The Art of Botanical & Bird Illustration by Mindy Lighthipe

The Art of Botanical & Bird Illustration by Mindy Lighthipe ISBN-13: 9781633223783 Paperback: 144 pages Publisher: Walter Foster Publishing Released: Nov. 1, 2017

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from NetGalley:
An expert botanical artist educates you about the tools and materials traditionally used in botanical illustration, including pencils, colored pencils, watercolor, ans gouache. This guide includes overviews of key illustration techniques and basic color theory and mixing and is loaded with exercises designed to help you learn to see shape, value, and form. By learning to understand plant life and anatomy, you can craft elegant flowers, leaves, trees, and much more.

To bring it all together, The Art of Botanical & Bird Illustration includes step-by-step demonstrations to follow along with as you practice taking sketches and transforming them into fully rendered, colorful pieces of fine art.


My Review:
The Art of Botanical & Bird Illustration is an art instruction book for using graphite pencil, colored pencil, and watercolor to do botanical illustration. It covered the basic materials and techniques for realistic rendering of plants and birds. She covered plant anatomy and how to draw leaves, branches, roots, flowers, and birds. She talked a little about the special considerations in botanical drawing and how it is different from other artwork. For example, you include the different stages of the flower in one drawing. She also talked about setting up a live plant reference with lighting and such.

She did a good job of explaining drawing terms at a level a beginner can understand. In the demonstrations, she went step-by-step from the idea to the final artwork, explaining what she was doing and why. She included clear illustrations of what she was describing. Overall, I'd recommend this informative book.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.