Colored Pencil for the Serious Beginner: Basic Lessons in Becoming a Good Artist

by Bet Borgeson

This new addition to a sucessful series is a sophisticated primer for readers who aeriously want to develop a professional career specializing in an art medium with great commercial potential. The book opens with a review of the methods of unique to colored pencil, its handling properties, and breadth of color range. Readers are shown how to create illusions of form, volume, and space, and how to avoid overworking a picture by learning to see when it's finished. Then the author shares her special techniques for the most popular genres, still life and landscape, and for nontraditional subjects as well. She concludes with an insightful discussion on personal style and becoming a professional artist.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Crafts

144 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1998

Reviews

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

An all around excellent resource for people who want to use colored pencils for fine art. Great examples and information. I have several of Bet Borgeson's books, and I think this one is the most helpful and complete, although all are good.

[David Franklin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable

Easy to understand with a lot of helpful tips. I would definitely recommend this book for those working with colored pencils.

[Leah Markum · Rating 4 out of 5]

2 stars for me personally, but easily 4 stars when I think about how valuable this book would be to a true beginner artist, especially one that likes detailed instructions. 5 stars for inspiring, rustic, brilliantly colorful illustrations!

I picked out this book at the library and it was one of the only books dedicated to colored pencils let alone colored pencils for beginners. It covers basic design theories and equipment for a beginner art studio.

The reason why it was less valuable for me is because I'm a beginner to colored pencils, not a beginner to drawing or art. Much of the content I had to skim or skip, and to me the amount of the book that contributes to my interest has sway on how I feel about it when I'm finished reading. The step-by-step instructions for the tutorials were presented in thick paragraphs squished to one side of the page: a layout design that is not easy to follow.

Nitpicking aside, it was a good book to browse through and a great book to garner inspiration.

[Barb · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid blend of color pencil technique, color theory, composition and advice for the artist wanna-be, the book is nicely laid out with examples by the author.