The New Colored Pencil by Kristy Ann Kutch

Art Instruction Book
Medium: Colored Pencil
176p.
Available Now
Source: Blogging for Books for review

Learn to draw and paint using colored pencils in The New Colored Pencil: a how-to guide for creating vibrant, textured, and easy art illustrations by best-selling author and teacher Kristy Kutch 

Master the Latest Breakthroughs in Colored Pencil Art 

If you want to create colorful, radiant works of art, colored pencil and related color media (wax pastels, watercolor pencils, and so on) provide you with limitless options for adding vibrancy to your creations. In The New Colored Pencil, artist and instructor Kristy Ann Kutch guides you through the latest developments in color drawing media with examples of and recommendations for the newest pencil brands, drawing surfaces, and groundbreaking techniques (including using the Grid Method, grating pigments, blending with heat, and more). Supported by step-by-step demonstrations and showcasing inspiring art from some of today’s best colored pencil artists, The New Colored Pencil shows you how to use color theory to your advantage, combine color media, create and enhance textures, and experiment with surfaces to create interesting effects. Whether you use traditional wax-based, or watercolor colored pencils,The New Colored Pencil will take your art to the next level.

My thoughts:
Well, here is my new art book review. I have been wanting to do these for a while now and just got the opportunity. I love art and encourage everyone to at least try it. :)

I have been wanting to incorporate different things into my watercolors. I have considered colored pencil and now that they have water-soluble pencils I need to consider it further. There was even a section dedicated to the water-soluble pencils and even pastels. That was a nice surprise and fortunately (or unfortunately for my wallet) I now want to try those as well.

I didn't just get ideas in that section. I also had ideas of combining the more traditional pencils to watercolor. I didn't even consider the wax content in the pencil and how it could create a resist and it got me to thinking about being able to preserve some color through the resist or even just create interesting patterns with the resist itself.

My favorite part of the book is where she breaks down a lot of the more popular artist grade pencils and pastels. It helps you save a lot of time and money just by reading those parts. You can then decide what you want your work to do and pick the appropriate utensil. It made me want several brands just by reading their capabilities.

The part that I thought needed a bit more work would have been the areas on watercolor. She isn't a watercolorist and you could tell in this section. Although it was lightly visited a better section on watercolor brushes might have been a good choice. I enjoyed her selection of papers listed but I would have also liked perhaps a list of watercolor books that would be good for a beginner for those that haven't tried the medium yet.

I give this book 4 stars. It is easy to follow and helps you pick out your product easily. I think for a beginner it would give them a good overview of the medium and it also helps seasoned artists to think about how they might want to incorporate pencils and some pastels into their work.