Rating: 
Summary: A really stunning watercolor book!
Review: I ordered the book after visiting Paul's website which has many of his beautiful paintings online and I was really delighted to receive my copy yesterday. The book is done on a very professional level, filled with gorgeous step-by-step projects, and it serves as the door to the Paul's spectacular watercolor world. I've recently realized (I'm a beginner watercolorist) that a painter needs to train ones vision the same way as a musician needs to train fingers, and Paul gives many valuable hints on such perception development, seeing beyond the still life objects and taking them to life by help of light effects. The many projects in the book are very interesting and tempting, earlier I used to sigh when seeing some amazing paintings depicting colored glass, crystal and metal objects, but now I'm sure I'll be trying to paint them myself by using Paul's instructions! Also the architectural paintings demand special attention, painted Paul's way, the churches, monuments and city buildings create a special mood and they become messengers to the viewer. I really recommend this inspirational and at the same time very practical book to watercolorists of any level.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Information, short on technique
Review: This book has a lot of interesting observations on the interactions between light and various surfaces. The value of this book is in these observations, which help the artist notice more. For example, what shadows look like, and how reflections and transparency impact water and metal and glass. These observations focus mainly on topics that will be useful to people interested in painting still life, buildings, and perhaps nature scenes. These observations will be less helpful for painters who are interested in figure painting, as the interplay of light on skin & hair is not addressed. Overall, this aspect of the book is very well done and deserves 4 to 5 stars.
The watercolor technique aspect of this book is not as well done. The main teaching technique used are step-by-step paintings. These are done better than most but, frankly, I fail to see the value of step-by-step instruction. For me, these fail to generalize the author's knowledge into useful watercolor techniques. The step-by-step instruction appears to be aimed at a beginner painter, whereas the rest of the book is intermediate to advanced.
Overall, this is a very nice book that is well worth purchasing. "Painting Spectacular Light Effects in Watercolor" is particularly nice as an inspirational book for watercolor artists.
Rating: 
Summary: Great examination of how light affects paintings
Review: This book is aimed for an intermediate to advanced level watercolorist. The majority of the book focuses on the author's fascination with portraying light as it hits colorful subjects. The subjects range from beautiful colored glass such as wine and perfume decanters to brass musical instruments to breathtaking architectural and landscape paintings.Other than the first chapter that gives a very quick overview of a few techniques such as blotting, drybrushing, scraping, pouring, etc. it is not an overly comprehensive book on every aspect of watercolor painting. For example, only 1-2 page cursory discussions are given to subjects such as composition, creating textures, values, leading eye movement arrangements of a painting, etc. When they are discussed the subjects are always tied back to the book's main theme - light. So eye movement is discussed, for example, in how light helps achieve this goal to make a strong painting. Another subject which the author doesn't address is color mixing and color theory. Some of the paintings use of alizarin crimson which some new painters may not know is a fugitive color. Fortunately there are 2 relatively new very permanent pigments on the market that are dead-on ringers for traditional alizarin crimson when you mix them together. W&N Permanent Carmine, which is a quinacridone/diketo-pyrole pigment + any brand with only PR122 as the listed pigment. In fact, W&N offers these two pigments as a convenience color mix named Permanent Alizarin Crimson. I have painted washes of my true alizarin crimson right next to the quinacridone/PR122 mix and could not tell the difference. Neither could my boyfriend when I asked him to try to pick which was the real alizarin crimson and which was the mix. One of the most intriguing chapters was on painting light at night. The cover painting is only one of the types of night scenes this chapter covers. There are others such as streetlight fog at night and architectural spotlighting. I am especially envious of the author's beautiful architectural themed paintings. I'm still trying to get down perspective myself so anyone who demonstrates such mastery is someone I pay attention to. Overall this book is a very good look at seeing how one element of painting - light - can be pushed to amazing effect. It is fascinating to see how just one of the criteria (in this case, light) needed for a successful realistic painting can contribute to creating your own signature style. And although I said this book is of most use to intermediate to advanced watercolorists it can not fail to help beginners since the paintings are so inspiring and beginners will eventually move up to intermediate level anyway.
Rating:
Summary: Review of his Video: "Painting Light & Landscapes"
Review: This is a review of his *VIDEO*, "Painting Light & Landscapes".
