Botanical Portraits with Colored Pencils

I came across Ann Swan's YouTube channel earlier this week and was pleased to find a botanical artist who only uses colored pencil in her botanical drawings. Usually colored pencil is only used as a final highlight after pen, ink and watercolor have been used. I immediately ordered her book from Amazon and it arrived yesterday.

This book is not for beginners.  The author assumes that you know how to draw as well as how to use colored pencils.  You need to be a high achieving intermediate colored pencil artist or an advanced one before taking on botanicals. The first thing the author teaches the reader is the need to know the scientific structure of the plant that you are drawing. How does it grow? How is it constructed? How are the leaves on the stem arranged? You need to study the pattern of the veins on the leaves, all of them, as no two leaves are alike. In addition, the artist needs to study the life cycle of the plant, making measurements of each part of the plant as it changes.  It seems like the artist needs to buy a botany book on the plant before getting started as there is so much scientific information needed before you can start your drawing.

The author recommends using a small sketchbook to record details about the plant's growing habits as well as making a series a thumbnail sketches of the flowers, stems, roots, leaves, and buds.  She also recommends taking a series of photographs to use as a reference for your drawing.

One fact I learned is that botanical paintings are always lifesize. That was why you needed to take measurements of the plant in the planning stages of your drawing. Also, Ms. Swan shows the reader how to use the Divine Proportion, which occurs in nature everywhere, when planning the composition of the drawing so that it is aesthetically pleasing. I also learned that there are 3 styles in botanical illustration. There is the traditional style which was the only style I was aware of, the contemporary style where the focus is on just one part of the plant and the abstract style where one part of a plant is enlarged and it's the only part of the plant that is drawn.

The author also includes great tips on which colors to use when shading leaves in the foreground versus shading them in the background as well as how to develop a critical eye toward the style and elements in your drawing.

The latter half if the book consists of how-to demonstrations of various plant subjects.  Ms. Swan primarily uses Polychromos pencils but will also use Prismacolor and Luminance pencils for blending. I was surprised that she didn't use the Luminance pencils more often since they are 100% lightfast but the colors they come in are not suited for botanicals. In fact, they are not very vibrant for other types of drawings and I wish Caran d'Ache would create more colors for us.

Botanical Portraits with Colored Pencils is a wonderful addition to the colored pencil instruction books. It is quite unique from the rest since botanical art requires a different skillset.

This book is a must-read.

Drawing Birds with Colored Pencil

Kaaren Poole's Drawing Birds is a beginner's guide to drawing birds with colored pencils.  However, more advanced colored pencil users may be able to pick up a few tips from her too.  I know I did.

Ms. Poole begins her book with the usual beginner information on supplies, creating a sketch, how to transfer it to the paper you will be using and color theory.  However, she has a section on bird shapes and anatomy that I think is unique in colored pencil instruction books. Anatomy is a subject that I have neglected in my own drawings and perhaps I need to study it.

The skeletal structure of humans has always been taught in the classes I took in art school when we were learning how to draw the human form in various poses.  It makes sense that when you are drawing a bird or other animal you need to first draw its skeleton and then smooth out your lines to the shapes that your eyes actually see of the creature.

The author moves on from there to the anatomy of the eyes and beaks and shows how to correctly position them. The tip regarding the eyes is going to help me tremendously with my drawings. Now that I see how she does them I can see that my drawings fall flat because of the eyes.

The bulk of the book consists of step-by-step demonstrations of various birds. These demonstrations are quite detailed and even include the type of pencil to use as well as the color to use and in what order.  There is an emphasis on layering.  The author layers color over three times and her instructions tell the reader exactly how to do that.

Drawing Birds with Colored Pencil is a great resource for the artist.  I definitely rate it 5 out of 5 stars.

The Rivals of Versailles

The Rivals of Versailles picks up the story of the mistresses of Louis XV from the first book in this trilogy The Sisters of Versailles.

After Louis XV recovered from an illness he found himself without a mistress. He soon met a bourgeois girl from Paris, Jeanne Poisson, and fell in love. Jeanne, not being royal, needed a name worthy of Versailles and was granted a title that was held by someone else. She became the Marquise de Pompadour and was given a large apartment formerly occupied by Louis' last mistress Marie Anne Mailly Nesle. The newly minted Marquise redecorated the space to distinguish herself from her predecessor and for four years captivated the king. After suffering two miscarriages with Louis her doctor said she must abstain from sex if she wanted to live.

