Customer Reviews

Painting the Secret World of Nature

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There are many good books on nature; there are many good books on art; there are many good instruction manuals. John Agnew's "Painting the secret world of nature" is a rare book that excels in all three of these.

Beginners as well as experienced artists will find this book both technically helpful and aesthetically pleasing. Its clear-cut instructions and step-by-step illustrations, showing the process of creating and elaborating a visually striking image, will help a practicing artist to improve the technique of realistic painting.

All professional artists have their own trade secrets; few are willing to share them; even fewer are able to do it in a way that makes sense to others. John Agnew's book is the one that does it superbly.

Gorgeous nature artwork. The frog is exceptional. Agnew's rendering of translucent animal skin, dewdrops and leaves is miraculous, but you won't learn how exactly to airbrush those types of things. How the works get from roughed-in ideas to detailed airbrushed plant foliage is NOT well-documented here. If you want to learn how to do detailed airbrushing, this is not the book for you. But if you want to be inspired by some great technique and learn some of it (for example, how to do translucent effects) this book is excellent.

I've found this book to be extremely useful as an artist. There are several easy to understand demonstrations on how to achieve various techniques, such as creating haze, fog, and humidity both for close up scenes and those at a distance. Other demo's include creating light and shadow, animal skins, furs & feathers, foliage, water, snow & ice, and sand & mud, to name a few. Each demo is accompanied by a complete materials list of easy to find items. Some of his techniques call for the use of an airbrush, but there is no need to run out and buy the best model available as a simple craft airbrush/air could work. The airbrush techniques described can be achieved with a little practice. Even if one didn't wish to use an airbrush and preferred to use glazes, I would still highly recommend this book because the exercises do not focus on the use of an airbrush, but rather a layering of paints.
In the final chapter John Agnew showcases a few of his works, including some breathtaking murals he completed for various zoo exhibits and museums.

Recently I bought a load of painting tutorial book and this one has got to be the most detailed and well explained of them all. I was really surprised because I was not expecting them to go in such detail. I got the book "painting wildlife texture step by step" and "painting the secret world of nature" was even better in explaining how to paint nature texture. For exemple, the snake scales are better explained in the secret world of nature..and there are also step by step on how to paint realistic wood texture which was not in any of the other books that I have.

This is a really fantastic book.

For the realist artist this book is great! Altho' Mr. Agnew's main interest is in painting exotic animals and places, many of his technics can be used for other realistic painting. I highly recommend this book.

Truely generous of the author to share his great techniques. The book is a gold mine of color and applications. The steps are
very helpful. The technique results are fabulous!

This guy is detailed and wonderful, the book was much better then I expected! I hope he writes another book because I will buy it if it is as good as this one. For the book size he had murials and I was surprised to see it in the book and the other thing is he really breaks down his paintings to instruct. He does a great job of it too by giving more than step 1, step 2 and step 3, he gives a few at least where piecing it togeather is helpful, actually benificial, and easy, some people do not break it down so much. His paintings are great too, he is worth the money to spend on, I sometimes wonder if he is relation to Al Agnew the famous painter. For a smaller to average size book, go for it and if you can GET JOHN BANOVITCH'S book too, the one with the rinocerous on the cover is a MUST SEE AND IS A HUGE HUGE BOOK AND TOOK UP PART OF MY DOORWAY!

I highly recommend the book for anyone who wants to master the art of painting wildlife. The book is generous on providing step by step explanations and color photographs on many different variety of painting nature. A great reference.

This is one of those books I always keep close at hand and I have a shed full of art books that I trade periodically,but this is one of the books you will keep because you can always learn a new technique from it.