Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book got such great reviews, I couldn't wait to recieve it. My enthusiasm only lasted through the first few pages; Randall Plowman provides a stellar overview of collage tools and materials. After that the book begins to go downhill. He gives a decent but cursory review of design principles. I would have liked to have more depth and a greater number of examples. Then he reviews only two specific techniques; printing on tracer paper and laser transfers. After that he jumps directly to matting your work. So after teasing the reader with an amazing array of tools, he doesn't really teach the reader how to use them. He spends the rest of the book (approximatley 80 expensive, color pages) giving very simplistic creativity prompts, like try tissue paper or try cardboard. These prompts are fun but could be layed out in ten pages or less. This book has a great beginning, an interesting array of creativity prompts and almost no how-to. It's a beautiful looking book but if you want to learn techniques, skip it and buy something more helpful. I will as soon as I figure out which book that might be.