Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction (Dover Art Instruction)

Arrived fast and was packaged well and in great condition

Well written with great artwork.

I !earned more about Irish history and was very impressed by a lot about Celtic knots. I will never stop being awed by how much history the Irish entails. The relation to many other areas/countries enter into relationship with symbols in the Irish art. Interesting! Enjoyed the book very much. I will read this one more times than once!

This book just arrived today and I've been devouring it.Here under user reviews, you will find folks that say the book is an instant classic, while others feel that Mr. Bain's work offers very little how-to.They're both right.The foreword itself warns that Mr. Bain thinks that excess explanation will interfere with the student's properly grasping how to absorb this innately complicated art form. Granted, most of us don't get to see the foreword before ordering it online...There IS some how-to, but very little. Well, alright... very little doesn't cut it as a descriptor. The how-to is a set of diagrams with the beginning of the design progressing to the finished design. There's no lengthy script on "Okey-dokey, start here... now make THIS shape... now THAT shape.."Truth be told, you are on your own when it comes to how you're going to start the raw layout of the design. The irony is that that's the ultimate truth of learning any skill. People can show and tell, but comprehension is a solitary act and one that is unique to each learner. All said, Mr. Bain's approach of learning visually and being forced to wade through the relatively complicated examples may very well be the best.So far I have experienced the truth of a previous reviewer: Follow the examples and you'll get it.I won't lie. It hurts. But it feels really good to see myself make a pattern without the help of the book. And in less than 24 hours.Thus far, my recommendation is this: Buy this book. It's cheap, it's comprehensive, it's worth it.Second: If you need further instruction, spend the time it takes to find more spelt-out tutorials on the internet free of charge. Simply doing a search on the words CELTIC KNOT PDF yields plenty of worthwhile results. Having the book means you won't have to be glued to your PC at all times for art instruction.Awesome book, and I'm going to get back to practicing now.

I love this book. I love the drawings. The information is overwhelming at times but if you take your time and focus its very interesting. I really love tracing the drawings in it and I enjoy attempting to comprehend most of the information in it. I find it to be challenging and I like that. Most days I get books that are not nearly as wordy or challenging so this one is fabulous. It reminds me of trying to read Shakespeare when not knowing how to read and going by the pictures of the plays. Highly recommend it if you are into the past, art, drawing, and or learning things which few touch on.

This is an older book published by Dover, and it is full of knotwork and ornament patterns, instructions on how to do them, variants, and all sorts of goodies. Now here's the thing you may not know about why it's so grand that this is an older book: the designs and research are based on Celtic artifacts, like stone carvings. Environmental factors are causing these to degrade rapidly, so that we can't see detail today that we could see easily 40 years ago. George Bain was able to work with and preserve the details of designs that we've largely lost. So, whether you simply like Celtic things or if you're a serious historical artist struggling to find good source material for the original designs used in the past, this is a great book at a very low price.

If you have ever wanted to design your own Celtic art or if you are just curious as to how it is done, this is the definitive book for you. However, if you are a complete beginner, you should check out some of the demonstrations on YouTube to get you started. This book might be a little too advanced at first, until you understand some of the methods better.Looking at all the illustrations throughout this book, I have an even greater admiration for the monks who created the illustrated pages in the Book of Kells and the other illustrated Bibles of that period. This was way before copiers to help with the repeat patterns or the reductions. The text of this book gives you the history as well. Just a wonderful book.

I tend to read and study quite a bit before tackling a new project and this is no exception. This has been the best find for a special project I am planning for Christmas. The book has illustrations on every page, step by step, and takes so much guess work out of creating these amazing designs. It is a great purchase for personal reference or as a gift for someone special. Best wishes, xo

I just received the book today and as I am leafing through various sections, all I can think of is how "amazing" this resource is. So delighted to have this book as a reference. Many thanks to the late George Bain for all his research into Celtic art and his dedication to teaching it and sharing the knowledge.

George was very passionate about re discovering the ancient celtic knotworks. He put together a visual guide to hundreds of patterns, drawings and even caligraphy. While it takes careful observation and practice to emulate the designs he portrayed in the book, you can definetly learn by yourself, using only the book as refernece.

Excellent book

Gut geeignet für Gravuren mit dem Stichel....z.B. Trinkhörner

très bien