTHSU6

Customer Reviews:

This is a beautiful book.......2005-12-07

My mother bought this book at a museum when it first came out and she still has it. The photos are breathtaking and each one renders a deep portrait of African Americans from all over the country, doing all sorts of things. There are old women at church, doctors at work, little girls at Muslim school, even gang members. Everything is included and everyone is portrayed as human beings in all their natural dignity. There are no characters or caricatures in this book.

Songs of My People - African Americans: A Self-Portrait

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Songs of My People - African Americans: A Self-Portrait
D. Michael Cheers & Dudley Edited By Eric Easter
Manufacturer: Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1992
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LV8I52

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Songs of My People. African Americans : a Self Portrait.
Eric & Cheers, D. Michael & Brooks, Dudley, M. Easter
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000QRQ07O

Book Description

Fred Basset is without doubt the acknowledged authority on slipper gnawing, newspaper collection, and postman harassment, and his wonderfully dry wisecracks now grace publications worldwide. This is another top-notch collection of cartoons from the Daily Mail's classic Fred Basset strip, featuring one of the most endearing and enduring of Britain's cartoon heroes. The Fred Basset books are collector's items, and sell out each year.

Customer Reviews:

A MUST for basset owners.......2007-05-06

Anyone who has ever owned a basset hound SHOULD collect Fred Basset books! When a cartoonist is required to come up with something funny 365 days a year, a few are bound to be duds, but this compilation from 2005 is good, as usual.

Amazon.com

By including a history of Hong Kong's movie industry; interviews with 31 leading filmmakers, actors, and actresses; plot summaries of some of the better and more influential Hong Kong films of the post-war period; and "recommended viewing" lists from 12 critics, Hong Kong Babylon provides a complete introduction to one of the world's fastest growing and most inventive filmmaking industries. It is especially charming and enlightening to read the discussions in which Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, John Woo, and Chow Yun Fat reflect on their industry in their sometimes stilted English, explaining far better than any Western critic could just what it is to be part of this frenetic business.

Customer Reviews:

A good introduction to the Hong Kong Cinema........2005-06-26

Hong Kong Babylon is one of the better books about the wild and entertaining world of Hong Kong Cinema. The writers briefly touch all the bases with the information provided. Get this book and the one by Bey Logan and you'll have a nice overall view of this cinema.

Strongly recommended.

Read it for Barry Long's wonderul summaries!.......2004-06-03

Unfortunately, Fred Dannen's interviews are much too short so if you're looking for an in-depth look into the Hong Kong film business this isn't it. However, the book has a substantial section summarizing/commenting on hundreds of films and they are wonderfully written by Barry Long, a true connossieur of Hong Kong cinema.

A VERY FRUSTRTATING WORK.......2003-01-03

This book could have been so much more that what it is. The author had interviews with many of the top stars and directors in Hong Kong Cinema, and yet the interviews of such notables as Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat, Jackie Chan, and Michelle Yeoh are barely a page-and-a-half. While it does provide some wonderful information, the bulk of the book is plot summaries and reviews; while the summaries might be helpful, I think most people would have been more interested in what the people involved in the business have to say. Ultimately, my main take on this book is that it was a squaundered oppurtunity for the author to have access to so many well known stars only to reduce them to 5 or 6 comments in a book of this size. Magazine interviews are longer than the interviews found in this book. It's worth reading, but just speaking for myself, it was little more than a tease.

Good basic intro to HK cinema world.......1998-12-11

As some of the other reviews here suggest, this is a bit of a cut and paste job-- Dannen's New Yorker piece on the triads thrown together with reviews and lists compiled by others. But the field has been so spottily documented to date that the serious info and critical context provided here is of real value, even if, as is suggested in one of the reviews above, "Sex and Zen and a Bullet in the Head" is probably a better choice for the fan who just wants to know what cool movies to rent. I would also recommend a British book which should be available here, "Hong Kong Action Cinema" by Bey Logan.

