Customer Reviews

Painting Spectacular Light Effects in Watercolor

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I ordered the book after visiting Paul's website which has many of his beautiful paintings online and I was really delighted to receive my copy yesterday. The book is done on a very professional level, filled with gorgeous step-by-step projects, and it serves as the door to the Paul's spectacular watercolor world. I've recently realized (I'm a beginner watercolorist) that a painter needs to train ones vision the same way as a musician needs to train fingers, and Paul gives many valuable hints on such perception development, seeing beyond the still life objects and taking them to life by help of light effects. The many projects in the book are very interesting and tempting, earlier I used to sigh when seeing some amazing paintings depicting colored glass, crystal and metal objects, but now I'm sure I'll be trying to paint them myself by using Paul's instructions! Also the architectural paintings demand special attention, painted Paul's way, the churches, monuments and city buildings create a special mood and they become messengers to the viewer. I really recommend this inspirational and at the same time very practical book to watercolorists of any level.

I bought the book expecting "painting spectacular light effects in watercolor", thinking of effects=FX (special effects). That was wrong, the book is not so much about painting light effects but painting the way light illuminates the scene. It is a journey from light sources bending through glass/water/mist bouncing off surfaces or just exploding in fireworks!

I was surprised by the contents, it was not what I had expected, but it was a pleasant surprise! It was way better then I had hoped for! The illustrations are not only of high class, some are better than anything I have seen in watercolor at all.

It is a step-by-step advanced course in painting in watercolor using light to its best. How do you paint something colorless and transparent such as glass? How do you paint a metallic surface? How do you use light and shadows to bring life into a lifeless painting? You will get answers to some of your long standing questions.

I recommend it for anyone who wants to catch the light... I am sure you do.

WOW! I was trying desperately to find something to paint for my first (really fantastic) art show. I had never painted in watercolor before and the entries in this show are always the highest quality. I had entered, and was chickening out.

This book arrived the week before the show and after looking at it all night and sighing with the thrill of it all, I was inspired to try using candlelight (one of the lessons) for my very first painting ever.

Imagine my shock when my name was called out of many other amazingly talented entries as winning an award! My very first watercolor!

So, you can guess by now, how I feel about THIS book. But that does not tell you if it is for you yet, does it?

The illustrations in this book are wonderful. They are realistic and create the illusion of light beautifully. You will love looking through it as a wonderful collection.

The book also has photos of subjects for you to study as well. The conversational tone is wonderful, and many topics are covered. Texture, depth, color and temperature, movement are all discussed. There is a great chapter on glass and metal.

The demonstrations cover a bead of water, drop of water, mist, stormy clouds, buildings, and candlight (my favorite, of course).

The amount of information in here is well worth the price of the book. If you are in love with light in painting, then this is a book you will also love.

As far as ease of learning- well, as I said, I won an award for my very first watercolor painting in a tough art show. This book will have a special place in my collection!

This book is aimed for an intermediate to advanced level watercolorist. The majority of the book focuses on the author's fascination with portraying light as it hits colorful subjects. The subjects range from beautiful colored glass such as wine and perfume decanters to brass musical instruments to breathtaking architectural and landscape paintings.

Other than the first chapter that gives a very quick overview of a few techniques such as blotting, drybrushing, scraping, pouring, etc. it is not an overly comprehensive book on every aspect of watercolor painting. For example, only 1-2 page cursory discussions are given to subjects such as composition, creating textures, values, leading eye movement arrangements of a painting, etc. When they are discussed the subjects are always tied back to the book's main theme - light. So eye movement is discussed, for example, in how light helps achieve this goal to make a strong painting.

Another subject which the author doesn't address is color mixing and color theory. Some of the paintings use of alizarin crimson which some new painters may not know is a fugitive color. Fortunately there are 2 relatively new very permanent pigments on the market that are dead-on ringers for traditional alizarin crimson when you mix them together. W&N Permanent Carmine, which is a quinacridone/diketo-pyrole pigment + any brand with only PR122 as the listed pigment. In fact, W&N offers these two pigments as a convenience color mix named Permanent Alizarin Crimson. I have painted washes of my true alizarin crimson right next to the quinacridone/PR122 mix and could not tell the difference. Neither could my boyfriend when I asked him to try to pick which was the real alizarin crimson and which was the mix.

One of the most intriguing chapters was on painting light at night. The cover painting is only one of the types of night scenes this chapter covers. There are others such as streetlight fog at night and architectural spotlighting. I am especially envious of the author's beautiful architectural themed paintings. I'm still trying to get down perspective myself so anyone who demonstrates such mastery is someone I pay attention to.

Overall this book is a very good look at seeing how one element of painting - light - can be pushed to amazing effect. It is fascinating to see how just one of the criteria (in this case, light) needed for a successful realistic painting can contribute to creating your own signature style. And although I said this book is of most use to intermediate to advanced watercolorists it can not fail to help beginners since the paintings are so inspiring and beginners will eventually move up to intermediate level anyway.

I have read a great many watercolor books, but Paul Jackson's book "Painting Spectacular Light Effects in Watercolor" merits special attention. This is not just a book about watercolor techniques, but teaches the reader how to REALLY look at a subject so he can accurately depict it. Once you can really see something, you can then paint it with your own style. Paul Jackson's style is spectacular. He uses both his own paintings and colored photographs as examples, and give us several step by step guides to his painting style. I am delighted to include this book in my library of watercolor books, and I recommend it to watercolorists of any level.

The stunning cover on this book was enough for me to pick it up...almost every watercolor pictured in the book is a course within itself, but the book contains wonderful detailed instructions about painting in all kinds of light. As an intermediate watercolorist, it is difficult to find a book that doesn't dwell on the basics and gives me new techniques in an interesting, exciting and executable fashion. Bravo to Paul Jackson!