The Marquise told Louis that their sex life was over and he began to stray. However, he needed her company and political advise but found that he could no longer physically climb the stairs to her apartment. Louis ordered a new and much larger apartment for her that was closer to his bedroom even though he had found a new lover, which astonished her enemies.

The Marquise found ways to get Louis girls but in a way where she retained control over the situation. When the girls began to ask for treasures, or her banishment, they were sent home. Louis, now 50, still loved the Marquise and made her a Duchesse while he continued to have sex with many other women, proving her power in the Empire.

After I finished the book my first thought was how well did Louis govern when he was with a mistress every afternoon, evening and most weekends? This does not count the number of weeks he spent holidaying at various chateaux each year.  He seemed to me to be a party animal but it also appeared that this socializing was required by the French Court. How could Louis possibly have spent enough time on governing his nation?

Louis' loyalty to the Marquise/Duchesse was interesting to say the least. Why stay loyal to her but cheat on her with other women? Note that his wife, the Queen, was still alive and living at Versailles while all of his sexual affairs were happening.

The Marquise/Duchesse certainly had a hold on Louis' heart. Her path to power was no different than those of the mistresses in Part 1 of this Trilogy.  Was he in love? It seems so but he had been in love with his Queen too and stayed loyal to her long past the time expected by his Court.

I am looking forward to the third and final installment in this trilogy.

5 of of 5 stars.

Drawing Comics

Robyn Chapman's Drawing Comics is a beginner's guide to getting started in comics.  The book covers each step you need to take to get a finished comic book.

The initial exercises are on drawing.  However, most of the exercises in the book are on character development and storytelling. The layout of each of the 52 exercises is the genius of the book.  Each exercise is encompassed in a 2 page spread. One page has a small box with a materials list, another box with an inspirational quote, and a photograph. The second page consists of a half page set of instructions for the exercise and a half page of tips from a cartoonist. The layout makes each step look easy to accomplish so the reader can feel relaxed about the process.

Some of the other exercises include page building, panels, lettering, inking, publishing pages at home and writing proposals for publishers. If you do all of the exercises you should have a comic strip at the end of the book.

Drawing Comics is a book for the absolute beginning cartoonist. The instructions are so well laid out that anyone should have a product at the end of the book if they do each exercise before reading the next exercise. No other comic instructional guide makes writing comics this simple nor do you have a comic strip done at the end of the book.

Simply the best comic instructional guidebook!  5 out of 5 stars!

Painting Light with Colored Pencil

Cecile Baird's Painting Light with Colored Pencil is chock full of inspiration and instruction in its 128 pages.  After an introduction to composition and lighting the author delves into instructing the reader on how to create fruit and flowers that glow. She then spends a chapter on how to capture light on water.  The final chapters have 7 step-by-step demonstrations on how to use the techniques she discussed in the earlier chapters.

The author has the easiest teaching on how to produce light in your colored pencil paintings that I have ever seen in any colored pencil instruction book. However, she shows you how to do it in step-by-step instructions with Prismacolor pencils which I no longer use.

Prismacolor was sold to a company based in Mexico 5 to 10 years ago and quality control was eliminated.  The pencil casings were made thinner and with cheaper wood. The pigments are still the best but when they are encased in a wood pencil that breaks too easily that you need to replace them 4 or 5 times they are not worth the trouble or extra expense.  If you are not an experienced colored pencil artist you may find it difficult to substitute pencils from better brands that will get you the same results.

One thing the author gets right is adding in demonstrations on working with metal, glass, wood, and in draping fabric. These topics are usually in separate books or dvds and here we are lucky to have them all in one place which is a great value for the reader.

One new skill I will take away from this book is how to create fabric folds.  This will be useful in portraits as well as in still lifes that have fabric in them.

4 out of 5 stars!

Leading Lives that Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be

Mark Schwehn and Dorothy Bass have put together an anthology of readings from 61 individuals who found a way to lead lives of substance and significance.  They try to answer the questions "must my paid employment define who I am?" and "is a balanced life possible and preferable to a life focused primarily upon work?"  The readings endeavor to help the reader to make better judgments about their own life by exploring three vocabularies: authenticity and individualism; virtue and character; vocation and the divine.