Average book on an extraordinary subject.......1998-03-10

Considering the lack of any information on the film-making industry outside of Hollywood; this book does fill a needed space. Most libraries would do well to include it in their collection despite the cheap adhesive binding and the high risk of damage to the book(ie pages and pictures being razored out). The opening article gives an interesting yet way-too-short overview on the industry and the individual interviews should have been better planned. The synopsis of individual films is handy because most of the video packaging for these films is not very informative or not in english. Other popular video guides do not often include Hong Kong films unless the films have reached a certain cult status (examples: The Killer, A Better Tomorrow) The critic section is a waste of space. More should have been spent on the history of the industry than on the opinions of little known critics.

Book Description

The four overtures in this volume display Rossini's extraordinary talent at the threshold of his career. Composed before his eighteenth birthday, they show him developing orchestral skills that served him throughout his life. The Sinfonia del Conventello and the Sinfonia obbligata a contrabbasso were written for performance at "Il Conventello," the estate of his patron Agostino Triossi, and feature the cello and double bass. The Sinfonia in D and the Sinfonia in E-flat were composed at the Liceo Filarmonico in Bologna, where Rossini was a student from 1806 to 1809. Their public performances showed them to be much more than classroom exercises, and Rossini later reworked the E-flat overture for his opera La cambiale di matrimonio.

None of these overtures survives in Rossini's hand. (In his late years, Rossini confided that he had left a number of "little things" with Triossi, who had probably used them "to wrap salami.") The critical edition has recovered the first two from recently identified manuscript copies, the others from incomplete sets of parts.

Sinfonie giovanili (The Critical Edition of the Works of Gioachino Rossini, Section I: Operas)

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Sinfonie giovanili (The Critical Edition of the Works of Gioachino Rossini, Section I: Operas)
Gioachino Rossini
Manufacturer: Fondazione Rossini
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OPZLTG

Amazon.com

Books of trivia are always fun, but there's a tendency to find misinformation or incomplete information in these books. Of course, errors are unavoidable, but honesty about this is almost always absent from a book of random facts. Stumpers! takes a different approach, compiling questions and answers from an Internet discussion group. The great pleasure of this approach is that any one question may have a number of responses from a variety of participants in the discussion. Thus, alternatives are presented and the responses to some questions are contradicted by further responses, an intriguing approach that points to the endless nature of question asking. Plus, the chosen questions are a kick, ranging from debunking the myth of "Pope Joan" to finding the name of that little cartoon guy who used to be in the Hawaiian Punch ads. --James DiGiovanna

Book Description

When people are faced with questions they can't answer, they often go to their local reference librarian.  But when reference librarians are stumped, where do they go?  The answer is Stumpers!, an Internet discussion group devoted to the questions even the professionals couldn't handle.

*  What is the value of the chemicals in the human body?
*  Why did Napoleon keep his hand in his jacket?
*  Do the people now alive outnumber the people who have ever lived?
*  Who was the last slave to serve in the White House?
*  What was the first couple on television allowed to sleep in the same bed?

The standard references are silent, but Stumpers! has answered them all, combining the traditional accuracy of reference librarians with the fast-moving wit of the Internet.  With hundreds of answers in categories ranging from Government to Sports, Folklore to Science, Stumpers! is the perfect gift for any trivia fan.

Customer Reviews:

Librarians respond to new technologies--and not with "shhh!".......1999-06-29

It's interesting to look at Stumpers, as the one who started the whole thing, way back in 1992, when I was a Library Science student thinking, "You know, there's an interesting new way we could use this Internet thing..."

That was way back in the days when the web was mostly compiled of gophers and ftp sites, and Lynx was pretty high-tech. It's all grown a lot since then--the Internet, Stumpers, and the network of librarians on the Internet and on Stumpers.

This collection is a tribute to the resourcefulness and mutual helpfulness of librarians, as well as a great read. Librarians are far from mouse-haired whisperers of "Shhh," hiding behind their card catalogs--they're the ones who are making revolutionary use of revolutionary technologies!

Answers are trivial -- it's about learning to find them........1998-11-07

As one of the people quoted in _Stumpers_, I want to tweak your "book description" a bit. When reference librarians are stumped, we go to *other reference librarians.* Though the questions Fred has chosen are the wildest and wooliest in the Stumpers archives, they're not exactly "questions even the professionals couldn't handle." They are questions that one particular professional, who may be in a very small or very specialized library -- or whose books are packed up for a move -- couldn't find on that particular day, and forwarded to the World's Biggest Virtual Reference Desk.