I couldn't find it on Amazon.com so I'm putting the review under his book. This title is separated onto two videos, part 1 about 1 hour 15 min, part 2 about 1 hour. (I couldn't get an exact time count for tape 2. It varied every time I timed it. Maybe the tape material was stretching?) It begins with a brief bio of his training and awards, showing several of his painings in the background. Then, a brief intro to some basic techniques, flat wash, graded wash, wet in wet, but nothing else. Then he begins to demonstrate his painting, a foggy landscape, mostly done wet in wet. The value of these videos is to see his demonstration of him actually painting. You see every stroke, which is very good for learning. Camera angles and audio are excellent. But he doesn't teach design, composition, value sketch, color mixing theory, etc. If you want to learn these basics of painting you are better off with Tony Couch or Tom Lynch videos. But it is valuable to see Paul do his demo because he talks about his thinking process as he paints. It is always valuable to see how a painter thinks about his painting, his process, rather than just staying with cold techniques. These videos are excellent for that. He points out how the water & paint behaves, how he corrects or covers up mistakes, how he layers paint to get rich values, how he choses colors he is using, how he changes his designing, etc. Its amazing how he gets his effects with his huge brushes and lots of water. He usually names the colors he uses, mostly Winsor & Newton. But as he doesn't talk about color mixing theory, or quality of paints, he doesn't talk about permanant or fugitive clolors. At one point he mentions he is now using a *permanant* Alizarin Crimson, a historically fugitive color. (Genuine Alizarin is fugitive, which means it will fade or change over time with sunlight shining on it, and you shouldn't use it since there are permanant substitute paints for this color. *Premanant* Alizarin is most likely made up from these permanant substitue paints, but companies preserve the old name so thay can make money.) But then he uses *huge* amounts of Winsor Violet, which I belive is made of of Dioxazine, which is a fugitve color! (I hope I'm correct in this and not making a fool of myself. If I am, I appologize in advance.) According to Michael Wilcox's book, "The Wilcox Guide to the Best Watercolor Paints", he states that Dioxazine is a fugitive color. So why 1) does Mr Jackson use it if he switched to a *Permanant* Alizarin, and 2) why does Winsor & Newton continue to put out fugitve colors for sale at all???? (Read Wilcox's books to learn how to mix violets and purples using permanant colors as well as find out which paints are fugitive and which are permanant.) While it is wonderful to see Mr. Jackson demo his painting, the whole video is *continually* broken up everytime he needs a break to dry his paper with *numerous* silly interviews of clients and samples of his paintings. These breaks happen at different times, after 5min, 12min, 17min, 24min, etc. Showing samples of his beautiful paintings at these breaks is acceptable, although time consuming if you want to keep the actual demo on *one* VHS tape. You can go to his web site to see all his paintings. But the interviews are totally frustrating. The interviews are of some of his clients/patrons: eg. Gov of Missouri, his 1st Lady, and several Doctors. These are more like infomercials. All they say is how wonderful Paul Jackson is, how much they like and are amazed by his art work, how his art is so detailed "it looks like photographs", how he paints upside down even though "that's impossible, but he does it!", etc. These "infomercial" commentaries are TOTALLY USELESS!!! They take up valuable video time and waste the viewer's time. These are all distinguised people, clients, patrons, nice people who really appreciate his work, but with all due respect, who cares about their comments! They are not artists. I bought the video to see Paul paint, not hear non artists babble on and on singing his praises and their amazments! I already know how wonderful he is and am amazed by his art myself, otherwise I wouldn't have bought the video and his book! I don't need nor want their comments. Its a total waste! These breaks are short, 30 sec to 1 min each, but are so numerous, between 20-30 of them or more, they break up the flow of the video. I tried to time them to see how much time they took. Between the two videos, the infomercial interviews totalled to about 8 min, and the gallery of his paintings totalled to about 8-10min. Not much time total, but because there are so many of them, they are very frustrating and intrusive. If the tapes had totally eliminated these useless interviews/comments and edited down the samples of his gallery of paintings, he could have fitted his *actual demo* onto a single 2 hour tape. Why, we need to ask, was it spread out onto 2 tapes with so much filler? I rated the video with 4 stars instead of 5 because of these useless interviews. I would recommend this set of videos to actually see him paint. You just need to ignor the interviews. You can learn a lot just from observation and hearing *HIS* comments! If you get his book, you will get more step by step instructions. If he ever does another video, which I would love to see of his tighter style, I would recommend: 1) DROP THE USELESS INFOMERCIAL INTERVIEWS! LET YOUR ART SPEAK FOR ITSELF. LET YOUR PAINTING DEMO SPEAK FOR ITSELF. and 2)show more of your planning, design stage. This is just as important as seeing you actually paint.
Rating:
Summary: Review of his Video: "Painting Light & Landscapes"
Review: This is a review of his *VIDEO*, "Painting Light & Landscapes".
