Botanical Portraits with Colored Pencils

I loved this book, it is a great book to understand the craft and how to get good at it. I would recommend to anyone who wants to learn. Excellent information on pencils, what they do, how they work and how to use them. Strictly plants and flowers only. I love flowers but now I am into all botanicals, even fruit and veggies! For any Artist: Color Mixing Bible, by Ian Sidaway Vibrant Flowers in Watercolour by Soon Y. Warren is just off the hook Colour Pencils and Graphite: Ultimate Guide to Colored Pencil, Greene, which also comes with a DVD, excellent step by step instructions and lessons, this book is invaluable!! Colored Pencil Secrets for Success, Kullberg Coloured Pencil Solution Book, Gildow and Newton Masterful colour, Steinberg Colored Pencil Painting Bible, Nickelsen Paint Radiant Realism in Watercolour, Ink and colored Pencil, Ross Drawing Realistic Textures in Pencil, Hillberry For Watercolour: Water Colour in motion, O'Connor Painting Watercolour that dance with light, Kincaid Painting flowers with Impact in Watercolour, Collins Jean Haine's Atmosphere Watercolours Watercolour from the Heart, Nechis Those are just my favorites so far, I have a ton as I believe that you need to keep learning to stay fresh. _____________________________ Also, if you want to know about Color theory to get even better.... COLOR WORKS, the crafter Guide to Color by Deb Menz FOR ANYONE who wants to knwo about Color Theory this test breaks it down so that ANYONE can understand this subject. I learnt more about color theory in this book than all others put together because I now "Understand" the concept. While this book is for the textile artist, ALL artists should get it and is also has cut outs to use when choosing your colour palette whether it be for Fashion Design or Art.

Ok, now I've got a lot of books. A number of good botanical illustrated books. And a lot of well covered instructional books. THIS book gets 5 stars from me because it hits high on every thing I need for a book on 1. colored pencil art 2. botanical art. 3. product familiarity and coverage e.g. pencils and papers etc. 4. which colors to select 5. where to start and what to do. Beginners won't be lost and Advanced won't be bored. This book is for lots and lots of stages of development. I found myself, in the beginning, continually looking at the cover of the book to see who did this.......I was just so taken with how user-friendly it is. And if you don't want to use it educationally, it's just downright purty to look at. grin.

I cannot say that this book was written and developed for beginners but on the other hand beginners will get a tremendous about of information from it and by reading it you will only improve your skills with the colored pencils. The instructions were plentiful and exact and I SO appreciate (like others here) the fact that the author has listed the specific pencils used. I draw – black and white; pen and ink, and working with colored pencils in a bit new to me...this work was extremely helpful. Do keep in mind that this work includes examples of all botanical and not just flowers which was precisely what I wanted. I own and use dozens and dozens of book covering this subject (granted most of them are drawing and not coloring) but for both drawing and coloring this book is beyond a doubt in the top five I own – I have found it quite useful. As a matter of fact I ran across a copy of this one in our local library, used it a bit, and found I had to have my own copy. Being prudent (cheap) I want to be sure I my monies worth...with this one I did.

A thorough, inspiring and complete guide, with step-by step instructions and very useful tips to enable beautiful coloured pencil botanical paintings. This book has really developed my love of this medium.

Unfortunately, as with all "How to ...!" books, this one has a couple pages of instructions and the rest, again as usual, is a "Look how good I am!" book. The author does do beautiful work, or I suppose someone else would have written the book? Perhaps the basics are really so simple all it takes is hours and hours, plus years and years of practice? Assuming also that somewhere along the line you showed some aptitude and artistic talent. After three quarters of a century I have failed in both respects. Being aware of this, this is not why I chose to attempt drawing; sticking to black and white because there is always a pencil available somewhere and a piece of paper of some sort. No closet full of dried up paint tubes for me! This was for the very practical purpose of seeing more of what I was looking at and in that manner actually getting more out of life. It has worked admirably. You should try it! You will be amazed at how much you don't see when you just look. As the author points our, we as humans are not very adept at spotting colors. We think we are picking out a matching color for instance and when we get home and compare it, it isn't even close. Well, I figured I would just give it a try, put a little color in my life - and so I shall. I'll at least give it a try and not be put off by the fact that my renditions don't come close to the beautiful illustrations in the book. Perhaps I'll just have a better understanding and appreciation of how she got them that way. That's enough for this life time.

Great combination of plant anatomy and drawing techniques

I enjoyed this book. Plenty of instruction and examples. I really appreciate that the artist lists the specific pencils used to create the artwork. For some reason this doesn't happen all the time with colored pencil artists. The author also devotes some time to going over the best greens which are critical in botanical work. There is very detailed work but really I think you can pick and choose how detailed you would like to go. This can be a concern for those with vision issues. So the examples give plenty of leeway and would work without adding very fine detail. The tips give you the know how that you can use on better vision days. I also like that there is plenty of variety in the tips and the examples. Some books offer only one way to do things - like using a specific blending technique. A good art instructor gives you the reasons and options so it can be your work not just a copy of theirs.

If like me, drawing is your preferred medium and you love botanical art then this is the book you've been waiting for. There are many books on botanical illustration out there but none that are devoted to working solely with graphite and colored pencil. At most, you may get a chapter and one demonstration in the other books, but nothing this comprehensive. I only wish the book was longer, with more demonstrations and examples of other colored pencil artists' works. But having said that, I found the book extremely informative about the nuts and bolts of doing botanical art with colored pencils. If you've read other colored pencil how-to books you may be familiar with a lot of the basics, and if you've read how-to books on botanical art you're familiar with those basics, but it was nice bringing the two subjects together in one book. Her explanations are clear and easy to follow and understand, and the artwork is gorgeous. Colored pencil has taken a bit of back seat to watercolor in the field of botanical illustration, but this book shows that it certainly doesn't have to. Definitely inspiring. I really enjoyed it and thought it was well worth the money.