Art of Botanical & Bird Illustration: An artist's guide to drawing and illustrating realistic flora, fauna, and botanical scenes from nature

Il libro si presenta bene ed ha una serie di informazioni naturalistiche che possono essere interessanti. I progetti sono sommari, pochi passaggi stringati. Diverse pagine dedicate alla struttura anatomica degli uccelli, nei minimi particolari. Trovo più adatti per chi comincia a studiare questo soggetto i libri di John Muir Law, ricchi di esempi, disegni stupendi e spiegazioni tecniche sull'approccio pittorico.

If you are looking for good books to add to your watercolor repertoire I'd definitely check out this one. It is very technical and offers exhaustive schemes and pictures of botanicals structures and birds anatomy, breaking down what results very difficult when approaching this type of drawings. The size of the pictures and the various techniques suggested definitely make it a helpful guide in my watercolor journey.

As a botanic artist, I found this book very helpful in the importance of getting the drawing right first. Talks about tools, lighting and understanding form.

I have quite a large collection of botanical/wildlife instructional art books and this is in my 'favourites' section. It's an enjoyable book to sit and look through - laid out in a very attractive way and full of nice, large illustrations which are big enough to see clearly (even the simple diagrams and step-by-step pics are nice and clear - this is the stand-out feature of this book for me).At the start, there's all the usual general info about materials, colour mixing, perspective and how to draw and shade different shapes. I have a lot of books which include very similar content to this so I tend to ignore this part, but for beginners who don't have lots of books already, this book explains things simply, with very clear diagrams and pictures.Then we get into the more specific botanical and bird stuff - sections about different types of flowers and leaves, rendering branches, root structures etc, and bird bone structures. It's all explained in a concise and basic way, with plenty of good-sized illustrations.Next there are the step-by-step demos in which each stage of a finished painting is explained. This is my favourite section of the book, and I find the explanations of each stage very interesting and helpful. Again - the pictures showing the steps are excellent - big enough to see the detail clearly. The artist uses various media in combinations and the finished pieces are beautiful.Finally, there's a section with a few tips and ideas for creating a sketchbook, and a gallery of finished work.All in all, this is a lovely book for anyone interested in producing illustrations of birds/botanicals, particularly in combination. There's plenty of practical guidance and it's all put together beautifully, so leafing through this book is a pleasure as well as a learning experience.

Buen libro para iniciar en el dibujo científico

THIS IS A FABULOUS BOOK AND GIVES PLENTY OF HELPFUL ADVISE ON THE ART OF DOING YOUR OWN BOTANICAL AND BIRD DRAWINGS ! I WORK MOSTLY IN GRAPHITE AND COLORED PENCIL, BUT EVEN THOUGH MINDY LIGHTHIPE WORKS IN WATERCOLOR TOO, YOU CAN CERTAINLY ADAPT TO FIT ANY MEDIUM OF YOUR OWN. GREAT LITTLE BOOK !

Veramente bello e completo, e nonostante sia in inglese è comunque di facile comprensione. Disegnando, pitturando, e conoscendo già varie cose scritte nel libro, come materiali, tecniche e qualche consiglio tecnico sui disegni mi vien da dire che si tratta più che altro di un manuale per chi si approccia per le prime volte a questo bellissimo mondo, ma sinceramente lo consiglio anche a chi bazzica già all'interno dell'illustrazione botanica, in quanto ci sono consigli basilari sempre importanti e da tenere appuntati da qualche parte per una facile e veloce consultazione. Prezzo ottimo, inoltre, la Lighthipe è un'artista del suo genere davvero completa.

Mindy Lighthipe's excellent book works for both the beginner and intermediate artist and perhaps the more advanced artist seeking instruction to botanical and bird art. She has excellent introductions to graphite and color with graphite hardness range charts with exercises to build one's own personal charts as well as color chart and color mixing charts to test one's range of pigments with advice on a limited palate to begin with and advice on supplies beyond pencil and pigments, such as paper, erasers, palettes, etc. The books is generously illustrated with charts and color photographs, including ones from her online courses, and this book would be a wonderful supplement to her online courses, while one need not take the online courses to benefit from the book. (However there is much in the online courses that is not covered in the book, so don't feel that that the online courses would be redundant. Mindy Lighthipe is a very lively teacher on her online course and a wonderful demonstrator and there is much to learn from viewing her technique. Unfortunately, she has yet to make a video course of her bird drawing or color pencil technique yet, but that is no criticism of the bo ok, but rather a plus that at least we have her bird techniques here. If only she had covered her butterfly techniques here also! I am sure t that she will someday soon.) Mindy's discussion on perspective is very helpful, at least to me, and by discussion I mean the heavily illustrated pages demonstrating the terms and definitions commonly used. It helped clear up some questions I had held for many years and could not get quite cleared up. She also covers cast shadows. Her armature drawings are extremely helpful for preparing for finally beginning painting and really clinch turning the 2D drawing into a convincing 3D representation on paper. This is a very useful bookend you should definitely get it if you would like to begin drawing and painting, even if you are not concerned about what subject matter. Botanical and bird art are very good subject matter to begin with and this is a very good approach. See also on Youtube her free demonstrations and give some thought to saving up and signing up for one of her online classes.