art books reviewed

One after­noon, I was brows­ing a book­store in Zurich and came upon a book called Draw­ing on the Right Side of the Brain. As a sci­en­tist, I was intrigued by Betty Edward’s the­o­ries of right-brain “skills” and I just had to get the book. Lit­tle did I know that it would start me on my art journey!

I quickly started look­ing for more books to learn tech­niques, but it was tough choos­ing from the hun­dreds of books avail­able online. Not many art books (in Eng­lish) are avail­able in Zurich, so I don’t get to flip through books before decid­ing. It makes shop­ping rather difficult!

Inspired by Parka Blogs, I decided to start Art Books Reviewed to review all the books I bought and bor­rowed, to help you fig­ure out which art books you might like (espe­cially if, like me, you live out­side the US/UK, or pre­fer to shop online)!

My aim is for Art Books Reviewed to show­case books for learn­ing draw­ing and water­colour tech­niques, with empha­sis on nature (wildlife, botany, land­scapes), urban liv­ing (archi­tec­ture, loca­tion draw­ing) and jour­nalling. In addi­tion, I review books fea­tur­ing artists’ sketches and ani­ma­tion art, as well as sketch­books and journals!

I hope you find my reviews use­ful! Do leave a com­ment if you have fur­ther ques­tions about a par­tic­u­lar book, or if you have read it and want to let the rest of us know what you think. Your feed­back and sug­ges­tions are also always welcome : )

- chia kaivalya

Dis­claimer: These reviews are my own per­sonal opin­ion. I receive no pay­ment from authors or pub­lish­ers, although review copies are wel­come and will be men­tioned in the arti­cle (a pos­i­tive review is not guar­an­teed). Links in this web­site to Ama­zon and the Book Depos­i­tory are affil­i­ate links — if you buy through these links, I get a small com­mis­sion that will help keep this web­site going (and growing!).