Painting Crystal and Flowers in Watercolor

Susanna Spann's instruction on painting glass and flowers covers a wide range of topicss, from how to paint from photos, assuring the proper range of values, composition, color, backgrounds, and how to work AS a painter, whether for pleasure, presige or profit. The demonstrations in the book are excellent. There is a value scale demo--how to paint shades of gray to get a value scale. You use this against the colors in the subject that distract the eye so that the right intensity of light or dark is achieved. This is one of the most important principles in painting anything, even abstracts. The author's handling of various backgrounds helps the artist achieve a painterly result that is far different from rendering photographic detail simply as it's seen. This is vital if you want your paintings to stand as paintings and not as renderings of snapshots. One thing of GREAT value in this book is how to set up photography for your painting. Lighting (spot, outdoors, high key, low key) helps the painter achieve dramatic results, whether from highlights on glass or dramatic shadows. If you paint flowers and glass, this is a must-have text. If you do other still life subjects, this still is a valuable text even if you never paint a flower. Great reference and highly recommended.

This book is the answer to a watercolorist's questions about value and color. Susanna provides demonstrations and clear, precise instructions and information. You can easily teach yourself to arrange, photograph and paint crystal vases and flowers using this book. It provides very clear,useful and practical information about composition, backgrounds, and shadows. It is a basic handbook that every artist show use as a reference every day.

This is more then painting Crystal and Flowers. Any artist in any medium should have it as a reference. There is information on setting up still life, photographing settings,and composition errors. There is a chapter values in which you make your own value chart. Then you hole-punch the value chart which helps to see values in your painting or setup. I have over 250 art technique books. I thought I knew everything. YOU MUST GET THIS BOOK.

This is more then painting crystal and flowers. Any artist in should have it as a reference. There is information on setting up still life, photographing setups,and composition errors. There is a chapter values in which you make your own value chart. Then you hole-punch the value chart which helps to see values in your painting or setup. I have over 250 art technique books. I thought I knew everything. YOU MUST GET THIS BOOK.

Susanna takes you on a whirl wind trip into the depths and colors of crystal, shadows and reflections. Until I bought this book, I never viewed any of Susanna's artwork, but I took a chance since I am so moved by flowers in crystal. Upon reading this book, I am even more moved and excited. Susanna has a way of describing the necessary steps to develop crystaline artwork in a user friendly manner. I had no fear to go out to my backyard with my crystal vases and take dozens of rolls of film that I want to translate to paintings. I was convinced to use bright and bold colors by her demonstrations, colors that have often intimated me. Susanna's paintings of crystal and flowers want you to "Ting" them to see if they are real or just an image on paper. Her demonstrations are easy to follow and I was surprised by the outcomes. She lead me on a path of success. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in painting crystal, reflections and flowers.