Books for Posing August 17, 2012

Prior to the emergence and popularity of image libraries and stock photo agencies, The Fairburn System of Visual References was considered the holy grail of visual reference material for artists of the day. Produced in 3 volume sets of human figures, faces and heads, figures and hands, they were an indispensible resource for the art director and commercial artist who relied on the photo references to hand render people—usually with Magic Markers—for conceptual storyboards and ad campaigns.…

Hello, my name is…Help for the linguistically challenged March 8, 2010

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1960’s has had its advantages for sure but one of the major side effects are the linguistic challenges one faces as they head into the world with a Brooklyn accent. There remain some author’s names to this day I have trouble pronouncing. Enter TeachingBooks.com’s Author Pronunciation Guide. Here you can can listen to brief recordings of authors and illustrators introducing themselves. Each begins with “Hello my…

The Sex Lives of Civil War Soldiers January 18, 2010

Johnny Reb and Billy Yank had a secret life, one that they and their families tried to hide from posterity and Ken Burns. They largely succeeded. Most men left no record of their sexual activities, or if they did, their survivors expurgated or expunged the record through destruction; the reality was a bit too seamy for pure sensibilities, legacies needed to be protected. Reports of wild times and venereal disease were not likely to be…