Realistic Still Life In Colored Pencil by Cynthia Knox
Sunflowers by Cynthia Knox
Realistic Still Life In Colored Pencil by Cynthia Knox
I have always been 100% honest and transparent with you guys and I think as my own personal outlook on life, honesty and transparency has served me well. I am reviewing this new book dedicated toward colored pencil artists; “Realistic Still Life In Colored Pencil” by Cynthia Knox, however, I have followed Cynthia Knox’s work for a few years now and I have an immense amount of respect for her as a women and professional artist. Regardless of my respect and admiration for Cynthia, my review of her new book will always remain professional and honest. If I wrote amazing things about a clearly not so amazing product, you guys would see right through me and the review and would be much more detrimental to The Art Gear Guide going forward.
About Cynthia Knox
Before I get into the actual review of “Realistic Still Life In Colored Pencil” I would like to talk a little bit about Cynthia Knox for those of you who maybe new to the colored pencil medium and world. Cynthia Knox, has worked tirelessly for years providing the wonderful people within the colored pencil community with knowledge and skills passed on in the form of books and online classes, gifting her incredible wealth of talent to us.
To date, Cynthia Knox has penned and published an impressive number of books, all aimed toward helping colored pencil artists to either get started in the medium or improve upon their current skills.
Cynthia Knox
Cynthia has penned and published quite an impressive catalog of books aimed toward helping the colored pencil community and covering many genres within the colored pencil medium. To list just a few of the more popular books Cynthia Knox has published.
To see the full range of publications from Cynthia Knox, check out the “Book Page” on her website, as well as this amazing list of publications, throughout the years Cynthia has won many accomplishments with her own colored pencil art. Cynthia has also created video classes on an old platform which used to be called Craftsy and has now changed to Blueprint. Blueprint is in the middle of some changes and so it is not possible to purchase online class at the minute, however if you visit their website you will be notified as and when classes become available.
Cynthia has contributed to many issues of magazines over the years whether it has been tutorials or helpful tips and techniques, one regular magazine has been Ann Kullberg’s Color Magazine. Cynthia has also belonged to a few art organisations such as a Signature Member of the “Colored Pencil Society of America”, Juried Member of the “International Guild of Realism” and a couple of others.
Realistic Still Life In Colored Pencil Table Of Contents
Reviewing books is always an absolute pleasure, however it is much harder than reviewing ordinary art products. With art products you show off as much as you can about the product, but with book reviews, there is a balance between showing enough information to get people interested, but not too much so that the readers don’t have to buy the book because everything has been disclosed in the review.
I will discuss the chapters in a bit more detail further into the review, however to get started I am going to explain the contents of the book.
Introduction
Tools & Materials
Techniques
Color Basics
Creating a pleasing composition
Working from Photographs
Creating Realistic Still Life Textures
Putting It All together
Poppies
Peaches
Macarons
Sunflowers
Meringues
About The Author
With all of Cynthias books, they have been laid out in such a fashion that someone completely new to the colored pencil medium could pick the book up and learn in the correct order as is the case with “Realistic Still Life in Colored Pencil”
The Introduction is pretty self-explanatory, Cynthia talks about the plan of the book and what you as a reader can hope to achieve from reading it.
Tools & Materials
This is exactly what you would expect to see in a well laid out book in my opinion, as a new comer to the colored pencil medium or art in general, you are going to need to know the material you require before you can get started and begin learning anything.
In this section Cynthia discusses the various types of pencils you can chose from, the paper surfaces and the difference between Hot Pressed and Cold Pressed watercolor paper. This section also discusses the use of PanPastels for backgrounds, as well as other tools that make life easier for a colored pencil artist such as spray fixative, pencil extenders, drawing board and many other items.
Techniques
I think this is one of the most important sections in the book and for many reasons, however, one reason in particular sticks out and I think Cynthia is the only person to have established this scale, at least I have not seen any other artists discuss it.
The Techniques is the section help new comers to the medium to use the pencils, the various different strokes that can be achieved, the effects of burnishing, layering, lifting color etc, it is in preparation for the coming chapters and exercises in the book.
