Urban Watercolor Sketching by Felix Scheinberger

This was such a fun book to peruse, and I am now a Scheinberger fan. He touches on a variety of subjects in this book, making it almost a crash-course in painting with watercolor.
The Intro provides a comfortable start, describing the origins of watercolor and paint colors. The next section of the book, First Attempts, allows the reader to see some of Scheinberger's examples of glazes and washes in his own sketches. The illustrations used throughout the entire book are wonderful. Then he moves onto Excursion in Color Theory, which of course, introduces and gives examples of various color theories. The following section is Your Own Style, in which he shows the reader many examples of different ways of painting and how to fall into your own creative pattern. Basics/Tools explores the world of paints and brushes available for watercolor painting. Out & About introduces the reader to painting things outside the four walls, how to communicate perspective and how to paint water, fog, air, smoke and how to create an atmosphere. Finally Tips & Tricks is a collection of, well, tips and tricks Felix has collected over the years using different types of paper, paint techniques, special effects, and a lot more.

I really enjoyed reviewing this book, because it is something I can personally use in my own artistic ventures. His particular style of sketching and painting is so inspiring and different to me. Most art books don't help much in the way of bettering your creativity or skills, but this one really is worth the 20 bucks if not for anything but the inspiration.

Source: I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

"Dad is Fat" by Jim Gaffigan

As soon as I saw a book by Jim Gaffigan was available, I was pumped. I really enjoy his sense of humor (hilarious, but not unnecessarily dirty). I figured his book would be filled to the brim with more of his humorous everyday life observations, but though the book is funny, it isn't what I expected.

First of all, reading what a comic wrote down and hearing them tell you in person is not the same. At all. I highly recommend getting the audio version for this purpose, I really think that would make a difference. Second, the book is a collection of essays, which about I felt wildly misinformed. This is OK though, given that the book is meant for people who have kids and are therefore pinched for time. The essays are so short you can read a few in a sitting without having to follow a story line of any sort.
So what is the book about? Funny stuff his kids have done, comical observations from having children, what he used to think having children was all about, etc. Reading as someone without children, it really gave me an insider's view of what having kids is like without terrifying me to death. If you are someone with kids, the book will be more entertaining than informative for you.

All in all I recommend this book only if you already have children and want a laugh, or if you want to know what having five! children is like.



You can get more information here to purchase the book.

I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review.