A Confession

While I create using fabric, an art endeavor of a different kind, I'm not really an artist in the traditional sense with paint, oil or other such media.  So why do I buy, read, enjoy books about art techniques?  Mainly because I find them so fascinating and are very often a art showing in book form.  Take the latest I've been reading:

I could not believe this was a pencil portrait of this young lady.  The cover looked like a photograph - heck, it looked like she is right there in front of me. Amazing!  How is this done with colored pencils?

As a mere reader, I found the book easy to understand and so interesting as Nickelsen takes us through each step, provides the background needed, some very interesting tidbits, for an artist to create these kind of portraits.  She even has a chapter of hands-on examples. It's thrilling to see the portrait emerge.

What will have me picking up this book again are all the portraits Nickelsen has included to demonstrate the technique - like walking into an art gallery to see a private showing. I'm adding this to my art book collection to take down and remind myself of the amazing work artists can do and share with us.

I received this book (published by Watson-Guptill Publications, a part of  by Crown Publishing Group)  from Blogging for Books for this review.