Complete Wellness by Neal's Yard Remedies

Complete Wellness by Neal's Yard Remedies ISBN-13: Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: DK Publishing Released: Sept. 18, 2018

Source: Review copy from the publisher through Amazon Vine.

Book Description from Goodreads:
Enjoy long-lasting holistic health and prepare natural health remedies for common ailments with essential oils, herbal remedies, and pure foods.

Complete Wellness delivers a head-to-toe guide to healing for every part of your body. Targeted instructions allow you to tap into the restorative powers of herbs and plants and their therapeutic essential oils and use tried-and-true, centuries-old herbal remedies to treat a host of common ailments.

In addition to healing remedies, the book explores the key building blocks for optimizing health and well-being in each part of the body, pointing you to the top herbs, nutrients, and essential oils each area needs not only to stay well, but to reach the very peak of wellness--whether to boost circulation, enjoy glowing skin, balance gut flora, or maximize energy levels. Guidance is given on incorporating ingredients into everyday regimens, helping you to stay in optimal health.

Follow step-by-step demonstrations on how to blend your own teas and tinctures; concoct all-natural-ingredient creams; create therapeutic aromatherapy oil blends; discover delicious recipes for wellness; and master a variety of other practical techniques and tips for lifelong well-being. Make the most of nature's resources with Complete Wellness.


My Review:
Complete Wellness provides information on natural remedies for different health problems. They take the different problems--like stress or toothache or carpal tunnel syndrome--and suggest possible remedies under several subsections: herbs, essential oils, food, supplements, and other therapies. Under each section, they briefly named the remedy and explained what it does, when to avoid using it, and how to use it. For example, under essential oils, "Basil strengthens resistance to stress. Avoid during pregnancy. Add three drops to a diffuser." There is not a lot of information for each remedy. I would've liked information on how long one can take the remedy as I know that some should not be taken long-term.

They covered problems with moods, different parts of your body, immunity and intolerances, women's health, men's health, and children's health. They also explained step-by-step how to make a herbal infusion, extract, macerated oil, decoction, syrup, herbal capsule, poultice, essential oil blend, balm, cream, and essential oil compress. Again, there wasn't a lot of depth to the information provided, but they do provide the basic information on how to do these things. They also included a few recipes for things like smoothies, soups, and salads.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

101 Textures in Oil and Acrylic by Mia Tavonatti

101 Textures in Oil and Acrylic by Mia Tavonatti ISBN-13: 9781633226869 Paperback: 128 pages Publisher: Walter Foster Publishing Released: Dec. 25, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
101 Textures in Oil & Acrylic features step-by-step instructions for mastering a variety of the most common surfaces—sand, water, metals, foliage, wood, bark, fabrics, stone, grass, and many more—in oil and acrylic paint.

Although many art instruction books focus on learning to paint specific subjects, many fall short when it comes to offering instruction on techniques that help one capture textures adequately. Experienced and talented artist Mia Tavonatti provides artists with the essential skills required to render realistic surfaces in oil and acrylic. Artists will discover tips and tricks for working with both mediums, as well as a variety of techniques, including blending, layering, working with oil and acrylic mediums, creating an underpainting, and more. In addition to valuable step-by-step instructions, general color recommendations offer a quick start guide. This helpful guide includes an index for fast and easy reference, while a short gallery at the end of the book represents various textures in finished works of art.


My Review:
101 Textures in Oil and Acrylic provides instructions on how to produce 101 textures using oil or acrylic paint. The author assumed that the reader knows the basics of painting in oil and acrylic, so she jumped into the step-by-step demonstrations after a brief introduction. The instructions were not specific to either oil or acrylic paint, so you have to know how to adapt her general instructions to the type of paint you're using. She also never described exactly what she meant by "impressionistic" or "painterly" (and different artists mean different things by these terms). However, the pictures for the different steps did a good job of showing what she meant. She didn't usually say if you should let a layer dry or not before going to the next step, which would have been useful information.

The step-by-step demonstrations were basically "use these colors in this order with these techniques to create this texture." She did not describe how to choose the best colors to create a certain texture. But she did use different colors for the demonstrations of similar textures (like the different types of hair), so you can get an idea of how to choose colors from that. Also, she only demonstrated how to do a small section of texture, like fur or skin, and left it up to the reader to correctly apply it to the whole body. While this book is helpful in teaching how to create different textures, it probably wouldn't be as helpful for a beginner as for someone who has some experience already with oil or acrylic paint.