I couldn't find it on Amazon.com so I'm putting the review under his book. This title is separated onto two videos, part 1 about 1 hour 15 min, part 2 about 1 hour. (I couldn't get an exact time count for tape 2. It varied every time I timed it. Maybe the tape material was stretching?) It begins with a brief bio of his training and awards, showing several of his painings in the background. Then, a brief intro to some basic techniques, flat wash, graded wash, wet in wet, but nothing else. Then he begins to demonstrate his painting, a foggy landscape, mostly done wet in wet. The value of these videos is to see his demonstration of him actually painting. You see every stroke, which is very good for learning. Camera angles and audio are excellent. But he doesn't teach design, composition, value sketch, color mixing theory, etc. If you want to learn these basics of painting you are better off with Tony Couch or Tom Lynch videos. But it is valuable to see Paul do his demo because he talks about his thinking process as he paints. It is always valuable to see how a painter thinks about his painting, his process, rather than just staying with cold techniques. These videos are excellent for that. He points out how the water & paint behaves, how he corrects or covers up mistakes, how he layers paint to get rich values, how he choses colors he is using, how he changes his designing, etc. Its amazing how he gets his effects with his huge brushes and lots of water. He usually names the colors he uses, mostly Winsor & Newton. But as he doesn't talk about color mixing theory, or quality of paints, he doesn't talk about permanant or fugitive clolors. At one point he mentions he is now using a *permanant* Alizarin Crimson, a historically fugitive color. (Genuine Alizarin is fugitive, which means it will fade or change over time with sunlight shining on it, and you shouldn't use it since there are permanant substitute paints for this color. *Premanant* Alizarin is most likely made up from these permanant substitue paints, but companies preserve the old name so thay can make money.) But then he uses *huge* amounts of Winsor Violet, which I belive is made of of Dioxazine, which is a fugitve color! (I hope I'm correct in this and not making a fool of myself. If I am, I appologize in advance.) According to Michael Wilcox's book, "The Wilcox Guide to the Best Watercolor Paints", he states that Dioxazine is a fugitive color. So why 1) does Mr Jackson use it if he switched to a *Permanant* Alizarin, and 2) why does Winsor & Newton continue to put out fugitve colors for sale at all???? (Read Wilcox's books to learn how to mix violets and purples using permanant colors as well as find out which paints are fugitive and which are permanant.) While it is wonderful to see Mr. Jackson demo his painting, the whole video is *continually* broken up everytime he needs a break to dry his paper with *numerous* silly interviews of clients and samples of his paintings. These breaks happen at different times, after 5min, 12min, 17min, 24min, etc. Showing samples of his beautiful paintings at these breaks is acceptable, although time consuming if you want to keep the actual demo on *one* VHS tape. You can go to his web site to see all his paintings. But the interviews are totally frustrating. The interviews are of some of his clients/patrons: eg. Gov of Missouri, his 1st Lady, and several Doctors. These are more like infomercials. All they say is how wonderful Paul Jackson is, how much they like and are amazed by his art work, how his art is so detailed "it looks like photographs", how he paints upside down even though "that's impossible, but he does it!", etc. These "infomercial" commentaries are TOTALLY USELESS!!! They take up valuable video time and waste the viewer's time. These are all distinguised people, clients, patrons, nice people who really appreciate his work, but with all due respect, who cares about their comments! They are not artists. I bought the video to see Paul paint, not hear non artists babble on and on singing his praises and their amazments! I already know how wonderful he is and am amazed by his art myself, otherwise I wouldn't have bought the video and his book! I don't need nor want their comments. Its a total waste! These breaks are short, 30 sec to 1 min each, but are so numerous, between 20-30 of them or more, they break up the flow of the video. I tried to time them to see how much time they took. Between the two videos, the infomercial interviews totalled to about 8 min, and the gallery of his paintings totalled to about 8-10min. Not much time total, but because there are so many of them, they are very frustrating and intrusive. If the tapes had totally eliminated these useless interviews/comments and edited down the samples of his gallery of paintings, he could have fitted his *actual demo* onto a single 2 hour tape. Why, we need to ask, was it spread out onto 2 tapes with so much filler? I rated the video with 4 stars instead of 5 because of these useless interviews. I would recommend this set of videos to actually see him paint. You just need to ignor the interviews. You can learn a lot just from observation and hearing *HIS* comments! If you get his book, you will get more step by step instructions. If he ever does another video, which I would love to see of his tighter style, I would recommend: 1) DROP THE USELESS INFOMERCIAL INTERVIEWS! LET YOUR ART SPEAK FOR ITSELF. LET YOUR PAINTING DEMO SPEAK FOR ITSELF. and 2)show more of your planning, design stage. This is just as important as seeing you actually paint.
Rating:
Summary: Review of his Video: "Painting Light & Landscapes"
Review: This is the best watercolor book I have found yet. The light effects are stunning and inpiring. I really learned a lot and improved my skills after reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: excellant!
Review: This is the best watercolor book I have found yet. The light effects are stunning and inpiring. I really learned a lot and improved my skills after reading this book.
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