Cleaning the bookshelves

Recently, I've been surfing online book shops to find new jewels. There was a perfect book – beautiful inside and outside, but something was wrong. And then it hit me – this book seemed familiar to me, because I’ve already bought it a couple years ago! I’ve checked the bookshelf - the book was on the lowest shelf, right behind the small table.

The understanding, that it is time to clean up the shelves, came quickly.

My tiny collection

I've decided to systematized my book collection and create a special shelf for the books that inspire me and make my day better. Here are the books I’ve put there.
(I’m from Russia, so some of the books are in my native language)

1. Illustrated Encyclopedia of Russian painting

This is the book that forced me to do the cleaning. It’s huge (600 pages), full of good quality images and cheap (around 40$) - my favorite combination.
This book is very useful for inspiration and quick acquaintance with the creations and biographies.

2. A Sketchy Past: The Art of Peter de Seve

When I feel lost and frustrated I always open this book – it's full of incredible illustrations and sketches. And they are made with motion and humor!
«He has drawn many covers for the magazine The New Yorker. As a character designer, he worked on the characters of A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, Robots, the four Ice Age films (including Scrat)» - from Wikipedia.
This work is a perfect example of what I meant.

Illustration by Peter de Seve

3. Animals Real and Imagined by Terryl Whitlatch

There are both – realistic and caricature drawings, but behing every illustration is a very high knowledge of anatomy. It's very interesting to see how she interprets the anatomy and makes new creatures, showing how powerful and impressive the knowledge can be.
«Terryl is also known for creating most of the creatures in Star Wars Episode I, including Jar Jar Binks» - wiki.

4. Caravaggio book by Taschen

He is my inspiration, so this book is always laying somewhere on my table. Beautiful, easy to carry book.

When there is so much dust on your old sketchbooks -
it's time to start the cleaning

5. The Art of World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria art book

Yes, I play WOW, but pretty rare. Their art books are full of beautiful illustrations – Blizzard’s lines and shapes are almost unique.

6. Old book about the Peredvizhniki (also known as The Wanderers or The Itinerants) 

Peredvizhniki is a very important part of the Russian art. Their paintings are impressive and inspiring. They were a group of Russian realist artists who in protest at academic restrictions formed an artists' cooperative and changed the art scene in Russia.
I got this book from my first art teacher and, accidentally, didn’t return it back (I looked for her everywhere, but it fell behind the huge cupboard. Years later, we’ve found it during the renovation). I’m still feeling bad about it.

Unintentionally I've opened 2 books on Repin's paintings (1 and 6). He is a huge inspiration for me not only as an artist, but also as a person. I'm currently reading his book of reminiscences «Far and Near» - very soothing reading, my antidepressant. Sadly, I can’t find whether it was translated into English or not.

I'm so happy that all of my books are now in an order and close to me. Hooray!