Hi my name is Suzet, and I am an "Art Book-a-holic. [Hi, Suzet]
I have amassed a huge selections of books over the years. I tried to weed out some when we moved, but I think I ended up letting go of less than a dozen, and those were probably my husbands. I like having a personal library. It makes it easy to get a quick refresher on a technique or artist that I have long forgotten.
However, having read so many, I have to say I am much more picky these days. It is harder to know if I am really going to get good stuff when I buy them from the internet too. I decided to share with you my book rating system, "Buy it, Borrow it or Skip it". I don't want to squish any authors feelings, but man o' man some books should just be checked out at the library seriously, or just read it there. I rarely think a book is so bad I should have skipped it, because there is usually one thing that I can glean from it. So, if I go there, you will KNOW it is bad.
My first book rating and the reason I decided to blog on this art topic tonight is a book called "Kaleidoscope" by Suzanne Simanaitis. The subtitle says, "Ideas +Projects to Spark Your Creativity". I am going to rate this book as a "Borrow It" from the library on my scale. My biggest issue with this book is the small font style that is sienna colored on highly textured background images. The leading is tight and it is just killer on these aging artist eyes. The interior designer of the book and editor should be spanked! It does make for a good graphic design classroom aid. Only for the wrong reason! It breaks several rules, such as using too many fonts per page and other layout no-nos. It might have some really good ideas in there, but even reading it with intermittent breaks, all I could absorb were the design problems. The book has several artists work and is colorful. If you just want to skim it for some eye candy art then go borrow it from the library for a few days.
Feel free to leave comments below if you think I missed the mark on this one.