That said, we do tend to get some truly gnarly stumpers. (My favorite is the carefully handwritten note one librarian received asking for the name of a song that goes "dah-dee-dah-dee-dum-de-dee-dah...") It's amazing how often the impossible ones do get answered.

The point of the Stumpers-L discussion group is that if enough of us participate, *one* at least is sure to have the answer. In the several years I've been a member, we've had contributions from subject experts in an amazing range of specialities, people you couldn't afford to hire as consultants even if you knew they existed. (The book's full of wonderful examples.)

The great thing is the spirit of collegiality among this huge diverse group of people, most of whom never meet in real life, who may have nothing in common except an addiction to finding things out. Reading the book will give you a stash of deliriously odd facts to reel out at parties, but it will also teach you something about the nature of information and the meaning of "answers."

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Stumpers! : Answers to Hundreds of Questions that Stumped the Experts
Fred R. (Ed. ) Shapiro
Manufacturer: Random House Reference
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OXK86Y

Customer Reviews:

A must read for financial markets people.......2007-03-23

The real value of this book is that it will hopefully serve as a reminder to the person who has read it when that person happens to find himself in a state of financial euphoria. In that sense, it's indespensible and could be life-saver. It's a usefule piece of wisdom. But in another sense, Galbraith's analyses of various financial run-ups and crashes is a bit too tidy. Obviously at the most general level, extreme market behavior can be thematicized, so to speak, so that genearl qualities can be shown to be shared by extreme markets. And this is where Galbraith makes his point and spreads it on thick, albeit in overly stuffy tone for an economist!

Delicious Little Book on the Idiocy of the Get-Rich-Quick Mindset!.......2006-07-31

Galbraith's wonderful little book (Only 110 pages) is a quick guided tour -- with pithy analysis interspersed throughout -- of get-rich-quick movements, and, more importantly, the foolish thinking BEHIND such phenomena. Galbraith takes the reader on brief tours of some of the more notorious financial booms-gone-bad, such as the "Tulip Craze" in Holland and the Banque Royale bust in France in the 1600's, the South Seas "Bubble" of the 1700's, and, more importantly, the numerous episodes throughout American financial history, from Colonial times through the busts of 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1907, 1929 -- and 1987 (Galbraith's book was first published in 1990 -- ten years before the dot-com bust....). The source of these rush-to-riches-gone-sour, argues Galbraith, rests on several ever-consistent, historically re-occurring causes: First, the quest for leverage (i.e. generating more funds than having the means to actually support them) and lavish debt spending; Second, the pathological, recurrent inability of the financial world to learn from the past; Third, the silly notion that the possession of wealth is directly equal to a persons' intelligence (Wealthy individuals, contends Galbraith, are not rich because of brains, but more often through chance and circumstance -- a fact the public ignores at their own peril); Fourth, the incessant human desire to become affluent by the easiest means possible; Fifth, the 'religious' quality Americans consistently perscribe to "the market," i.e. that free enterprise is 'perfect' -- Corruption, loss, and falling markets are due only to "outside forces" (Like 'evil CEO's' or 'government intervention') -- rather than the public's endless supply of gullibility, culpability, and simple greed. The financial world, Galbraith brilliantly contends, is rooted in a quasi-theological outlook: Successful Wall Street moguls are treated as divine shamans; dogmatic faith in the latest financial hoopla is considered a virtue; critics are readily condemned as heretics; and once the bubble bursts, there exists a curious religious playing-out of "Sin-Fall-Guilt-Punishment," whereby the men who we once revered as financial geniuses are quickly strung-up in the court of public opinion -- sacrificial lambs for the public's own short-sightedness. Galbraith warns his readers that money-making innovations in the world of finance are simply worn-out re-workings of very, very old schemes. New bubbles emerge under new guises and fanciful terminology -- but the game remains forever the same. Once one crisis has passed, a new financial rush soon emerges, and the vicious cycle of irrationality and idiocy (Galbraith's terms) begin again. In the end, Galbraith warns his readers to be very wary of those who promise you easy wealth, and should you jump on the latest money-making bandwagon -- and most likely end up losing in the end -- don't blame anyone or anything except............YOURSELF. Excellent book!!

