Drawing and Painting Plants and Flowers (ISBN 1581803966)

Unique and Beautiful. Great lessons:
This book is outstanding, beautiful, well-taught, with unique art lessons. I am impressed by how much this book teaches, the beauty of the paintings, and it's unique approach. The artist is an excellent teacher. This book is mostly (but not exclusively) about painting plants and flowers in watercolor and the other media that can be used to make a watercolor painting more interesting. It is divided into 2 parts--Part I and Part 2 PART 1 explores techniques and the pros and cons of each medium, mixing media, materials, the basic structure of plants and flowers, composition, perspective, color, controlling light, and comparing how to approach a drawing or painting depending on if it is inside or outside. PART II takes the techniques introduced in part I and gives step-by-step projects with wonderful photographs of each step and excellent instructions on exactly what to do. Each project is unique in using different types of paper and drawing or painting media. Watercolor is used as the main media in the majority of paintings, and other media such as watercolor inks, watercolor pastels, chalk pastel, oil pastels, acrylic paint, pencil and colored pencil are also used either alone or in combination with another media. I love this book because it opens up a lot of possibilities on increasing creativity in your paintings, both in the approach you take, or the types and combinations of media and methods you can use. It is not your typical watercolor lesson book and that is what makes it so special. EX: Project I explores the use of oriental brushes on semi-rough watercolor paper to give the project simplicity and a calligraphic style. Project 2: Wild Plants: Acrylics on gessoed masonite --this project helps you learn to simplify and allow yourself to revise work. Project 3: Daisies: Conte crayons and watercolor on semi-rough watercolor paper. Project 4: Ponds and water: Watercolors on semi-rough watercolor paper--painting sunlight and shade, waterlilies and one pink-red flower--a 5 page project in 8 steps. Project 5: Exterior Architectural Setting: Watercolors, pastels, and conte crayons on semi-rough watercolor paper--considering the trees and shrubs and large hedges in the same way as "architecture", and using watercolor to block-in and pastels for shaping and highlighting--beginning with the sketching and shadowing mapped out. Project 6: Winter scene: Watercolors on semi-rough watercolor paper--the use of masking fluid and learning to plan the composition carefully through sketches and studies of the photograph, learning tonal and color contrast for snow or ice--GREAT EXERCISE!! Project 7: Spring Scene: Watercolors and colored pencils on semi-rough watercolor paper--making a composite of two different views--using semi-rough watercolor paper, colored pencils, oriental brushes, watercolor paints. Project 8: Summer Scene: Watercolors on semi-rough watercolor paper--highlighting blooms in sunlight, using masking fluid and gum arabic, watercolors, oriental brushes, semi-rough paper, pencil. Project 9: Fall Colors: watercolor inks on semi-rough watercolor paper--pencil, watercolor inks, steel-nib dip pen, oriental brush, semi-rough wc paper. Project 10: Botanical Gardens: Watercolor pastels on semi-rough watercolor paper, combining different lights and views (2 different photos) into one painting Project 13: Interior lilies: colored pencils, pastels, and conte crayons on gray ingres paper This should give you some idea of how much you can learn from this book. It is definitely a 5-star. FABULOUS, FUN, BEAUTIFUL, CREATIVE, UNIQUE book!!