3 Free eBooks – May 2016

The three eBooks I’ve picked to highlight this month have a common theme: Art Nouveau – a style popular from 1890-1910. Looking at these books from the period gave me lots of ideas for Zentangle® patterns ---- and some home decorating ideas as well.

Fuchs, Georg; Newbery, Francis H.; Koch, Alex. L'Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs modernes à Turin 1902. Darmstadt : Alexander Koch, Librairie des arts décoratifs. 1903. Available from Hathi Trust Digital Library here. The style appeared in fabrics and tile and architecture (extending into every aspect of artistic expression as well as daily life) and included a lot of motifs from nature.

Feure, Georges de; Puaux, Rene. Oeuvres de Georges de Feure. Paris. 1903. Available from Hathi Trust Digital Library here. The style included fashion too.

Rehme, Wilhelm. Ausgeführte moderne Bautischler-Arbeiten. Leipzig: Baumgartner’s Buchhandlung. 1902. Available from Hathi Trust Digital Library here. The integration of art in everyday places – like windows and doors – still has a lot of appeal. In much of the 100 years since the style reached its zenith, we have standardized elements of our environment to reduce costs but will that continue to be the case? It’s not that the standard doors and windows are ugly – just that they are boring because of the lack of variety.

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

3 Free eBooks – April 2016

My picks this month range in publication date from 1850 to 2015!

King, Derrick. Cambodia, Laos, Thailand – 9900 km, 7 Weeks. 2015. Available from Internet Archive here.  I liked that this was a book with lots of pictures of these countries…and relatively recent (early 2012). Many of the pictures included people that provides scale to the rest of the structures – such as the tree and ruin in the one a clipped to include with this post. There are other books about his travels that he has posted on the Internet Archive as well.

Thomas, Edward; Cameron, Katherine. The Flowers I Love. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. 1910. Available from Hathi Trust here. I didn’t look much at the poetry…the visuals were too wonderful.

Bacon, M.A.; Jones, Owen. Fruits from Garden and Field. London: Longman & Co., 1850. Available from Hathi Trust here. Skip the poetry (the font makes it a challenge to read and just enjoy the visuals. I liked that the flowers and fruit were almost always included….then maybe an insect as well.