So, which are some of your favorite titles? Tell us about books that have kept your interest, be they fiction, biographies, instructive manuals, or whatever else related to art.
I have realized that my bookshelves are dreadfully poor on that subject. Help me remedy that!
A brief list that I always go back to again and again :
Alla Prima - Richard Schmid (general painting approach / plein air)
Color and light - James Gurney (everything on painting realism)
Framed Ink - Marcos Mateu-Mestre (composition / comics / storyboards)
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art - Scott Mccloud (comics)
The Skillful Huntsman - Design Studio Press (concept design)
Carlson's guide to landscape painting - John F Carlson (Traditional landscape painting)
Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking - David Bayles and Ted Orland (mental approaches to art)
Eat that Frog - Brian Tracy (the best and simplest way to beat procrastination, incredibly useful even though not art specific)
Loomis books are generally all pretty good.
Sargent Notes (This one is a free pdf of notes from a student of his floating about on the internet, that I find very insightful about his approach, and love rereading)
Blogs I always go back to
Stapleton Kearns (not updated so much, but lots of very useful analysis in the archives)
Muddycolors
Gurney Journey
There are a ton of anatomy books, that I won't bother mentioning, someone else can do that :)
To start with, for beginners, Betty Edward's 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' is pretty good general material, and great exercises to practice.
For Anatomy: George Bridgman, Burne Hogarth (For the really exaggerated stuff), Michael Hampton, Andrew Loomis and... I want to say Jeno Barcsay's little book on anatomy, but I haven't taken a look at it since I've gotten better. I've been looking for it forever since I forgot the author's name, and just found it again recently and signed it out. Will be picking it up on Wednesday, so I can provide updates on that.
There's also an anatomy atlas by Sarah Simble if you want really a specific, and thorough breakdown.
'Techniques of the Great Masters' has always had rave reviews-- I haven't gotten around to reading it myself though:
http://www.amazon.com/Techniques-Great-M...0890098794
And for a book -about- art, I've heard a lot about, "The Art Spirit" by Robert Henri.
Also, I think Jan (?) recommended "How to Render," By Scott Robertson to me, which I'm still planning to check out.
Does anybody know any good source for sketches of the old Masters (Michaelangelo, Raphael etc)? I have found some catalogues online but they're nasty black and white copies.
