Book Review: Landmarks of Malaysia: 360 Paintings

This 360-page watercolour sketchbook by Malaysian artist Chin Kon Yit is just amazing.

The sheer size of the book is impressive and awe-inspiring. Knowing the number of paintings in the book gives me the OMG moment. I love thick sketchbooks, such as Kim Jung Gi's or the ImagineFX Sketchbook. Just flipping through the thick pages gives me the satisfaction.

This book is published by Editions Didier Millet, the same publisher who published the Fabrice Moireau watercolour sketchbooks and other travelogue sketchbooks. The book's about A4 size and the paper they use still has that coldpress watercolour paper texture on it. Very nice presentation for watercolour art.

The artworks featured in this book are actually collected from several other watercolour sketchbooks released earlier, such as the Malacca Sketchbook, Penang Sketchbook, Kuala Lumpur Sketchbook and a few others. So Landmarks of Malaysia is major undertaking but the result of work from over several years. I did not collect all the other sketchbooks but this huge one is enough for me.

The locations covered are Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Selangor, Penang, Kedah, Perlis, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Melaka, Johor, Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Sawawak, Sabah, and Labuan.

The pages are filled with watercolour sketches of prominent landmark buildings and scenes from those places mentioned. Each one has a short description. The art is mainly architectural style pencil and watercolour paintings. The reproduction is fantastic. The only downside is some of the paintings have to be printed smaller, although the majority are printed quite large.

Looking at the places just makes me want to visit many of them. It's no surprise that I see Tourism Malaysia's logo inside.

This is an inspiring and marvellous sketchbook of art. Well worth the money.

Note that at some online stores, the book's titled as Landmarks of Malaysia: 365 Watercolours, not Landmarks of Malaysia: 360 Paintings that's shown on the actual cover.

Highly recommended.

Landmarks of Malaysia: 360 Watercolor Paintings is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

Visit Amazon to check out more reviews.

If you buy from the links, I get a little commission that helps me get more books to feature.

Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp | Amazon.cn