A simple but comprehensive guide, offering warm and engaging encouragement for anyone looking to learn how to watercolor.
Simon’s how-to workbook aims to teach the fundamentals of watercolor techniques.
When taking up a new hobby, it’s often hard to know where to start or what to buy. In this introductory workbook, learning to paint with watercolors is laid out in a simple, easy-to-follow plan. The suggested materials list is simple without being too basic, with Simon noting to the reader: “I want you to see how much beauty you can create with minimal supplies and expense.” She recommends just two student-grade brushes, a waterproof-ink pen, and nine suggested paint colors, only one of which she recommends buying at professional quality. The text notes that the project pages are printed on premium watercolor paper, meant to be painted upon directly. (A digital copy of the book was provided for review.) Before starting each exercise, the author explains methods clearly, including specific water-to-paint ratios, color “recipes” to create various shades, including a comprehensive guide for human skin tones, and, of course, various painting techniques, such as wet-in-wet, wet-on-dry, dry brushing, and more. To perfect these new skills, there are more than two dozen line drawings of plants and animals. For each, Simon indicates suggested colors and brushes at the top of the page alongside a completed full-color version of the painting. The painting process is meticulously described in anywhere from five to nine stages, with specific techniques helpfully made more prominent by using all-caps: “With your Round 4 brush, WASH an entire tulip flower (or just a few choice petals!) in a clear wash, leaving RESERVED areas on some petals, as well as the flower centers.” Simon’s voice is affable and supportive, giving the book the feeling of spending time with a talented friend. Her assurance that one can get beautiful results using easy-to-find materials is sure to be appreciated by newcomers to the craft.
A simple but comprehensive guide, offering warm and engaging encouragement for anyone looking to learn how to watercolor.Pub Date: April 27, 2021
ISBN: 9781950968268
Page Count: 76
Publisher: Paige Tate & Co
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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