For my birthday this year, I cleaned my bookshelves! This is a Big Deal!
Seriously, I follow a lot of blogs by other illustrators and the one thing we all seem to have in common is breaking out in chronic literature, as in the above wonderful Arnold Lobel poster. Now that my books are as organized as they are probably ever going to get (which means that they are actually in bookshelves; I really did have piles of books all over the place), it seems like a good time to give you, dear readers, a tour. This is going to take a couple of posts and table-breaking photos.
Going from left to right (this shelf refused to photograph well thanks to the light seeping in from the adjacent window):
Jim Henson: The Works, Christopher Finch - This is one of the first art books I owned and it has spoiled me rotten ever since. Loaded with concept art and history, this is a must-have.
Sesame Street Unpaved, David Borgenicht - Nice companion to The Works and very similar in format. Plus you can currently find it for dirt cheap on Amazon.
Chuck Amuck and Chuck Reducks, Chuck Jones - Even if I wasn't such a Chuck Jones maniac, I'd consider these books essential. They're packed with concept art, anecdotes, and drawing tips.
Imaginative Realism and Color and Light, James Gurney - These books together have a wealth of information for painters. I don't paint very often, so I appreciate them more as a collection of Gurney's artwork.
Various Anatomy for Artists Books - Hey, remember these guys from the very earliest days of this blog? Wow, that takes me back. Specifically, I've kept Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy, Ken Hultgren's The Art of Animal Drawing, Fritz Schider's Atlas of Anatomy for Artists, and a little later we'll be seeing Eadweard Muybridge's essential Animals in Motion, Ellenberger and Davis' Atlas Of Animal Anatomy For Artists, Eliot Goldfinger's Animal Anatomy For Artists: the Elements of Form (it was on sale), and Katrina Van Grouw's The Unfeathered Bird.
Character Animation Crash Course, Eric Goldberg - I've been referencing it more than I thought I would when I first reviewed it.
Paleoart Galore! - OK, let's see here. We've got The Macmillan Illustrated Encyclopedia of DINOSAURS and Prehistoric Animals, at least until an updated reference of every known prehistoric animal comes along, Mark Witton's beautiful Pterosaurs, Henry Gee and Louis V. Rey's beautiful beautiful Field Guide to Dinosaurs: The Essential Handbook for Travelers in the Mesozoic, Gregory S. Paul's Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, William Stout's awesome The (New) Dinosaurs, the two Dinosaurs: Past and Present exhibit catalog books (I haven't read them but my succinct review of this wealth of classic paleoart is awesome), and Dinosaur Art: The World's Greatest Paleoart. And there's more on other shelves...
The Art of Maurice Sendak, Selma Lanes - I haven't been able to properly read this yet but it's an excellent collection of Sendak's art and since you can find copies for under ten dollars, it is a must-have.
Adventure Time: The Art of Ooo, Chris McDonnell - Here's the first series-specific art book I've found that's as good as the two aforementioned Jim Henson art books. It's a must-have for fans of "Adventure Time" and is packed to the gills with concept art, interviews, and trivia.
Next, more animation, comics, and children's books.
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Sketch of the Day! The first "Final Fantasy" is a little strange, it turns out.
