Painting Plant Portraits: A Step-by-Step Guide - Softcover

Good for beginners as well as useful for experienced painters, the detail of the paintings and the background information make the book enjoyable for anyone interested in flowers. Anyone interested in learning to paint plants with water color will be delighted to read this book. This book presents twelve plants and demostrates each step required to produce a beautiful watercolor painting of a well-known flower. Keith West continues to demonstrate in reader-friendly language easy techniques for drawing, shading, and then painting twelve spectacular floral plants with watercolor. If you are interested in botanical drawing and really want to learn this beautiful craft, this is a good place to start. The sample water colors alone will inspire any reader. -- E. F. "Green Scene" (01/01/1999) Useful to artists who want to improve their rendering of plants and to botanists who want to hone their observation techniques. A practical and beautiful reference book. -- L. Davis "Northeastern Naturalist" (04/25/2002)

The distinguishing feature of this book of 12 flower subjects is that it illustrates in detail each stage of the painting process, from pencil drawing and shading through each successive watercolor coat to final touches.