Product Description

Beautifully detailed pen and ink drawings with the artist's comments about each drawing in both English and Turkish. "These drawings are Plein Aire, which is a nice way of saying that they're drawn from life. Whatever you see here is just as I saw it. How were they done? Slowly, in pen and ink. To preserve the sketchbook experience the drawings here are the same size as they appear on the original pages. Guidelines and comments are left in for your amusement. We want to bring you here. If you've already been, we want to bring you back." Trici Venola

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1481917 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-15
• Released on: 2006-08-15
• Binding: Paperback
• 80 pages

About the Author
Los Angeles native Trici Venola comes from a background of digital fine art and award-winning commercial illustration, applying classical techniques with digital tools. A premier computer artist during the changeover to digital art in the past few decades, she taught many other artists how to create art using the computer as a primary medium. Her love-affair with Turkey has been a constant source of inspiration since her initial visit in 1999. Turkey as a muse has not only resulted in the ongoing visual documentation, in hundreds of drawings, of her life experience in the country, but also in her development as a writer. Her written work debuted simultaneously in the best-selling 'Tales from the Expat Harem' and in 'Best Travel Writing of 2006'. Ms. Venola has lived in Istanbul since 2004, where among other commercial projects she has illustrated several children's books for Mira Publishing. We are happy to present the first collection of her Turkish drawings.

Customer Reviews

A View of Turkiye
I visited Istanbul in 2005 and met the artist and saw some of her work. I'm not sure how to review art books, but the drawings are dense line drawings of Turkish architecture and art and really capture the flavour of the places and people I saw in Istanbul. I particularly like how she draws old brick buildings and trees - they really look like trees! - and the drawing of Mike and His Tassels. She does great tassels, which is a neat thing for an artist to be good at. She's kind of a cross between Sylvia (by Nicole Hollander) and Japanese manga.

It's also interesting to try and find all the street cats running under cars and hiding in the drawings. Street cats are the pigeons of Istanbul; they're all over and are as common as crows and pigeons combined. A lot of them are tabby and white for whatever reason; maybe the white comes from Turkish Van cats, who are traditionally white with two different-coloured eyes. I love cats.

And I love this book.

Here is the title of my review.
Trici Venola is brilliant. That really says it all, but I guess I oughtta say something about what makes me feel that way about her.

Her drawings of Istanbul make the city -- its buildings, landscapes, people, animals, and indeed the energy -- come to life in vividly and provocatively in a way that photos never could. I have never been to Istanbul but after seeing this book, I feel in a way that I know the City intimately.

This is a book that you cannot -- will not -- pick up and flip through. You may TRY to, but once you open it and begin looking at the images, they will enchant and beguile you. You will be unable to resist savoring -- for a very long time -- each image as it presents itself before you.

I have my copy on my coffee table. I love watching guests pick it up, "Oh what's this..." and, with nonchalant curiosity, open it. Then watching their pace slow down and their attention focus. Before you know it, they are curled up in a chair engrossed in the book with beautiful, rapt expressions of sheer awe on their faces.

I could go on and on and on I guess, but it's really kinda pointless. Just get the book and see for yourself.

Learning an artists view.
In "Drawing on Istanbul" it is the first time I have enjoyed learning how the artist felt as she drew those exquiste pictures! It will give me a new way of viewing art. By the way, her style of capturing several pictures at one time, including the very unique personalities of those in the picture(even the cats!)made it a book one could not possibly leave unfinished.
We visited Istanbul a few years back. This book has made us want to return,and see it from a different and a more thorough prospective. Now, thanks to Trici Venola, we can relearn Istanbul's fantastic history.