You can see exactly what's covered in the table of contents, but she basically covered people (hair, skin, eye), animals (fur, mane, feathers, etc.), fabrics (tweed, silk, leather, lace, etc.), woven basket, glass, stone, ceramic, wood, metal, various food textures, and nature textures (bark, fern, grass, rain, etc.).


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.

Rethinking Acrylic by Patti Brady

Rethinking Acrylic by Patti Brady ISBN-13: 9781440354137 Paperback: 160 pages Publisher: North Light Books Released: Dec. 11, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Tradition is out, experimentation is in with this cutting-edge how-to sampler of techniques to use with acrylic, the world's most versatile medium. Inside, you'll find inventive, non-traditional, downright inspirational ways to paint with acrylic (pour, scrape, squirt, roll, layer and excavate). Includes 18 step-by-step demonstrations that illustrate a wide variety of techniques including engraving acrylic, intarsia, pouring acrylic objects and more. Studio visits profile 10 artists and their personal approaches to painting with acrylics. And more!

Watermedia Effects * Creating Texture Gels * Subtractive Techniques * Collage and Acrylic Skins * Acrylic Transfers and the Printed Image * Pours * Acrylic Encaustic * Metallic and Reflective Paints * Drawing and Resists with Acrylic * Traditional Techniques with Acrylic * Varnishing


My Review:
Rethinking Acrylic looked at using acrylic paint in creative, unusual ways and how to use various mediums, specialized acrylic paints, etc. The various demonstrations were for modern style (usually 'unique mark-making' abstract style) and experimental acrylic painting. The artists explained how to do various techniques, like pouring acrylic in various ways, or using acrylic to mimic other painting styles, like watercolor or encaustic. The book covered multiple ways to use the wide variety of acrylic mediums. If you want to better understand how acrylic can be used and the great variety of choices that are available in acrylic, then I'd recommend this book.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Draw and Paint Super Cute Animals by Jane Maday

Draw and Paint Super Cute Animals by Jane Maday ISBN-13: 9781440353321 Paperback: 112 pages Publisher: North Light Books Released: Dec. 4, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
In her newest instructional book Jane Maday, queen of cuteness, teaches you how to draw cute animal friends. After you draw the animal from photo references using the grid method, Jane will guide you through simple techniques for adding colored pencil, watercolor and pen and ink. 35 step-by-step demonstrations cover the gamut of the cute animal kingdom from cats and kittens, dogs and puppies, chipmunks, songbird and ducklings, and even flamingos and frogs!


My Review:
Draw and Paint Super Cute Animals is an art instruction book about coloring and texturing cute animals. The author uses mixed media, including graphite pencils, colored pencils, ink pens, and watercolor. She has you use the grid method and transfer paper to get the animal drawing onto your final piece of paper. She provided 35 step-by-step demonstrations that started at this point and then detailed what colors she used, what type of paint or pencil she used, and basically described how to add color and texture (like fur) to the animals. Each demonstration consisted of 3 to 5 steps per an animal.

The demonstrations were: two of bunnies, three of cats, three of dogs, and a wolf, fox, baby skunk, fawn, chipmunk, squirrel, mouse, fall leaf, lamb, duckling, donkey, pig, titmice (birds), flamingo, Chickadee, Goldfinch, owl, dolphin, puffin, seal, panda, Brown bear, polar bear, otter, turtle, frog, and butterfly. Many of her demonstration animals were baby animals. She also talked about posing the animal and backgrounds for the scene. Overall, I'd recommend this book to those focused on the coloring and texturing of animals rather than those needing step-by-step drawing instructions.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Life Drawing in 15 Minutes by Jake Spicer

Life Drawing in 15 Minutes by Jake Spicer ISBN-13: 9781781576267 Paperback: 128 pages Publisher: Ilex Press Released: Sept. 4, 2018

Source: Review copy from the publisher through Amazon Vine.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Drawing expert Jake Spicer introduces you to life drawing. From understanding relationships and proportions and considering basic anatomy, to learning about mark-making and tonal values, Jake takes you through the process of drawing the most rewarding of subjects. With step-by-steps and techniques derived from his proven life-class methods, Jake gives you the skills to create beautiful life drawings quickly, successfully and, ultimately, in only 15 minutes.


