Art Book Review

Altered Surfaces: Using Acrylic Paints With Gels, Mediums, Grounds & Pastes by Chris Cozen

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
From my review on Amazon. If you are an artist interested in the enormous range of possibilities of acrylic paints, this is the book for you! Even if you are experienced with acrylics, you are guaranteed to learn new things from this book. As a part of Golden Acrylic Colors' Working Artists program, Chris Cozen has an astonishing knowledge of acrylic paint and how it behaves.


This deceptively slender volume is packed with information, while still containting enough basic information that a beginner could easily start with this book. As the title suggests, there is a lot of information about acrylic mediums and grounds (sorely lacking in many other books), including some of the new products released recently by Golden. Molding paste, crackle paste, pumice gel, fiber paste, clear tar gel and glass bead gel are just a few of the items she covers. She also describes how to achieve the look of encaustics with acrylic products, something I plan to try soon!


This is one of the best sources of information for artists interested in expanding their horizons with acrylic paints. Not a substitute for a class from this inspiring teacher, but a good reference guide and source of ideas.
View all my Goodreads reviews.

Book Review: Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Rating: 5 of 5 stars
OK, maybe "It was amazing" (as Goodreads defines 5 stars) is an exaggeration, but I enjoyed this book enough to re-read it, which doesn't happen often. This is the first book I've read in the genre of "contemporary supernatural [romance]".

I greatly enjoyed the book. The "rules" for the supernatural beings (primarily werewolves, but others are included) are believable and consistent, with social rules, and stuff like that.

Lots of action, enough romance to be exciting and keep you guessing (it's not the primary reason for the story).

The characters are believable and well-defined. She does well with the narrative first person form of the book. I've since read everything else I could find by her and she has become one of my favorite authors.

Highly recommended.
View all my reviews.

Art & Soul at Asilomar!

I'm getting excited about going to the Art & Soul "Mini" art retreat in Asilomar in April! I'm taking a 2-day nature journal class from LK Ludwig, and a class called Flourished Layers from Traci Bautista. It's going to be so much fun! I have to get busy and start making ATCs to trade - eek! It's a little scary as I don't know anyone else who's going and I don't really feel up to the level of what I see in the workshops. Actually it's really scary and intimidating! But I'm trying not to think about those feelings and concentrate on the anticipation of learning from all the other artists that will be there, and all the new friends I'll make.

I was looking at the classes for the Art & Soul in Hampton in May. I'm not going, but if I were, I don't know how I would decide on what classes to take! There are so many fantastic classes! I'm hoping I'll be able to go to the one in Oregon in the fall, but it's too early to know.

Art Unraveled in Phoenix (August 3-10) will be opening registration later this week. I'm sure I'm going to go since it's only about a 5 or 6-hour drive from here, but I'm not sure for how many days. I'd like to be there all week! Again, there are so many great classes, it's going to be hard to decide what classes to register for.

I just got LK Ludwig's book about Nature Journaling, and I plan to read through it as carefully as possible before the retreat.

Meanwhile, I had better get back to cutting paper for my class on Wednesday, or I won't be getting much sleep Tuesday night!

What a busy week!

I realized I haven't posted in a loooong time, so now I'm overdoing it as usual. This week has been very busy; Saturday I took a class with Kelly Kilmer (About Face) at The Stamp Addict. I was quite late for class because the night before I was at a friend's house designing cards for future classes and didn't get to bed till 3 AM. But it was a great class anyway!
Wednesday night a friend (Lisa) and I helped another friend (Melissa) with a card-making class for a women's group at The Rock church in Point Loma. We weren't sure how many people there would be, perhaps as many as 30; so we prepared for 40, just in case. We only had a short period of time to help them make all 5 cards, so we were lucky we had just under 20 people there. It was just the right amount of people. We barely made it in time, but it was fun and everyone seemed to enjoy it. The owner of The Stamp Addict donated all of the paper we used in the class so with the 3 of us donating other supplies and our time, it was a great thing all around. We hope to do it again somewhere else. When I remember to take pictures of the cards we made, I'll post them too.

Next week on Wednesday I'm teaching a card-making class at The Stamp Addict. It's called Not the Usual Sheepish Cards. You can see the information here: http://www.thestampaddict.com/2008_02/sample_sheepish.htm. There's a fourth card on my Flickr site, and we'll be making another card of which for some reason I have no picture. Anyway, I haven't even started cutting paper for the class yet, so that should keep me busy this weekend! Also my friend Melissa has a shoulder problem and is teaching a class on Tuesday so I will probably be helping her to cut paper for her class. Here is a link to her class information: http://www.thestampaddict.com/2008_02/sample_Hero.htm
She makes awesome cards, I recommend her classes!

Cheers!
Diane

Picture of China snows

Picture of China snows, originally uploaded by PurpleDiane.

This picture is of my husband's hometown, Hangzhou. More snow than ever! This picture is beautiful, but it's been a big disaster coming right before the [questionably named] Spring Festival, that started yesterday.
By the way, Happy New Year to you all!
PS. I got the photo from some news agency; sorry I don't remember which one.