I liked this book for several reasons:

* it offers concise instructions including brush size and paint colors and proportions

* it is filled with beautiful illustrations that show the paintings in stages

* it is easy to understand, for any level from beginner to expert This book is a must for any aspiring watercolor artist. It is full of information and well worth the price!

Ever look at those high-impact watercolors and wonder how in the world they did it? Here's just the book to tell you. Mr. Jackson touches on materials (without lecturing), shows you invaluable tricks of the trade, and shares some of his experiences with you. Then, it's on with the show! Each demonstration is a fine treat and I guarantee you'll learn something new and wonderful. Even if you don't paint, but really appreciate a great work of art, this book is a feast.

This is a review of his *VIDEO*, "Painting Light & Landscapes".
I couldn't find it on Amazon.com so I'm putting the review under his book.

This title is separated onto two videos, part 1 about 1 hour 15 min, part 2 about 1 hour. (I couldn't get an exact time count for tape 2. It varied every time I timed it. Maybe the tape material was stretching?)

It begins with a brief bio of his training and awards, showing several of his painings in the background.

Then, a brief intro to some basic techniques, flat wash, graded wash, wet in wet, but nothing else.

Then he begins to demonstrate his painting, a foggy landscape, mostly done wet in wet.

The value of these videos is to see his demonstration of him actually painting. You see every stroke, which is very good for learning. Camera angles and audio are excellent.

But he doesn't teach design, composition, value sketch, color mixing theory, etc. If you want to learn these basics of painting you are better off with Tony Couch or Tom Lynch videos. But it is valuable to see Paul do his demo because he talks about his thinking process as he paints. It is always valuable to see how a painter thinks about his painting, his process, rather than just staying with cold techniques. These videos are excellent for that.

He points out how the water & paint behaves, how he corrects or covers up mistakes, how he layers paint to get rich values, how he choses colors he is using, how he changes his designing, etc. Its amazing how he gets his effects with his huge brushes and lots of water.

He usually names the colors he uses, mostly Winsor & Newton. But as he doesn't talk about color mixing theory, or quality of paints, he doesn't talk about permanant or fugitive clolors. At one point he mentions he is now using a *permanant* Alizarin Crimson, a historically fugitive color. (Genuine Alizarin is fugitive, which means it will fade or change over time with sunlight shining on it, and you shouldn't use it since there are permanant substitute paints for this color. *Premanant* Alizarin is most likely made up from these permanant substitue paints, but companies preserve the old name so thay can make money.) But then he uses *huge* amounts of Winsor Violet, which I belive is made of of Dioxazine, which is a fugitve color! (I hope I'm correct in this and not making a fool of myself. If I am, I appologize in advance.) According to Michael Wilcox's book, "The Wilcox Guide to the Best Watercolor Paints", he states that Dioxazine is a fugitive color. So why 1) does Mr Jackson use it if he switched to a *Permanant* Alizarin, and 2) why does Winsor & Newton continue to put out fugitve colors for sale at all???? (Read Wilcox's books to learn how to mix violets and purples using permanant colors as well as find out which paints are fugitive and which are permanant.)

While it is wonderful to see Mr. Jackson demo his painting, the whole video is *continually* broken up everytime he needs a break to dry his paper with *numerous* silly interviews of clients and samples of his paintings. These breaks happen at different times, after 5min, 12min, 17min, 24min, etc.

Showing samples of his beautiful paintings at these breaks is acceptable, although time consuming if you want to keep the actual demo on *one* VHS tape. You can go to his web site to see all his paintings. But the interviews are totally frustrating.

The interviews are of some of his clients/patrons: eg. Gov of Missouri, his 1st Lady, and several Doctors. These are more like infomercials. All they say is how wonderful Paul Jackson is, how much they like and are amazed by his art work, how his art is so detailed "it looks like photographs", how he paints upside down even though "that's impossible, but he does it!", etc. These "infomercial" commentaries are TOTALLY USELESS!!! They take up valuable video time and waste the viewer's time. These are all distinguised people, clients, patrons, nice people who really appreciate his work, but with all due respect, who cares about their comments! They are not artists. I bought the video to see Paul paint, not hear non artists babble on and on singing his praises and their amazments! I already know how wonderful he is and am amazed by his art myself, otherwise I wouldn't have bought the video and his book! I don't need nor want their comments. Its a total waste!

These breaks are short, 30 sec to 1 min each, but are so numerous, between 20-30 of them or more, they break up the flow of the video. I tried to time them to see how much time they took. Between the two videos, the infomercial interviews totalled to about 8 min, and the gallery of his paintings totalled to about 8-10min. Not much time total, but because there are so many of them, they are very frustrating and intrusive.

If the tapes had totally eliminated these useless interviews/comments and edited down the samples of his gallery of paintings, he could have fitted his *actual demo* onto a single 2 hour tape. Why, we need to ask, was it spread out onto 2 tapes with so much filler?

I rated the video with 4 stars instead of 5 because of these useless interviews. I would recommend this set of videos to actually see him paint. You just need to ignor the interviews. You can learn a lot just from observation and hearing *HIS* comments! If you get his book, you will get more step by step instructions.

If he ever does another video, which I would love to see of his tighter style, I would recommend: 1) DROP THE USELESS INFOMERCIAL INTERVIEWS! LET YOUR ART SPEAK FOR ITSELF. LET YOUR PAINTING DEMO SPEAK FOR ITSELF. and 2)show more of your planning, design stage. This is just as important as seeing you actually paint.

This is the best watercolor book I have found yet. The light effects are stunning and inpiring. I really learned a lot and improved my skills after reading this book.