By Hound & Eye
By Geo. R Walker & Jim Tolpin
Illustrations by Andrea Love
Download an excerpt from this book here.
“By Hound & Eye: A Plain & Easy Guide to Designing Furniture with no Further Trouble” is an illustrated cartoon journey through the world of pre-industrial design geometry. It stars Journeyman and his pizza-loving dog, Snidely, as they untangle the realm of points, segments, arcs and the three-dimensional world using nothing more than a compass, straightedge and pencil.
After each new idea is introduced, you are shown how to perform the exercise yourself right in the workbook.
You can perform all the exercises in an afternoon. And even though you have been steeped in geometry for years, we are certain you will experience several eye-opening moments while performing the exercises. This book connects geometry to furniture design in a way that no other book has. And the exercises ensure the lessons will make it from the page and into your fingers. Reading about it is one thing. Doing it is another (like woodworking).
Also fun: authors George Walker and Jim Tolpin have given their work the look and feel of a middle-school workbook, complete with slightly corny jokes.
The 192-page workbook is softcover with a sewn and glued binding for durability. Like all our products, "By Hound & Eye" is printed in the United States.
The workbook is hand illustrated and hand lettered by Andrea Love. It is a companion to the hardbound book "By Hand & Eye" by Walker and Tolpin. The two books are meant to complement one another. "By Hand & Eye" focuses more on the history behind the geometrical systems and offers projects using the simple ratios explored in the book. The workbook "By Hound & Eye" is concerned mostly with the practical exercises needed to open your inner eye and offers exercises not found in the hardbound book.
The book is also available for download as a pdf. If you need a tutorial on adding our digital books to your iPad, click here.
Table of Contents
Introduction: From Points to Patterns
Section I: Points and Lines: To the Point and Beyond 1
Section II: Planes: The Shape of Things to Come 41
Section III: Curves: The Sweetest Distance Between Two Points 76
Section IV: Solids: Of Us, By Us, and For Us 122
About the Authors
Jim Tolpin
Jim Tolpin, who grew up on the East Coast and now resides in Port Townsend, Washington, has been making a living at woodworking since 1970, mostly in the finish carpentry and custom cabinetmaking trades. In the last 15 years he's been writing books on woodworking and design and, after helping found Port Townsend School of Woodworking, teaching the trade. Jim is, above all else, a teacher, and the best kind, because he never believes he knows it all and never stops learning. He also believes in passing it on, while you still can. “There are a lot of people out there who want to know this stuff and that includes me,” he says. “I personally love being in the position of not knowing but maybe going to find out.” Visit Jim and George’s By Hand & Eye’s online atelier (design studio) to help you unlock your potential as a builder or maker by honing your design skills.
Read more about Jim in our full profile.
George Walker
Raised in northeast Ohio, George Walker spent the first 20 years of his woodworking in design purgatory. Then after stumbling onto the design language of the artisans, he can’t shut up about it. After four books (and working on a fifth with Jim Tolpin), and scores of magazine articles, he’s just getting started. No matter how ordinary the circumstances, George is regularly struck by the majesty and wonder of life – the way millions of colorful warblers gather at Magee Marsh before their migration across Lake Erie; the way a medieval drawing found in an old monastery can inform his work through the understanding of geometry; or the way he can now build a beautiful piece of furniture, without plans or a tape measure, using instead a stick, a piece of string and dividers. Visit George and Jim’s By Hand & Eye’s online atelier (design studio) to help you unlock your potential as a builder or maker by honing your design skills.
Read more about George in our full profile.