Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Pastel Painting Step By Step
Margaret Evans, Paul Hardy and Peter Coombs

Search Press
14 November 2012/ ISBN 9781844488612
How-To Books/Art
Amazon US || UK

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde

Based on four earlier books on the subject by the above authors, this is a comprehensive guide to the art of using pastels. I like the way that what you need to buy and the differences between pastels is dealt with once only at the beginning, leaving out this part from the other three sections. You don’t need as much to take up this aspect of art as most others and there is even a helpful section on working with a limited palette, as well as another on what colors to buy for flower paintings. This is, like most Search Press books, a very hands-on approach with a minimum of theory for its own sake and a maximum of learning through actual painting. The book contains thirteen different projects to work through as well as many other things to try out, enabling even a beginner to get some professional-looking results. Each project tells you what you need and has a good number of stages, each with a short caption telling you what to do next and a photograph showing the picture with the next steps added. It is a great way to learn, and I particularly liked having three different approaches to play with and three different artists to learn from. This way there is less of a chance of slavish copying, and a good look at more than one style in pastel painting. Sometimes I think that compendiums take away too much from the individual books but this is an effective one for the above reasons. An excellent tool for those who want to learn pastel painting, or improve their technique.
UK Reviewer: Rachel Hyde's work can be found in Sewing World, Sew Hip, Popular Crafts and other magazines. Her craft blog is Green Thoughts
Reviewed 2013
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