Customer Reviews

Paint Radiant Realism in Watercolor, Ink & Colored Pencil

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Paint Radiant Realism..." is one of the best art instruction books I've purchased. If you already enjoy incorporating intricate detail into your work, you will probably love it. But if you are not naturally a "detail freak", Ross's approach will probably drive you crazy.

Beginners who still need step by step guidance in even the most fundamental aspects of the various media involved (pen & ink, watercolor and colored pencil) will probably not like this book. Only those who have a strong foundation in drawing, light and shade, and value contrast will be best able to fully comprehend and utilize Ross' mixed media techniques. The two demo pieces, "Sunspot" and "Daisy Faces" clearly outline Ross' step by step approach to building depth and realism with a combination of ink, watercolor and colored pencil.

Personally, I found her use of ink to establish the darkest values, as well as her technique of using white colored pencil as a resist to save whites to be the most valuable ideas to incorporate into my own work. This, after all, is the real purpose of art instruction books. One should not buy a book in the hopes of becoming a clone of the author; rather one looks for aspects of the author's knowledge and techniques that can be incorporated into ones' own work.

Excellent book and highly recommended for experienced artists.

This book suits realist watercolorists whose style involves creating paintings that show meticulous details to the degree of perfection. If you have achieved a reasonably good drawing skill and enjoy painting with careful brushstrokes to render likeness (as in photographic likeness), this book is right for you.

The author starts out with covering materials, the process of developing ideas, and design elements for your paintings. Through well-executed step-by-step projects, the author impresses the readers with her ability to create breathtaking paintings using ink, watercolor, and color pencils; as well as with her rendering of color, light, shadow and painting themes. The projects include painting cozy interiors, pets, flowers, gardens, and wild animals and birds.

Buy this book and start making money selling your paintings, or else I shall.

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

P.S. For folks that gave this book a poor review, perhaps this will help: This book is for realist watercolorists whose skills have gone beyond the doodling level of drawing. This book, in my opinion, is a real gem for intermediate artists who can even apply the presented approaches to start making and selling their paintings in mixed medium, not for beginners.

Radiant realism glows with good sense, well written prose, great examples. The paintings are delightful and the author's instructions are clear and easy to follow.

This book is not for beginners since it assumes that you know how to draw. Also, it does not cover all the genres, like landscape and portraits. However, if you are anything but a raw beginner, you should be able to figure out how to adapt Ross's techniques for your own genre and purposes. The book is very clearly and neatly put together.

I must have nearly every art book on the shelf, but this one is the one I'm refering to actively to create landscapes and other work. Even though the author doesn't cover those genre, her priciples come shining through. Enjoy!

I hate to see this book get a bad rap because it is full of information.

The bottom line with this book is it is meant for the more ad-
vanced 'draw-er', but i don't think that is a bad thing! Also,
she does give a good amount of technical information.

The complaint about 'paint by numbers' is because the stage be-
fore applying paint is so complex, but if you view this with an
eye toward using her proven techniques in your own ways, - perhaps on only the primary focus of your work it could be very
useful.

It isn't required that you copy her style exactly, that is never
the point anyway, so you can use some of her techniques; especially which mediums work (and don't run) to your advantage!

Good Book! The opposite of the kind of 'pour it on stuff' that
can also be lovely, but quite valuable to the more meticulous crowd!

Sueellen's method is a wonderful springboard for anyone struggling with the details of capturing his /her own realistic nature scenes in paint. If you also paint in ink, watercolor or colored pencil and you would like to expand your skills with a method of using all three together don't miss this book! The book does not happen to have a step by step example of a panoramic landscape showing how to create the illusion of vast space and atmospheric perspective. For help with landscape scenery and buildings, I recommend: Landscape Illusion by Daniel Chard.

Although the artist, Sueellen Ross, is very talented, I was disapointed with the book. It's title should say "Paint Radiant Realistic Animals" or something similar because thats all you get. I was hoping for a variety of subjects, like scenery, buildings, still lifes etc, but it's all animals. An excellent book if you want to paint animals, especiialy cats and dogs. Definatley not what I wanted though. I'll be returning mine!

From a purely instructional standpoint, I was disappointed for many reasons. I would have liked to have seen the chapter on developing your ideas expounded upon. I mean it was beneficial for me to see how reference photos were used to develop an idea for a painting, but it definitely skips some steps. In my opinion, if you're writing a book on watercolor technique, and you have a chapter in it that describes what paper to get, which brushes to use, which colors to start with, which pencils to buy, how to transfer a sketch onto the watercolor paper, etc., one can easily assume that this book was written for someone who doesn't use the medium much. So, I bought the book with the assumption that I would be TAUGHT something. But at the level I work at, I need step-by-step instruction, rather than a quick gloss-over of key concepts. I also believe the author could have used less complicated subjects for her examples. The intricacy of her "Daisy Faces" alone would discourage anybody from following along. Consequently, I never got past the first chapter. Also, I would have liked some examples of painting people, not animals and landscape.

I feel this book would have been better off as a showcase/portfolio for the artist, rather than trying to use her work as a tutorial suggesting that "you too can do this", because I'm afraid I can't. Her level of expertise takes years, and that's something they forget to point out in the copy describing the book.

I had never used watercolor before picking up this book, and now I used the techniques in the book almost exclusively. It's wonderful to be able to combine my favorite mediums and now I'm able to get the look that I was going for in my paintings. The instructions are very thorough and there are also some really nice palette suggestions.

I have admired Sueellen Ross's beautiful cat paintings for some time, and was delighted when this book was published. I am a cat artist myself, and good instruction books on how to paint cats are almost impossible to come by. Sueellen Ross has a very unique style which combines layers of ink, watercolour and coloured crayon, and builds a realistic and dramatic finished painting. The book shows step by step, not only how to paint cats, but also other animals, plants and furnishings. I tried using her techniques for a painting of my ginger cat in the washing basket, and was very pleased with the result. However, I feel that it was not quite as easy as Ms Ross claimed, and is most definitely not for beginners! This book will probably inspire you to give her techniques a go, and will therefore help to develop your art skills and knowledge. For those who are not painters, but enjoy good animal and feline art, this book will also serve as a good introduction to the work of Sueellen Ross and is a delight to look at.

Sueellen Ross has presented an excellent demonstration book on her special techniques in painting animals. As a watercolorist I learned quickly to ignore watercolor books that exhibit paintings I don't care for or am not inspired by. So it is my perception that Paint Radiant Realism in Watercolor, Ink & Colored Pencil, did inspire me to experiment using her techniques so that I could approach her desirable style.