The individuals referenced in the book cover a time period from 300 B.C. to the twentieth century. However, most of the individuals are from the twentieth century. Instead of giving actual advice to the reader, the authors offer a wide range of material from fiction to philosophy to biography to poetry as an example for the reader to figure out for themselves how best to deepen their own life.

One of my favorites was the Martyrdom of Perpetua. Since I am not a Roman Catholic, I was not aware of Perpetua before reading this book.  Vibia Perpetua was a North African Christian who was martyred in the year 203. The story of her imprisonment, torture and death was written shortly after her death by Tertullian.  At the time of her arrest she was 22, newly married with an infant son and a new convert to Christianity.  When led to the prisoner's dock her father pleaded with her to renounce her belief in Jesus for the sake of her family who would be destroyed if she was killed.  However, when asked by the soldiers whether she believed in Jesus she said yes.  She was led back to prison and a few days later she was led to the amphitheater where she was fed to several beasts naked in front of a live audience.  I was in awe of her decision.  I probably would have lied to save myself.   How could someone new to the faith be so sure of herself?  I found this astonishing.

This is a book that you should own and re-read throughout your life.  It can bring clarity to your decision making on play, study, love, sexuality, leisure, family, friendships, and worship.  It is not just about working and surviving.  There is another book titled "Callings" written by the late Rev. William Placher that follows the same format as this book but uses the lives of people who lived in the past twenty centuries.  I am looking forward to reading that book because Leading Lives that Matter has been thought provoking for me.

Definitely 5 out of 5 stars!

The Sisters of Versailles

The Sisters of Versailles is the first book in the Mistresses of Versailles Trilogy.  It is a fictionalized account of the true story of the 4 Mailly Nesle sisters who were all mistresses of Louis XV, both concurrently and sequentially, during a ten year period of time.

The chapters alternate between the stories of each sister from the time the oldest, Louise, left their childhood home to be married and eventually was sent to Versailles where she worked for the Queen.  There she met the King but did not become involved with him until his aides asked her to be his mistress as he was becoming bored with his wife. Their relationship was one of mutual love and respect. However, Louise was a meek and mild woman and was not prepared for the strong personality of her younger sister Pauline when she arrived for a visit.  Pauline took over at Louis' Court and pushed her sister out of the king's bedroom.

Pauline flirted with the king and he fell in love. Pauline would not sleep with him until he arranged a good marriage for her. Once the marriage took place the king scandalized the nation by supplanting the new husband on the wedding night. Pauline was more interested in obtaining political power and was not in love with the king. When Pauline died after the birth of a child the foolish Louise invited the next youngest sister Diane to visit. A mistake for sure but before Diane arrives another sister, Marie Anne, obtains a job as a lady-in-waiting to the Queen and moves to Versailles. She brings her married sister Hortense with her.

Louise gets talked into resigning her position with the Queen and Marie Anne soon has her banished from Versailles. Marie Anne is Louis' next mistress and then Marie Anne and Diane together as a threesome.  After the king falls ill and is expected to die he banishes Marie Anne and Diane so that he can confess his sins and receive the final sacrament. He recovers but does not ask for them back as his confession was published.

This story was well written.  I was engaged from the first page and could not put this book down.  Of course, the salacious material probably made it more interesting but the reader still needs good writing to stay engaged.

What confounded me was that all of these sisters had a religious upbringing.  I guess it didn't take as all but one was quickly willing to commit adultery with the king and didn't bat an eye about back-stabbing a sibling. In the beginning chapter when they were still together in the family home they seemed to be close. I guess that old adage that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" holds true here.

Will I read the next book in the trilogy? Absolutely! I look forward to it.

5 out of 5 stars.

Memento Mori

Memento Mori is Ruth Downie's 8th Gaius Ruso Medicus historical mystery. The series features protagonist Gaius Ruso, a Roman physician, and his British wife Tilla, an expert on herbs. Together they make up an amateur sleuthing team.

