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| Quick & Clever Watercolor Pencils | 
 enlarge | Author: Charles Evans
Publisher: David & Charles
Category: Book
List Price: $22.99
Buy New: $3.75
You Save: $19.24 (84%)
Buy New/Used from $3.75
Avg. Customer Rating:  (4 reviews)
Sales Rank: 338752
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2nd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 128
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 10.7 x 6.7 x 0.5
ISBN: 0715322974
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.24
EAN: 9780715322970
ASIN: 0715322974
Publication Date: May 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Quick & Clever Watercolor Pencils is loaded with quick, simple and effective techniques for tackling any subject in watercolor pencils, from still life and landscapes to animals and people. Written in a clear, approachable style, the book shows how to create vibrant finished paintings quickly and easily. Readers will find exercises and projects for dry pencil, wet pencil, washes, fine details and using pens to enhance paintings.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Makes for nice sketches December 13, 2008
I LOVE the book for the way it demonstrates quick sketches so that you can pack a bag and just walk to a park or parks and stop to sketch anything without taking a long time for a detailed drawing. My daughter, though, who is a fan of realism and photo realism looked through the book and didn't like it so I guess it's not for realists. Everyone else will like it.
 Okay for ideas and lessons July 18, 2007
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
I rate this higher than the previous reviewers because it fills a niche. It isn't a 12 page basic, how to use watercolor pencils booklet that comes with a starter kit. It also isn't a book that expects you to want to spend hours on a painting and only has examples for folks that can already draw and paint like pros. So, I suggest it as a mid-step on a beginner's route to the art.
I do agree that the magenta is not a good color choice for the shadows, but each artist to their own taste. Suggestion: get a decent (or almost any) watercolor instruction book that includes shadows. There are much better and easy ways to mix VERY good and realistic shadows that will make your artwork look professional. The magenta detracts from the art in this book.
Again, a good step between how to get pencil on paper and wet it in 12 basic steps - and how to do experienced art.
Also, keep in mind that this book is not to show how to spend hours drawing, layering, blending, and reworking to end up with a realistic picture of nature. It is a way to make a sketchbook study in the field that you can then use back in the studio.
PS. I'm a watercolorist, so my interest in watercolor pencils is not to sell the medium as artwork, but to get journal sketches down quickly and on the run in order to capture ideas. So, I think the book works JUST FINE for that.
 Over-promises and Under-delivers May 10, 2007
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
Nothing quite fills me with ire much more than putting down some money for an art instruction book, and then I find out that it's a dud. Such was the case with British author Charles Evans' book, Quick & Clever Watercolor Pencils.
I had spotted it in a catalog offering from an art book publisher, and decided, why not? I've been experimenting with the use of watercolour pencils for more than a decade now, and it's a medium that I like and enjoy. I enjoy using it because it's a very portable means of sketching -- all I really need a pad of paper that will handle getting wet, a bundle of pencils and brushes, and something to put fresh water in. A paper cup is good for that.
As with most art books, this one follows the standard format -- an introduction by the artist, chapters on tools and techniques, materials, and the various ways to use the pencils and brushes to create washes, details, mixing colours and suchlike. The majority of the book is taken up by the projects that progress from fairly easy to progressively harder. Finally, there is an index.
Each project has some new technique to offer. The earliest paintings are not much more than scribbling with a wash or damp brush run over it. Sometimes a waterproof marker is added to create some definition or a seabird trundling about.
Now for the complaints about this book. Rarely does Evans let you see the work as a whole while it is in process. Instead, he just makes a close up on the pencil or brush or fingertip smudging away, and it makes it very difficult to get an idea of just where you're at in the painting. Too, there's a real lack of information in the chapters -- he blithely assumes that you already know what he's doing and how he got there without telling just how he did it. Now, I'm not asking for him to take me by the hand, but a little direction would have certainly helped.
My biggest complaint is that he also assumes that you know what pencils and tools you're going to be needing for each project. Instead, he just tacks it on somewhere in the caption, and the poor artist is left to scramble about in the toolbox looking for the elusive item. By the time you find it, the damp area has dried, and now either the picture is ruined or you have to rewet everything. It slows the work down, and tends to kill any enthusiasm that the artist had to start the project in the first place.
The colour choices that Evans makes are strange to say the least. Magenta occurs regularly, especially in one glaring example of a bridge, or in the shadows cast by trees. So too does manganese blue, a brilliant, chemical sort of blue that doesn't occur much in nature. Most of his style involves scribbling, but then he doesn't give any indication as to how much force or lightness is to be used either -- it's another fast way to wreck a project.
Finally, the author's tone in his writing and instructions is annoying. It's patronizing, with a smug I know it all, and you better be grateful, you slag smarminess to him. By the time I was halfway through the book, I was ready to smack him.
Summing up, while I do recommend this medium, this is not the book to find instruction in how to use it. Evans' smart-aleck attitude, tiny examples, and lack of skill at teaching shows from beginning to end, and this is not a book that I would recommend to anyone. My suggestion is to find some student grade paper, a tin of Derwent watercolour pencils, and some time to play and experiment on your own. You'll get more satisfaction that way.
One and one half stars at best, and I'm being generous with that.
Not Recommended.
 cannot recommend quick and clever pencils May 23, 2006
19 out of 22 found this review helpful
this book initially looks interesting - nice cover and it has projects throughout and tips too, sadly the projects are poorly thought out and the tips are very poor. the book has nothing to offer, poor instruction and overall it won't help anyone not ever the most clueless beginner ! it would be hard to recommend this book to anyone.
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