Firstly, what a wonderful experience, I asked Lucy to donate a copy of the book for the Guild to review. She was really lovely to deal with and very graciously gave us a copy. The book came with a lovely personal message, which was a lovely touch.

 

My initial impression on first flicking through the book is it’s a beautiful book. Very well put together, glossy, professional and certainly good eye candy for the coffee table!

 

27 artists are featured including our very own Fiona Abel-Smith (congratulations Fiona) but mainly European artists so there is a large diversity of project to look at. Each artist has 8 feature pages, a biography and portrait of the artist, and feature photographs of their work. Giving you lots of visual clues to the work they are best known for. Some truly beautiful work.

Then you come to the tutorials. Each tutorial is laid out the same so the book has a great sense of uniformity 9 photos per page so 18 for each tutorial and this to me is where I became frustrated. Dare I say a little letdown.

The style overrides the substance.

I was asking questions like:- which brand of clay? 

Where did you get your cutters from?

Which brand if texture sheet did you use?

 

I have enough claying knowledge and knowhow to interpret the vagueness in some of the tutorials but I did

asked myself if I was being too picky. So I got my 18 year old to have a look at the book and tell me what she thought.

“It’s a lovely book but it assumes you know what you are doing, it would not be suitable for beginners or novices”.

 

Will I be doing any of the projects from the book? Yes, 9 of them really appeal to me. Personally I would photocopy the project and use those notes to guide me though the project. The book is way too nice to get all messy in your studio.

 

On a side note I was really curious about one of the projects and had “questions” so I contacted the artist via Instagram, she was lovely, very kind and helpful giving me the info that I felt was missing from the tutorial. This as always is my experience within this wonderful world of polymer clayers.

It’s a great polymer clay book, full of beautiful glossy photos, certainly a good read, you won’t regret the purchase however it is not a step by step tutorial book for beginners so beware of that.

Reviewed by Debby Wakley