One of my favorite publishers/booksellers, Taschen Books is having a huge sale, so even though I typically don’t post on the weekends, I thought I would share some of the titles in my own library that are on sale.  Their books are always a feast for the eyes with gorgeous photography, and high-quality paper, and many of their books are enormous coffee-table style books that I love pouring over.  They also have a huge selection of books on art and design.  Most of these books are 50% off, so it’s a pretty sweet sale for my fellow book-lovers…  (Just a warning before you go browsing – Taschen carries “adult books” as well and not all of the covers are censored.  I search specific categories to try to avoid those titles.)

I bought The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries at Costco a few years ago and it is a little slice of book heaven.  I would love to visit these libraries and just soak them in, but the book is the next best thing.

I recently bought Anna Atkins Cyanotypes because I have always loved cyanotypes and wanted to study them further.  Given the fact that they are blue and white, I can’t believe I haven’t explored that art more thoroughly yet!  The book is packed with gorgeous cyanotype reproductions, so I find it to be a great source of inspiration for shape, line, and composition as well as just being beautiful to look at.

While I love studying paintings, I think I enjoy studying artists’ sketchings and drawings even more.  I feel like I have the chance to glimpse into their process and the way they see the world.  For that reason, I love Rembrandt – The Complete Drawings & Etchings.  I have used it for many studies and sketches in my own sketchbooks over the years.

Impressionism is my favorite art period, but I’ve gained a great appreciation for the art that came before the mid-1800s, and that, of course, includes DaVinci.  Leonardo – The Complete Paintings & Drawings is a great overview of Leonardo’s body of work.

Have you seen the documentary, Tim’s Vermeer?  If you haven’t and are interested in art at all, it’s fascinating.  Anyway, that documentary gave me a new appreciation for Vermeer’s innovation as an artist, so I ended up purchasing Vermeer – The Complete Works to study his work more closely.

There was a time when I didn’t care for VanGogh, but as I’ve studied his work and read about him more, I have grown quite fond of his work and how revolutionary it was.  It’s easy to take his style for granted since its greatness was always recognized in our lifetime, but when you study him in his time, you see what a struggle his individuality was.  He was quite a mess personally, but I do love the way he sees the world artistically.  I have more books on him and Monet than any other artist.  One of those books is VanGogh – The Complete Paintings.

When I learned that Degas and Manet studied Velázquez, I decided I should, too!  So, I bought the large and beautiful book – Veláquez – The Complete Works and have painted a few studies from it.

A wide range of books on artists and art periods are also available in their Basic Book Series.  These smaller, budget-friendly books are still packed with quality reproductions of works and great information.

This two-volume set, the Book of Color Concepts, isn’t on sale, but I splurged on it recently since I love studying color theory and color charts and it did not disappoint!