Good content, but disappointingly small book, November 3, 2010

This book was exactly what i was looking for – a whole bunch of pencil demonstrations by a good artist.

But when it arrived I was disappointed.

The problem?
Its SMALL.

The internal pages are only 6″ x 9″ – that’s just a little larger than a DVD case!
And on average there are 3 demonstration drawing steps per page.
This means that on average each drawing is only about the size of a deck of cards.
Not all demonstration drawings are this small, but the majority are.

Pencil work is mostly about learning strokes. In some of the drawings the hundreds of very thin strokes are so small you cant even see how they are applied! This is not always the case, cause some drawings are closeups. But it happens enough to be frustrating.

The worst case is a demonstration called Flower Pots. There are 3 vases, two are blue and white mottled china glaze. The text only says “Using small circular strokes layer the two pots with random areas of (lists colors).” And the drawing is so small you cant even see how the strokes are being applied! You just see a blue and white mottled vase.

On the positive side there are a good number of steps for each demonstration – maybe an average of 10. The demonstrations have a good subject variety and methods coverage. Although none of them are Wow! quality (like the glass marbles on the cover of another pencil book. They are more learning exercise quality, which is appropriate for this kind of book. And the book has lay-flat ring bindings. It also comes with a 55 minute demonstration DVD video which is nice. The first third of the book has your standard decent stuff on general pencil techniques and materials. But I bought this for the demonstrations section – and that is where the problem lies.

So in summary, its not the content i have a problem with. Its how the publisher(not the author who has my sympathies) decided to reduce the value of that content by presenting it in a non-suitable format. In these days of cheap Chinese printing there is no excuse for the publisher making this book this small.

I would give the content 4 stars if in a bigger book.

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A good guide though not perfect, November 7, 2010

By 

Jennifer Spencer “HPs of Jennicysm” (Dallas, Texas, USA) –

  

I had the book on pre-order so I was pleasantly surprised to get it early. Like another reviewer, I was also disappointed in the size and it does make the book less user-friendly. I do like the spiral binding but it really needed to be a bigger book like other colored pencil guides. It does have a few suggestions and demonstrations that are worth squinting to see. I like that it has a bit of info on oil-based colored pencils though most colored pencil guides are still lagging way behind in that area. It also has a workshop on dvd that you can get a preview of by going to the Artists Network workshop site. It would have been fantastic at a proper size for cp, though, truly!

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