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Charity shop finds.
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Posted
Yesterday looking through a charity shop I found ten search press watercolour books for just £3.
Too bad I don't use watercolour but it goes to show that you should look through charity shops for art books/magazines.
I left the books for someone else to discover, too bad it wasn't a Charles Bargue drawing course book as I really want one and they're £50!
Posted
As well as that, there's a marvellous bookshop in Ryde on the Isle of Wight, which has at least 3 floors packed with old books - including a huge selection of books on art and painting when I was last there (must go again...if you're in Ryde, it's in the upper High Street). The only thing is, for oil painters especially - do watch out for the relevance of the advice: you don't want to go looking for certain mediums and oils, even if you could find them, and find they ruin your paintings over time. Some really old books contain ghastly mixtures handed down from the 19th century when people were playing about with mixes and chemicals they didn't really understand.
To say nothing of certain watercolour authors who to this day are recommending paints they know will fade to brown on exposure to light.....
Posted
Charity shops are superb places. I've found some books on drawing in Charity shops; most of them pitched at beginner level, but I've bought a couple and got something from them. Not bad for a quid per book - or less - and some or other charity gets some benefit from it. And I found a terrific book on the Impressionists for £3 in the local British Heart Foundation shop which was originally £15.
I've also found a series of books published by Parragon in the 1990s in Charity shops. Each book features a single artist. This is where the crossover between Charity shops and Ebay comes in as I've picked up some of that series on Ebay too.