Book Review: Textile Landscapes

It was such a nice surprise to find this fairly new (2018) book by Cas Holmes at my library.
The title says it all “Textile Landscape: Painting With Cloth in Mixed Media “

A very well written introduction to how fiber artists are utilizing the wide range of mixed media techniques to create pieces of landscapes real and imagined. She covers the use of creating an intentional sketchbook just for this landscape work. Capturing the details of a place that you visit, by making closeup sketches of things, animals, structures, etc. is a focus in these sketchbooks.  She demonstrates how creating a series of quick sketches of the same places at various times of day or even different seasons (think Monet’s haystack paintings) can inform your work. Or even give you the basis for a series of larger works. Different sketchbook types are shown too, which is intriguing, from making your own by hand sewing into a book or working with a scroll format.

I think the pictures in this book are the best part of it, so well photographed, the texture jumps off the page. The range of styles is great too, very inspirational.
This not a how-to book but more of a “why” book, which I found to be quite refreshing. Lots of new ideas, some exercises and specific techniques demonstrated.

Now that I’ve checked this book out twice from the library, I’m considering adding this book to my personal library.