A-Z of Flower Portraits: An Illustrated Guide to Painting 40 Beautiful Flowers in Watercolour

جميل والرسومات حلوه

色鮮やかで綺麗でした!

It is hard to know where to start with this review because this is absolutely one of the best watercolor books on the market for advanced beginners and beyond - even if you are only mildly interested in painting in the botanical style. Five years ago at age 65, I decided to leave fiber arts and move into fine arts, more specifically watercolor painting. Because there are little or no art education support systems where I live, I have relied exclusively on books and videos along with a couple of good friends who are willing to give me honest feedback. Given that background plus my years as an educator, I believe I am well qualified to judge good instructional material. First of all, Billie explains in the introduction that she paints in the botanical style but not to the rigid code of true botanical art because the latter does not offer much space for creativity. This told me immediately what to expect in the content of the instruction - in other words, no science lectures! Like Billy, I admire and respect well done traditional botanical paintings, but it is not what I want to do. Her introduction to materials and the use of the "lessons" are concise and to the point, but she does not try to teach basic skills. Wonderful! Because that is not the intention of the book! And she evidently did not feel the need to cater to beginners just to sell a few more copies of the book. Instead, she includes a masterful section on composition, again focused on what is needed for the content of the book. It is one of my weak areas, and I learned lots! Each of the 40 flowers is given a two page spread, with one dedicated to a beautiful photograph of her finished painting. These are so well done that it is easy to see how the various applications of brush marks and color blend together. The other page contains a combination of written instructions and, again, very well done photographs as needed to illustrate what is to be done to complete the flower. I would recommend that when you first start to use a lesson, you take the time to become very familiar with that instruction page, focusing on the layout of what information is where. This will make it much easier to refer back for help when you are working on a painting. Having said all of this, I will now tell you my 2 favorite things about the book. The first is the conversational style Billy uses in sharing what she knows. This is not a published formal lecture. The second is the set of remarks about the need to practice and do parts of the painting more than once before putting it all together in a final piece. Both of those helped me relax immediately and look forward to having some fun! I live on a very limited budget, and for me this is an expensive book. However, I have Billy's other book and felt fairly certain the second one would be good as long as it was not just a repeat of the first one. I was not disappointed on either count. I know this review is long, but this book is a gem for those of us who rely heavily on printed instructional material. It shows a lot of planning, thought, and awareness of the audience for which it is intended, and deserves a big hooray! What I appreciate the most about the book is that Billy does not try to be all things to all readers. This lets her stay focused on the intention of the lesson - to share what she knows about botanical floral painting at an advanced level in a focused, concise, and coherent style. If you are a beginner and are interested in the content of the book, by all means buy it! Just be sure you have a beginner's manual handy to explain some of the techniques and terminology if you need it. Thank you, Billie, for all the time and effort it took to put this lovely book together.

each flower had a list with swatch of color so it was not hard to get the colors ready and the directions of drawing the blooms and the explanations of mixing which colors for what was easy to read. also the drawing and painting wereeasy to see how things went togetherlove it

Mitlerweile habe ich sämtliche Bücher von Showell, weil sie wirklich gelungen sind und in gebundener Form eine reine Augenweide.Das "A-Z of Flower Portraits" ist ein tolles Buch für alle, die sich nicht ganz an das Thema herantrauen und an möglichst vielen Blumenportraits sehen möchten, was möglich ist. Es gibt eine gelungene Einführung in Material und einigen Techniken gefolgt von den Pflanzen, die mit einer Seite Erklärungen und einer Seite mit der ganzen Abbildung vorgestellt werden.Dazu werden immer sämtliche genutzten Farben abgebildet (die Farbtreue des Drucks ist sehr gut) und kleine Details Step-by-Step gezeigt.Ich würde das Buch uneingeschränkt weiter empfehlen.

As all the Billy Showell's books, this is a complete guide to the botanical ewatercolor. Step by step.Very interesting the intriosuction for the beginner practise

E' un ottimo libro ma in lingua inglese.Purtroppo dopo aver ricevuto il libro mi sono accorto che esiste una versione in lingua italiana, ma al momento dell'ordine non ho trovato alcuna informazione in merito.

libro molto ben spiegato,belle immagini,lo consiglio sia a chi si vuole avvicinare per la prima volta alla pittura ad acquarello,sia a chi gia' lo fa.