However the scale that I was referring to was that of pencil pressure, which is such an important lesson to learn and as I have mentioned, I have not seen any other artist teach this in the clear and precise way Cynthia has developed. In the Craftsy classes that I purchased to learn from Cynthia, I learnt the pencil pressure scale and it makes learning from a book so much easier. I would have always said that learning in a classroom setting with an instructor on hand to help, as opposed to reading a book was preferential, that was until I watched this easy to follow scale and it is referred to right throughout all the exercises in the book.
The Pencil Pressure Scale is broken down into 5 sections from lightest to very heavy pressure, Cynthia meticulously describes where to be holding the pencil for each pressure type, how the pencil should feel in the hand as you apply each pressure etc, to find out exactly what this amazing scale is and how it makes learning the art of colored pencil so much easier, this is the book to get.
The techniques section looks at layering, the difference between blending and burnishing, using watercolor pencils for backgrounds, the effects of certain pencils reacting to OMS (Odourless Mineral Spirits), the importance of selecting color and working out your values and removing layers to change values.
Color Basics.
So many people find this part of art incredibly tedious and I have to agree with them, however, it is so important. Color theory will help you make sure you use colors that go together, this will ensure that your art work has eye-catching colors combinations. This is only a small section of the book, only two pages, however, it is such an important element of any art medium.
Creating A Pleasing Composition
This is another short but important section of the book, Cynthia talks about arranging your subject in the right position to draw the viewers eye where you want them to look. Selecting the right color schemes, creating a focal point.
The book also discusses perspective, creating lighting and determining which direction is best for the light to hit your subject, discussing foreground and background. All of these topics will go such a long way to helping you create a wonderful realistic still life
Working From Photographs
Obviously if you are working on still life subject, if you are using daylight for lighting, shadows and light will change as the day moves on, so taking a photo of the still life is important to do. There are of course many other reasons for taking a photo of your still life and Cynthia talks about them.
But in this section Cynthia discuss how to take a good photo, editing your photo and how to adjust colors directly on the photo. this section of the book also shows how add a grid to your image and scale it, this was something I could never get right when I first started out with colored pencils. The grid method will help you take a small image and enlarge it on your work surface, mapping out the image one square at a time. It is such a useful and effective method.
Creating Realistic Still Life Textures
In this section, you will draw upon everything you learnt in the Techniques section, learning all the various pencil strokes, pressures, burnishing etc will go a long way to help you out in this section.
This part of the book goes over creating water with colored pencil, different fabrics, if you are familiar with Cynthia Knox’s work, you will have seen in a lot of her work lace fabric. The way Cynthia creates this look is phenomenal and looks so incredibly complicated, but Cynthia discusses how to achieve the look
Other textures such as fruit, leaves and stems for botanical work, leather, pottery etc. Just looking through Cynthias catalog of amazing artwork will show you just how amazing she is at recreating all of these textures.
Putting It All Together
These next sections are exercises, helping you put into practice everything you have learnt thus far. this chapter is broken down into five parts with each part a separate exercise for you to hone your new found skills.
Poppies
The first section is “Poppies” and to complete this exercise Cynthia has completely laid out everything for you from the entire palette of pencils used, a line drawing you can trace or transfer and each stage of the drawing has clear and concise instructions for you to follow.
The instructions are amazing, telling you which color to use as well as the type of pressure you should use referring back to the pencil pressure scale that was taught in the Techniques section. At the end of this section, if you have followed Cynthias excellent guidance you will have in front of you a beautiful colored pencil painting of Poppies in a metallic churn, a bowl of Strawberries in a metallic bowl sat on a lace base. This is your chance to learn a technique that will help you create one of the most amazing looking colored pencil effects I have ever seen.
So although this section is called Poppies, this is not the only surface or texture that you are going to create, Poppies has a few different textures and surfaces in it that once learnt will serve you well in the rest of your colored pencil pieces.
Peaches
Creating textures with colored pencils can be really difficult, especially textures with very delicate detail and when left to your own devices, finding these techniques and refining them can take months if not years. However, with the help and guidance of a true professional within the field all of this can be taught on a much quicker scale and to a much higher level.
In this section “Peaches” , it is similar to the Poppies section in that there are multiple surfaces and textures to master. Peaches also teaches the importance of composition and lighting.