Good Short Book.......2006-07-26

For those in the market,this is the kind of book one needs to read to remind oneself of the madness, greed and temptation that is still so real in stock markets.Might be real handy read when those sensations start affecting in a frenzy rising market.Good , short and sharp book!

A short example of irrational personal euphoria.......2006-06-04

If euphoria is the result of unwarranted optimism based on substantial previous achievement, then Galbraith was sadly carried away by the euphoria of his own reputation in attempting this topic.

Many of his books are beacons of astute political, economic and social judgment; one of his finest, rarely if ever matched by any author, is 'The Scotch'. This book is more of a Cliff's Notes compilation of financial accidents, concluding with the wise advice to "Be Careful".

To take one example, he doesn't explain the WHY of Tulipomaniaof the 1630s. He merely concludes, "Anyone who has seen the tulip fields of this calm and pleasat land in the spring retains forever a feeling that the Tulipomania did foretell nature's true grace." Time and again he walks away from poignant examples with the obvious conclusion that sometimes something nice happens.

Financial euphoria, from what I've seen, is very much like the mania for hula hoops, basketball hoops and Beanie Babies and a Google stock IPO. The madness of crowds for new fads is a result of honest and optimistic people who want to share in a good thing. This is the basis of a prosperous society, even if it can lead to occasional financial euphoria.

Sadly, he mixes the madness of Tulipomania with the outright fraud of crooks who deliberately create a climate of excited optimism to defraud honest people. Fraud is a circus salesmen who offers "a special opportunity" to "See the Egress" for only a small fee. There's a big difference between honest promoters and cynical crooks. It makes me suspect Galbraith was never a salesman, and resolutely ignored the circus if it ever ventured near Harvard.

Galbraith ignores the vast difference between the two. One is the enthusiastic optimism of a promoter with a new idea who takes great risks to make it a reality; an example is Thomas Edison and his thousands of attempts to develop ideas into useful products. The second is the enthusiastic illusions of a trickster whose only goal is to separate the honest but optimistic people from their money; an example is Robert Vesco.

In the first case, an optimistic society with confidence in a better future can become the victim of the irrational exuberance of its expectations. This phenomena truly needs to be studied to understand irrational financial euphoria. The second is the crook who uses clever words instead of a big club to steal from anyone and everyone.

Galbraith failed to distinguish between the two or to explain the nature of either. It makes his book more of a short example of overconfidence in his own ability to be cogent, concise and relevant.

Never again - well, until the next big thing.......2006-06-02

A brief interesting, dare I say entertaining trip through the idiotic financial euphoria of the past...boy am I glad we aren't that stupid anymore, he said sarcastically. Tulip Mania and the South Sea bubble provide two of the cautionary tales. Of course, these idiotic things only look idiotic after sobering reality smacks investors in the face. Indeed one of the sure signs of euphoria is the absence of public doubters. Galbraith's short little book poses a significant challenge for purveyors of the Rational Market theory. If markets are rational, how can the bottom fall out of the market in a panic?

Highly recommended.

A Short History of Financial Euphoria (The Larger Agenda Series)

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A Short History of Financial Euphoria (The Larger Agenda Series)
John Kenneth Galbraith
Manufacturer: Whittle Direct Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NXZ2O8

A Short History of Financial Euphoria : Financial Genius is Before the Fall (the Larger Agenda Series)

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A Short History of Financial Euphoria : Financial Genius is Before the Fall (the Larger Agenda Series)
John Kenneth Galbraith
Manufacturer: Whittle Direct Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NXUU4U

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A Short History of Euphoria Financial
John Kenneth Galbraith
Manufacturer: Random House Value Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0517152932
Release Date: 1995-07-09

A SHORT HISTORY OF FINANCIAL EUPHORIA Financial Genius is Before the Fall

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A SHORT HISTORY OF FINANCIAL EUPHORIA Financial Genius is Before the Fall
John Kenneth Galbraith
Manufacturer: Whittle Direct Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NOXFM8

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A SHORT HISTORY OF FINANCIAL EUPHORIA

Manufacturer: Whittle Direct Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IFH0JQ

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A Short History of Financial Euphoria
John Kenneth Galbraith
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJ5Z2U

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A Short History of Financial Euphoria

Manufacturer: Penguin USA (Paper)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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