Book & Video Reviews

[Khadres]

I think it would be fun and very informative if we could have a thread devoted to pastellists' books and videos with members giving their opinions and whatnot. These could be for art and creativity books of all kinds, not just pastels. I'm a dedicated bibliophile anyway and like to know what's new out there and whether the new stuff's worth ordering or borrowing from a library or not.

Just to get things rolling, I'll list a couple of my own recent acquisitions...

Pastels: Collins Painting Workshop
by Jackie Simmonds (Paperback - January 2003)
ISBN: 0007142579

Yesterday, I received Jackie Simmond's Collins Painting Workshop book on Pastels. I've just begun going through it but have already decided it was well worth buying. She's included tons of examples, demos, and exercises to get the beginner as well as experienced pastellist going. Lots of insights into what works, what doesn't, and why. Not to mention oodles of lovely examples to drool over. I got mine from North Light BC, but I've seen it at both Barnes and Noble and Amazon, too. And aren't we lucky that the author hangs out with us here on WC!

The Pastelist's Year: Painting the Four Seasons in Pastel
Author: Elizabeth Mowry
Watson-Guptill Pubns June, 2001 Paperback
ISBN: 0823039358

This one's a winner too. Lovely inspirational content and some cool insights about getting to know nature from your own back forty, so to speak. If this book can't spark your artist's soul into action, nothing can.

Anyway, for now, I'll wait to see if anyone else is willing to add to this thread. I'll add some video reviews soon, as well.

Paint on!

Sooz

[Kathryn Wilson]

Ooooh, I want to answer this thread but have to get my books together! I have no videos to review, but books I do have!

[eileenclaire]

Good idea for a thread, Sooz! I'd like to add some books to the list.

Oil Pastel for the Serious Beginner by John Elliot. A very comprehensive guide to op's. Anyone working with op's needs this book!

Capturing Light and Color with Pastel by Doug Dawson. I love his paintings, and he's got a great section on backgrounds for portraits. Unfortunately this is out of print, but you can always check your library.

Oh, and Harley Brown's Eternal Truths for Every Artist. This was recommended to me by Mo (thanks Mo!) This book is packed with great information and is easy reading. I especially liked what he had to say about color and composition. And the paintings are beautiful, worth the price of the book!

[Khadres]

Originally Posted by eileenclaire

Good idea for a thread, Sooz! I'd like to add some books to the list.

Oil Pastel for the Serious Beginner by John Elliot. A very comprehensive guide to op's. Anyone working with op's needs this book!

Capturing Light and Color with Pastel by Doug Dawson. I love his paintings, and he's got a great section on backgrounds for portraits. Unfortunately this is out of print, but you can always check your library.

Oh, and Harley Brown's Eternal Truths for Every Artist. This was recommended to me by Mo (thanks Mo!) This book is packed with great information and is easy reading. I especially liked what he had to say about color and composition. And the paintings are beautiful, worth the price of the book!

I've been looking at all three of those! Thanks for the tips on them! And I've been hunting all over for the Doug Dawson one....they had a used copy on half.com for $70+ but I think that's a bit out of my league right now.
It MUST be a good book tho, for people to be willing to buy it at that price!

Again, thanks for the info!

Sooz

[jackiesimmonds]

Good idea for a thread ... she said, having a vested interest.

In case anyone is itching to have some vids on pastel painting, I would like to remind you all that I have made several, they are available in USA format, and I offer them to WC! members at a good discount. Maybe someone who has one, will give a review in this thread, cos I can hardly review my own videos!!!

Jackie

[eileenclaire]

Originally Posted by Khadres

And I've been hunting all over for the Doug Dawson one....they had a used copy on half.com for $70+ but I think that's a bit out of my league right now.
It MUST be a good book tho, for people to be willing to buy it at that price.
Sooz

I was tired of checking it out of the library so much! I found it on ebay and somehow wound up with one in almost new condition for $25! Lucky me!

[Khadres]

Originally Posted by eileenclaire

I was tired of checking it out of the library so much! I found it on ebay and somehow wound up with one in almost new condition for $25! Lucky me!

Wow, you WERE lucky! I'll keep checking!

Sooz

[eileenclaire]

There is an excellent book called The Artist's Complete Health and Safety Guide by Monona Rossol. The author is an artist and a chemist. When she took classes at college, she was incredulous that the same materials that were handled with such care in chemistry class were handled with no concern in art class. When she questioned her art instructors about this, she was told that she was interfering with their right to express themselves, and that she was dampening their creative spirit.

This book is a wonderful guide to safe work practices and protective equipment, goes into detail about each medium. Anyone working with art materials would benefit from reading this. There is also a section about children and art materials.

[jackiesimmonds]

Not sure it is still in print, but if you can find it, it is worth it:

"Colour Light and Form" by Angela Gair. Really helpful stuff about light, tone and colour, modelling form, depth, designing the picture, creating mood, etc - not technique led at all, in fact, lots of work in oils and watercolours rather than pastels, but that doesn't matter, it is the principles that are explained so well.

Also inspirational pics and technique ideas in "The Encyclopedia of Pastel Techniques", by Judy Martin.

John Raynes has a newish book out, all about drawing - if his book on figure drawing is anything to go by, this drawing book will be good. I believe it won an award here in the UK.