My Review:
Life Drawing in 15 Minutes is about how to draw the human figure quickly during a live, life drawing session. While most life drawing is of the nude human figure, I liked that many of the drawings in the book were of clothed people drawing the model. Anyway, he briefly covered the basics--what is life drawing, possible tools and materials that you can use, how to best to position yourself at a live session, and such. At the end, he also talked about setting things up to hold your own life drawing session.

He mainly talked about different ways of seeing the figure (outline, tones, etc.) and some methods for quickly getting the human figure on the paper and in the correct proportions. If you have trouble with the traditional "stick figure first" approach, then you might find his methods easier. I find the idea of marking the outer boundaries and "carving away" to create the correct human proportions and pose to be much easier. He suggested some exercises to prepare for a session and went through the steps for drawing a pose that is held, for example, for 15 minutes. He also focused on the details of several body parts and gave tips for things like foreshortening.

The instructions were easy to understand (even, I think, for non-artists), and he was always encouraging. Overall, I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to improve their skill at drawing the human figure.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

The Nature Instinct by Tristan Gooley

The Nature Instinct by Tristan Gooley ISBN-13: 9781615194797 Hardcover: 400 pages Publisher: The Experiment Released: Nov. 20, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Master outdoorsman Tristan Gooley has long encouraged his readers to look closely at the world to discover its hidden clues. Through careful cultivation of our senses, we can use the Big Dipper to tell time, for example, and a budding flower to find south. In The Nature Instinct, we learn how to train ourselves through slow observation so that, ultimately, we can intuit the inner workings of the world around us without having to stop to think about it. Discover how Gooley and other expert observers—from hunters in the English countryside to the Pygmy people in the African Congo—have recovered this lost sixth sense that unlocks a subconscious, deeper understanding of our surroundings.


My Review:
The Nature Instinct is about how the author learned to be more aware of nature, especially about how animals act. He started each short chapter by describing a time when he observed a certain thing or used a skill. In the case of learning to navigate by using the sun or stars or becoming more aware of the wind direction, he described how the reader can learn to do this (even if you don't live in England). In the chapters about animal behavior, he talked about how certain animals--mostly wild animals--act and why.

I had thought the book would be more about practical skills rather than things like how to anticipate which tree a squirrel will run up when it feels threatened. It seemed like most of the book was either about anticipating animal behavior or why we should take the time to closely observe nature. I already enjoy observing nature, and it felt like the book was more trying to intrigue and educate people who normally don't spend much time doing so.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Art Studio: Faces & Features by Walter Foster Creative Team

Art Studio: Faces & Features by Walter Foster Creative Team ISBN-13: 9781633226432 Paperback: 114 pages Publisher: Walter Foster Publishing Released: Nov. 6, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Drawing and painting heads, faces, and expressions can be an intimidating prospect for a beginning artist. Art Studio: Faces & Features is here to help with more than 50 tips, techniques, and step-by-step projects. This intuitive guide shows you how to work with graphite and colored pencils; acrylic, oil, and watercolor paints; pastel. This range of mediums is the perfect way to experiment, build artistic confidence, and define your own unique style. The Art Studio series is designed to give an overview of each art medium to help beginning artists delve into fine art and determine which media they like the best.


My Review:
Art Studio: Faces & Features explorers drawing human faces in graphite pencil, oil and acrylic, watercolor, and pastel. They started by talking about the tools, materials, and techniques used in different mediums (though this is more a definition of terms than teaching a beginner how to use the medium). Since so many mediums are covered, none are talked about in depth. They then talked about facial anatomy, proportions, and how to draw the various features on the face. There were many tips about common errors that would be useful for anyone having trouble making realistic faces.

They then gave step-by-step demonstrations of drawing several portraits in each medium (graphite, oil and acrylic, watercolor, and pastel) and included many different types of faces (baby, child, adult, old, male, female, plus different skin tones and hair types). The instructions were basically what colors the artist used and what order they did the features. The graphite pencil section was the most useful, in my opinion. They did provide some tips specific to drawing portraits in each medium. This book would probably be most useful to an artist who is interested in drawing portraits but who has not yet settled on a medium that they prefer.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.