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Camouflage Simplified

By Eric Sloane.
Reprint of the 1942 Devin-Adair edition; available at http://www.ericsloane-awareness.com/.
62 pp., spiral bound.
Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens, 2022 X Avenue, Dysart , IA 52224-9767, U.S.A. E-mail: ballast@netins.net


A widely-known popular artist, author and historian, Eric Sloane (1905-1985) was famous for his books of pen-and-ink illustrations of Americana, especially Colonial-period tools, barns and covered bridges. He may also have been the first television weatherman. Combining his interests in weather and art, he made drawings and paintings of clouds (called "cloudscapes") while flying with Wiley Post, the flamboyant one-eyed pilot who later perished in a crash with Will Rogers. During World War II, Sloane's knowledge of aerial observation undoubtedly contributed to his decision to both write and illustrate this brief but amazingly thorough account of the theory and practice of camouflage. In 62 lively pages, he uses his characteristic hand lettering and crisp, clear diagrams and charts to summarize all the traditional ways (figure-ground blending, shadow elimination, disruptive patterning, and mimicry) of concealing or disrupting shapes in nature, and in land, air and sea warfare, and disguising industrial sites from the air. The original book is extremely rare, and this is simply a spiral-bound copy of that.

(Reprinted by permission from Ballast Quarterly Review 16, No. 3, Spring 2001.)

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Updated 5 June 2001.




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