Painting Plant Portraits: A Step-by-Step Guide. - book reviews

Drawing a plant is really about learning to see. To sit with a living plant and observe how veins map a leaf how each petal is connected to its base, requires a fine degree of attention, which serves any student of nature, beauty or art. These two books offer a wealth of techniques and attitudes about how to see, and how to render what you see in relatively accurate detail.

How to Draw Plants provides a short history of botanical illustration, a wonderfully succinct lesson in plant structure, and valuable recommendations for tool, paper, pencil, ink, watercolor, scratchboard, acrylics, and gouache, I've relied on this book for years in my own work. Painting Plant Portraits minutely profiles Keith West's watercolor process for a dozen common flowering species.

Take these books at whatever level you find your skills and powers of observation. Don't be daunted by the excellence of the author's work and the sometimes technical tone; even a novice can learn a great deal from his instruction and the opportunity to look through the open eyes of a true nature lover.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Point Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group