Within the exercise you will learn how to create that soft fuzzy texture of peaches with the soft morning light reflecting of the smoother plums in the image. In the image there is a beautiful metallic jug against the backdrop of a wood panelled background and just peeking into the image is an old oak barrel.
So as you can se, in this one exercise, again, Cynthia guides you through with meticulous detail, clean and concise instructions to aid in your perfecting this image. As with all the exercises in this amazing book, Cynthia has a list of the colors she has used to create the image and of course if you don’t have the exact colors or the exact same pencils you can select a palette close. Something you will soon learn with colored pencils, in fact all art, so long as your values are good, the piece will look amazing, dark darks and light lights.
Macarons
As I am sure you have already gathered, the titles of the exercises in the book are cleary not what you might think you are actually going to learn. In this image of Macarons you are again going to learn skills that will serve you incredibly well in your colored pencil endeavours.
I think one of the hardest things I learnt to draw was glass, but done right it looks amazing and of course, with Cynthia Knox as your teacher, you are going to learn how to draw glass better than I could ever draw it.
In this exercise, the image is incredibly light with bursts of gorgeous color from the Macarons. Here you will learn how to draw the glass bowel with the Macarons in the bowl, this causes all manner of problems from the drawing perspective, but the instructions are so easy to follow that you can’t go wrong. The colors of the macarons through the glass and the reflections elsewhere in the bowl will all be taught.
Sunflowers
This exercise is a real treat, especially for those of you who already know about Cynthia Knox and the amazing work she has contributed to the colored pencil world. One of my all time saviour pieces of Cynthias work is the image used for this exercise “Sunflowers”.
This image is simply gorgeous, you will learn how to create a really dramatic piece with a dark background helping to push and really focus the viewers eye to the contrast of the beautiful greens and yellows of the Sunflowers.
To break up the Greens and Yellows in the image, the red berries and apples help to drop just enough variation of color in the piece without over doing it.
Meringues
In the final exercise you learn similar effects to that of the Macarons in that some of the textures and surfaces taught in this lesson are glass and the bright color from the Meringues. However in this piece there is tubular metal which teaches you how to not only create a metallic effect with colored pencil but to give it form so that the viewer can see it is cylindrical.
The part that I really loved about his exercise was the background and learning how to create that blurred effect so many wonderful piece have to help provide depth in the piece. In this exercise the blurred background object is subtle but hugely effective.
Purchasing Realistic Still Life In Colored Pencil
I have provided links, images and scroll bars were you can purchase this amazing book via Amazon if you would like to.
Here in the UK you can purchase the hard copy of this amazing companion book for £11.99 or the Kindle edition for £11.39
In the US the hard copy of Realistic Still Life In Colored Pencil will cost you $21.99 or the Kindle edition for $20.89
In Europe this wonderful book from Cynthia Knox will cost $21.37 or $14.20 for the Kindle Edition
Realistic Still Life In Colored Pencil by Cynthia Knox Conclusion
The final chapter of the book is a small bit about the Author Cynthia Knox so there is not really much I can say about this section other than if you get the book you can find out even more about Cynthia.
Nevertheless I have mentioned quite a bit about Cynthia all of which I have been quite conservative about, I personally can’t say enough good things about Cynthia and the amazing work she has done to help out the colored pencil community.
If you are a colored pencil enthusiast, someone who loves to color with adult colouring books in colored pencil, someone brand new to the medium or someone like myself who has been teaching myself little bits here and there, this book, “Realistic Still Life In Colored Pencil” will be invaluable to you.
The tips and techniques shared throughout the book, along with the exercises guiding you to put all you have learnt into practise will serve you well in so many genres of the medium. However, it is worth mentioning, it for some reason you feel this book is not for you, I have provided a list of the other books Cynthia has published, it is worth taking a look at the other publications to see which one suits your desires.
Thank you so much for taking a look at this review and I hope that I have helped you see the value in this wonderful book by Cynthia Knox and if for some reason you did not know who Cynthia Knox was, this will be a wonderful introduction for you, to one of the very best colored pencil artist in the business in my opinion. Also thank you all so much for your wonderful support, comments, emails, messages and donations, I can’t tell you all how much I appreciate it.
