Customer Reviews

Painting Light with Colored Pencil

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I did enjoy the book and found it to be informative with good information of her wonderful and innovative techniques. I would have liked more definative instuctions on how "Shades of Green" was done, not just a small section on rendering Kiwi fruit. The beginning 50 or so pages were on information commonly found in any CP book and therefore of little value to me and perhaps to others who have a library of books already. But if you are a beginner with no books it would be of value to you.

I'm not a beginner, but I think an artist on any level of experience and using almost any medium could benefit from this book. It's a jewel, and the emphasis on capturing light is inspiring. Cecile Baird generously shares her wonderful technique, as well as every aspect of creating a painting. Great presentation, valuable tool!

There are numerous demos covering many textures. While time constraints have prevented my trying all of them at this time, I've found the ones I have done easy to understand and follow.

Information and insights......that's what I wanted, and that's what I got!!

This book is of somewhat limited use if you have anything other than ultra-realism on your mind. But having said that, Cecile Baird presents a flawless technique with colored pencils that will have your jaw dropping at her gorgeous work. This book is inspiring and there is plenty of eye-candy here to admire.

There are many demonstrations of example paintings, and some are quite stunning; water spilled on a tile counter, a bubbling, spurting fountain, translucent honeydew melon and kiwi, glistening shells, smooth crockery. Each texture is discussed and the technique of blending with a colorless pencil or with solvent is explained.

There is also a section on how to photograph your subjects (assuming you do still life a lot, which this artist favors as her subject matter.) There is a good discussion on how many pencils to buy (hint; start with the largest assortment you can find, 72 or more) --and she lists what colors of one particular brand she chooses for each demonstration. The materials needed such as stumps for blending, solvent, etc are covered well in the text.

The demonstrations are not as complete as a beginner would need, but a good artist can follow her progress from sketch to final work. Likewise, excellent draughtsmanship is required for this technique. If you do naif works, cartoons, abstracts, or other non-realistic, stylized techniques, this book is of limited value.

Therefore, I recommend this to people who want to work from photographs and obtain beautiful realistic results with colored penci.

"Painting Light in Colored Pencil" is a wonderful book if you are interested in technique applied to still life compositions. She does a great job of moving reader through process of the creation of a "mood" that is related to light. Most of her examples involve fruit, flowers, and ceramics. If this is your interest, you will find the book helpful. If you are interested in landscapes or more unorthodox subjects I believe you will feel the book is too limiting. The first 31 of 126 pages is dedicted to materials, photography, and composition. For a beginning colored pencil artist this may be very helpful section. For advanced artists, you will probably skip over this section. I liked the book since it contains interesting techniques and a good message -paint what you like (what inspires you) and have fun at it.

Cecile Baird is an expert with colored pencil realism -- a slow, layered, difficult medium that depends on good drawing skills and a patient attention to detail. Her artwork is spectacular, but unlike some colored pencil books, so are her step by step lessons. She'll take one element from a major work of hers and go through it step by step till you can create something similar -- and from there set up your own still lifes to convey the light of a candle, the rich textures of brass or wax with light shining through it, the soft petals of a rose.

Her style creates something reminiscent of the Old Masters, a still life with musical instruments will have lavish textures throughout, brocade that shines in the light of a lamp, brass that gleams and glass that's transparent. This book solves all of those technical mysteries and is wonderful if you want to draw chrome or glass or cloth or light.

Ms. Baird has a great way with words too, her explanations are clear and easily followed as she breaks down what seems to be an intuitive process into understandable principles you can apply to your own ideas and subjects. Be prepared to make some intelligent substitutions on which colored pencils to use for the projects, or visit several art stores for open stock pencils. Like most authors of colored pencil books, she has her favorites and they range across several brands. But having tried the projects by substituting similar colors in Prismacolors, they work fine with the substitutions.

I have painted for three years, but never used colored pencils
before. So when I got to page 73 (the reason I bought the book) I
was hoping to learn how to do the "entire picture" on page
73......There were only 4 steps and nothing mentioning the curtain or
the window pane in the backround. Maybe it's just me, but I really
could have used a few more steps and some graphics to go along with
the explanations.....I did love all the pictures used for the step-by-
step demonstrations , but I think maybe there was just too much put
into one book and the demonstrations were a little short for a
beginner like myself.

Very happy with the purchase, so far it is my best book about colored pencils & techniques, easy-to-follow instructions, helpful tips, brilliant demonstrations to inspire begginers & more experienced artists alike.

This is a must-have book for the colored pencil or any artist at any stage in their art career. I am not a beginner, but found lots of good advice and suggestions that have helped me in my art. What first impressed me when I flipped through the pages was the beautiful drawings and photos. Her use of light is incredible.

There are 21 demonstrations for the reader to try, everything from leaves and flowers to candlelight. Her use of color is applicable for any type of art style, from portraits and animals, to landscapes and still lifes which Ms. Baird favors. While she is a realist there is still alot of information that is helpful for those who's style tends to be less realistic.

Great illustrations. Good graphics and easy to follow narration. The author was very articulate and talented. This book met my expectations of what I wanted to know about painting light with colored pencils.

As a newbie at watercolor now for a year, I wanted to try colored pencil to see if I'd enjoy that.
My friend and I attended an international flower arranging show here in Boston and met an artist who makes her living illustrating botanical and sea life books. We signed up for a 3hr workshop with her and I was hooked! She highly recommended this book and showed us her dog-eared copy. I purchased 2 copies and now my friend and I can begin drawing with our new medium.