Beautiful Botanicals by Bente Starcke King (2004, Hardcover, Spiral)

Rec'd in brand new cond. My grandaughter and I are taking art classes together and I thought this might help for accuracy. I think it will. A beautiful book. Color illus. are true to color ,shape, and size. I was quite impressed by this book, and I think it will help with our art work . Iam very pleased with this book.

I bought this book because I am learning to draw and needed a book that gave clear details of flora. This book has great details of leaves and flowers. This book is full of useful information like how viewpoint affects what you draw, composition, shading. From a personal viewpoint I found the book inspiring it has both black and white and color drawing, with incredible attention to detail. One thing I have found helpful is the spiral binding, it makes the pages lay flat when viewed, this helps a great deal when trying to draw from this book.

If you want to learn to draw and paint flowers and plants from a botanist's point of view, this is probably a great book for you. I have the DVD that can be purchased to go with this book and it is also great. Bente Starke King is an incredible artist with an impressive background in botanical illustration. She begins with teaching about basic form and perspective and then teaches about the use of graphite pencil in botanical drawing and how to depict a 3-D surface using 2 step-by-step demonstrations. Next, the book progresses to Pen and Ink with two stepped demonstrations. Next, you learn ink wash and again, demonstrations are given. Chapter 5 is Transparent Watercolor and 7 step-by-step demonstrations are given. Chapter 6 is Mixed Media, where watercolor is combined with other media such as pen and ink and colored pencils, along with 6 step-by-step demonstrations. The end of the book ties the loose ends by including how to choose a mat, framing,exhibiting,
copyright, etc..

This a beautiful book that can teach you a lot about drawing and painting flowers and plants. It is well-designed and written. I like the way Bente King combines the medias and demonstrates how this method enhances the richness and textures. Her DVD is excellent. I would recommend buying both the book and DVD if you want to speed up your progress. She is a wonderful teacher.