J

[meowmeow]

I got this book a couple of weeks ago:
14 Formulas for Painting Fabulous Landscapes by Barbara Nuss

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books (Amazon)

(Finally joined NorthLight and it was one of the ones I picked).
It isn't about pastels but landscape composition. One of the things I like about it in particular is that she does thumbnail sketches. She shows them and then critiques her own thumbnails and improves on them. I found having them there and seeing what she actually did and seeing the improvement from point A to point B (or C or D) has been helpful. Most books don't show that much details. It was good to have it spelled out.

Sandy

[hamsterdance]

Oooo...what a great idea

Here's a list of books I recommend. In fact, you can see my reviews posted on Amazon for some of them


What Every Artist Needs to Know About Paints and Colors by David Pyle


Pictorial Composition : An Introduction by Henry Rankin Poore


The Elements of Drawing by John Ruskin


Brushes: A Handbook for Artists and Artisans by Jacques Turner

Eyewitness - Reports from an Art World in Crisis by Jed Perl <- I LOVE this book. This guy is laying the smack down on so-called modern "art". The emperor has no clothes...


I also get a kick out of my video

How to Paint Like Monet in a Day with Oil Pastels by Sandra McFall Angelo

[Khadres]

OK, now I've found this thread again....thanks EJ!...how does one get it stickied somewhere so it can be easy to find and add to? I just resurrected some older art books I'd had stored and found some real goodies to add. But there's not much point if the thread's gonna do another disappearing act where folks can find it to either read or add to. Am I making any sense here?

Waiting for someone with the right gum on their shoe to stick this thing somewhere handy....

[Khadres]

MY NEW VIDEOS!!!

Here's my review of Jackie Simmonds wonderful pastel how-to videos which I finally managed to obtain. I think full list price on these is somewhere around $29.95 US. Variously available for a bit less here and there. Well worth the cost! These are miles and away the best pastel technique videos I've seen--very professionally done.



This, the first of two "workout" tapes is fabulous. This isn't your usual amateurish video with bad lighting and sound and haphazard shots. Everything is clearly shown with great color and Jackie's a natural, describing what she's demonstrating as she goes in clear, easy to grasp language (great Brit accent, too!). A simple and direct still life demo is included, showing how to use the skills shown earlier in the tape.

This is an absolute must for the beginning beginner! You'll learn more in this 75 minute video than you could, hit or miss, on your own in months of effort.



This second workout tape picks up where the first one leaves off and expands on earlier concepts. Jackie explains color theory and how light affects what the artist sees. She finishes this one up with a full scale painting, showing every step and explaining the process along the way. Will make even the NON-artist itch to run out and buy some pastels!



For those who have wanted to learn how to do flowers in pastel or for those who would like to learn more about composition, shadows, and highlights, this is the tape for you. You'll also pick up our favorite new British "term" -- ginormous, meaning way to big for the composition. Jackie takes us through the arrangement and painting of a gorgeous floral arrangement after first demonstrating methods for drawing everything from daffodils to petunias. The whole family watched this one and even the non-artists were enthralled, not only by the artwork but Jackie's easygoing and gracious style.



This is a delightful video showing how to paint outside in your own or any other garden setting. Jackie shows us how to scale down the view to encompass smaller, more coherent subjects rather than attempting to show everything in confusing, chaotic detail. She demonstrates with paintings from her own and a friend's garden, making me homesick for the classic English garden. She describes the pitfalls and how to avoid them, as well as demonstrating how to focus in the broader setting outdoors.

All of these videos are well worth viewing again and again. Makes me wish I'd bought them instead of some of the badly produced ones I ran across first!

[Khadres]

Here's the best book I've seen, so far, for beginning and even advanced pastel portraitists.

Painting Beautiful Skin Tones with Color & Light by Chris Saper


ISBN: 1-58180-163-7
North Light Books

This is a lavishly illustrated book with detailed concepts and techniques for achieving lifelike skin tones in pastel, oils, or watercolors. The author shows a variety of lighting and compositional techniques and the color swatches are invaluable. Lots of emphasis on value rendering, temperature control, how to choose the best pose, etc.

[Deborah Secor]

One that's been very instrumental for me lately is Wolf Kahn Pastels. From his chapter on The Color Purple:

Laying down a good-sized area of purple is all I need to start a picture. That color is expressive in so many ways, and so special in others. Its range from light lilac color to nearly black, goes through a number of discrete tonalities, some of them useful for gray-violet skies and water, some for denser areas of middle distance, deep purple for nighttime, and deep shadows for the eye to drown in. Purple/violet is theoretically related to green. While I do not rely on color theory to guide me in any direction, I must admit that green and purple do something for each other, which green and yellow, green and blue, green and red do not. There are wonderful associations of purple and green in the work of other painters, especially the way Matisse and Bonnard used them in large areas...

...The smallest variation in density of tone is significant. Purple can be made to appear airy or heavy. (Try to make a heavy yellow or an airy black.)...

...I use purple to get me going when other colors fail. It never disappoints and never becomes ordinary....

I can jump-start a painting with purple, too. It was such a delight to find someone who understands that...

From his chapter on Bright Orange:

There remains the question of when, exactly, to employ this useful color without leaving oneself open to accusations of hedonism, or vulgarity, or worse yet, capriciousness, or worst, self-importance and attention-grabbing. The answer is: in fall, and at the time of brilliant sunsets.

Fact is, orange is my second most-used color, right after purple. I knew there was a reason why I've always liked Kahn's work!

If you want a book that gets you thinking and looking, you'll enjoy this one. He's not a great writer but his thoughts are very interesting--and I love his work. This is chock-full of all kinds of reproductions. Since Kahn is losing his sight (macular degeneration--so sad) I was happy to spend $45.00 for it.

Deborah