The Enchanted Realm - Art Of Ed Beard Jr.
                                             (2006 - ERS Publications)  

     Subtitled "A journey from the written word to visual reality".  Somewhere in this book, the artist calls it his portable printed exhibit and I think that is a good summing up for it.  He was very involved in its creation and most of the text is his casual words describing his life, techniques and his career as a fantasy artist.  With that dynamic, I think you come away from this feeling that you've indeed strolled though an exhibit with the man, discussing various works as he saw fit and sparking side conversations when so inspired.  The design of the book goes a long way to fostering that atmosphere.  The text and art sometimes crowd each other on the page, competing for your attention.  The artist is not so breathlessly admiring of his own work that the text of anecdotes are not allowed to crawl across the edges of his paintings.  It's not what I want most in an artbook, but I can't escape the feeling that it stands as a comprehensive personal expression of the artist himself.  Most of his art is displayed as a fully realized sketch/drawing on one page with the resulting painting on the facing one.  As a rare content critique, I want to share that time and time again, I was very taken by a line drawing, marveling at the life captured therein, only to see the painting somehow lose the grip of the specialness that had been found - but let me hasten to add that a handful of paintings retained it to dazzling effect.  Beard Jr. being a mainstay in the 'industry' of creating fantasy art-cards, you will find castles, wizards, elves, fairies, unicorns, mermaids, minotaurs and other mythical beasties (think dragons. . . lots of dragons . . .), but you'll like the odd pirate or King Arthur thrown in for spice.  Of the book's 98 pages, 89 are devoted to his art and 66 of those are dedicated to large reproductions.  Throughout, he seems to be speaking directly to the aspiring artist, unflaggingly delivering encouragement and inspiration.

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