The story opens with the death of Serena, the wife of Ruso's former associate Doctor Valens, in the steamy waters at Aquae Sulis (now known as the City of Bath). Serena had been having an affair but the prime suspect is Valens himself according to her powerful father Pertinus. Valens goes into hiding but sends his friend Albinus to fetch Ruso to help him nail Terentius, the man Serena was having the affair with. Terentius is an engineer at the baths and is in charge of the bath plug. Ruso arrives at Aquae Sulis with his wife Tilla, baby Mara and the 2 slaves they purchased in Rome in the prior novel Vita Brevis and begins his investigation.

I am glad that the series is back in Brittania.  The sleuthing works best here. However, I am still unclear why the author is trying to get one of the main characters, Tilla, to change from being an independent woman to a submissive Roman wife. We readers came to love the Tilla character as she was in the first novel, brash and bossy. It's a bad idea to change the personality of a main character. Ruso has changed too but for him it has been more of a growing experience. Tilla just seems stunted from the earlier novels in the series.

The whodunnit aspect of the story was OK.  These two did not make sleuthing mistakes in the earlier novels but they have made them in the past two installments of the series. It doesn't sit well with me. I can't remember reading any other mystery novel where the amateur sleuth made a wrong decision on where to take their investigation. It isn't how mysteries are written.

I had a difficult time staying interested in the book. With a stunted Tilla and the team not really working together as they used to, it was somewhat boring. Memento Mori is the second book in a row from this series to disappoint me so I doubt if I will keep reading it.

Fear

Fear is veteran journalist Bob Woodward's 19th book.  It covers the final 4 months of the Trump campaign for the Presidency and the first 14 months of his administration.

Fear opens with a quote from Donald Trump that he made to the author and Robert Costa during an interview on March 31, 2016:

"Real power is - I don't even want to use the word - fear."

The book ends with the resignation of his attorney John Dowd who had been representing him in the Mueller investigation. Dowd had made the conclusion that his client could not testify before Mueller's team because as Dowd said to himself "You're a fucking liar."  Trump was unable to give the same answers to questions Dowd posed to him.  When Trump decided that he would testify in front of Mueller's team, Dowd withdrew as his attorney.

The book goes into great detail describing the events of each month of Trump's Presidency showing the chaos and efforts made by every aide of his to prevent him from harming the nation. Even though there were 2 warring factions in his employ, they seemed to agree basically on those things that were bad for the country. It seemed amazing to me that aides who I have listened to on TV supporting him from the time of his campaign knew that implementing the policies he advocated during the campaign were bad for the country and they tried to dissuade him from implementing them.

Another unusual thing that I noticed was the absence of the Vice President at all of these meetings at the White House.  Pence claims to spend 6 hours a day with Trump but the author's research does not place him near the action in the White House. He is only mentioned at 2 meetings where nothing particularly weird happened.  So, what does Pence do all day?

Fear is an eye opening view of the Trump Administration as well as Trump himself. While most of the juicy parts of the book were already discussed in the media before I could get it at my library, it was still an interesting read.  This obviously was a highly anticipated book as I waited two months on a waiting list at the Chicago Public Library to get it. When I put the book on hold I was number 597 in line!  I have never seen any book hold like this before. This is a new record.

Definately 5 out of 5 stars!  I think Fear will be read for generations to come as an insight to this most unusual period of American history.

Commenting Problems

I just found out that Blogger was not notifying me when a reader posted a comment for review. I had a long list of comments to approve this morning. Hopefully, the changes I made to my settings have remedied the problem. My apologies to all.  

Making a List and Checking it Twice

I am busy this week writing in a notebook all of the books that I might want to read for the challenges that I signed up for.  I have a separate page for each challenge noting how many books I agreed to read but also how many I really expected to read when I signed up for each challenge. I lowballed my sign-ups since I didn't meet my required number of books in 2018. Hopefully, being more organized about my reading plans will help me get more reading done next year.

2019 Christian Reading Challenge

My Top 10 Books From 2018

Below is a list of the best books that I read in 2018.  Note that they may not have been published in 2018 but I read them in 2018.

10.  The Romanov Empress by C. W. Gortner

9.  The Masterpiece by Fiona Davis

8.  Deadly Cure by Lawrence Goldstone

7.  The Painter's Apprentice by Laura Morelli

6.  Story of a Sociopath by Julia Navarro

5.  The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey

4.  Sabrina by Nick Drnaso

3.  Brazen, Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World by Penelope Bagieu

2.  Berlin by Jason Lutes

1. White Chrysanthemum by Mary Lynn Bracht