Book Review: The New Colored Pencil {Blogging for Books}

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The New Colored Pencil: Create luminous works with innovative materials and techniques by Kristy Ann Kutch*
ISBN: 9780770436933
Paperback, 176 pages
Publisher: Watson-Guptill Publications
Retail: $24.99

About the book: 

Learn to draw and paint using colored pencils in The New Colored Pencil: a how-to guide for creating vibrant, textured, and easy art illustrations by best-selling author and teacher Kristy Kutch

Master the Latest Breakthroughs in Colored Pencil Art

If you want to create colorful, radiant works of art, colored pencil and related color media (wax pastels, watercolor pencils, and so on) provide you with limitless options for adding vibrancy to your creations. In The New Colored Pencil, artist and instructor Kristy Ann Kutch guides you through the latest developments in color drawing media with examples of and recommendations for the newest pencil brands, drawing surfaces, and groundbreaking techniques (including using the Grid Method, grating pigments, blending with heat, and more). Supported by step-by-step demonstrations and showcasing inspiring art from some of today’s best colored pencil artists, The New Colored Pencil shows you how to use color theory to your advantage, combine color media, create and enhance textures, and experiment with surfaces to create interesting effects. Whether you use traditional wax-based, or watercolor colored pencils, The New Colored Pencil will take your art to the next level. 

About the author: 

Kristy Ann Kutch has taught more than two hundred colored pencil and watercolor pencil workshops to artists and students worldwide. She is the author of Drawing and Painting with Colored Pencil, and is a contributor to several colored pencil publications, including The Best of Colored Pencil, Creative Colored Pencil, and Colored Pencil Explorations. Her work has appeared in International Artist Magazine and Pratique des Arts. She also authored a DVD called Colored Pencil Landscapes: Beyond the Basics, released by Artist Palette Productions. Kutch is a resident of Michigan City, Indiana.

My thoughts:

Organized in three parts, wax-based traditional colored pencils, water-soluble colored pencils, and wax pastels and combining colored drawing media, this book touches on everything I would personally need to know about using colored pencils in art. Originally, I chose this book simply because I would like to learn techniques for traditional colored pencils; it includes much more than I expected.

You should always aim for quality above quantity as you build a collection of colored pencils. pg. 14

I had no idea there were so many different kinds of colored pencils. I personally use Prismacolor (Sanford) and find them to be adequate for my needs. However, reading through Kutch's book, I am interested to try some of the other brands, such as Lyra or even Derwent (that'd be further down the line, I think). She also talks about different kinds of paper, the old 'tried and true,' as well as the new. Included are tables that describe the characteristics of each. 

I'm not to the point where I think I will be using water-soluble colored pencils but the section is just as informative and helpful as the first. Since I do already own a set of Lyra Aquarell's, this will come in handy when I decide to try my hand with them.

The topics of the book cover getting ready to do a drawing; different methods for preparing. She discusses freehand sketches, using photographs, tracing, and the graph method; pencil pressure, strokes, grating the pencil point, and using erasers; blending and burnishing; brushes, sponges, and heat; and so much more. Texture, negative space, tone, washes and glazes, creating vignettes, backgrounds, and combining the different media. 

I think it is a beautifully illustrated how-to that is well-written, even for someone who doesn't usually use colored pencil in their artwork. This would be good to help get started, or to advance skills an artist already has by picking up new techniques from this book. I am definitely happy with this book.

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