Monday, October 13, 2014

Nicole Caulfield shares an ebook about portraits in coloured pencils

Nicole Caulfield's ebook - Dramatic Portraits in colored pencil
My long time coloured pencils buddy Nicole Caulfield has been working on a book about portraits for some time.

However since she started the book she has moved with her family from the east coast to the west coast of the USA, bought a new house, started a new full time job as an elementary teacher and runs an art stall at the Portland Saturday Market in Old Town, Portland, Oregon every weekend during Spring and Summer. Phew!

Nicole is now making "Dramatic Portraits in colored pencil" available for FREE - as a downloadable ebook.  This is the link to where you can find it on her website - just click Free Ebook!
I wrote a book a while back..... on how I do portraits with colored pencil on sanded paper. I was going to try and sell the book to a publisher... then I decided to make it into an ebook and try to sell it... but now my circumstances have changed and that won't be happening. I would have to redo the examples because the images are not good enough quality since I processed them through Microsoft Word (duh) and I just don't have the time with my new job. So long story short I am giving it away for free for anyone who would like to read it. This was about a year of my life, lol, so it kills me that it has been sitting on my hard drive waiting for a virus to lose it! The link is on my website. http://www.art2.gallery/zen-series
Her book is not finished (it includes images but lacks words at the end and is unedited) but it does have a HUGE amount of good content - much of which is applicable to anybody doing portraits.  In fact I'd go as far as saying there's much more content then you typically find in any number of books which have been dumbed down for the strictly hobby market.  Hardly surprising as Nicole is an artist who has been winning prizes and selling her art for years.

For those of us who have admired Nicole's coloured pencil artwork for years, you can find out exactly HOW she does it!

Nicole has been very generous in the past on art forums and her own blog in sharing her approach to working with coloured pencils on abrasive surfaces and providing a step by step insight into how she develops her work. However, unless you've taken a workshop with her, this is the first time she's given us a clear description of exactly how she develops her artwork in general and portraits in particular. There is also a lot of excellent instruction about techniques for using coloured pencils - especially for those who like working on or want to try an abrasive surface such as the one she favours - Fisher 400.

You can find the Table of Contents below.
INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1: SUPPLIES
Paper
Pencils
Other Supplies
CHAPTER 2: PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography Supplies Lighting
Photography Tips
CHAPTER 3: DRAWING THE HEAD
Making a Line Drawing Proportions
Shape Vs. Form
Planes
CHAPTER 4: THE 2-STEP COLORED PENCIL TECHNIQUE
Phase 1 The Tinted Underpainting
Phase 2 The Glaze Phase
Exercise A Portrait from Start to Finish
CHAPTER 5: EYES
3-D Guide
The Shape of the Eye
Isolating Values
Eyes from Different Angles Eye Colors
Special Considerations
Exercise- Eyes
CHAPTER 6: THE NOSE
CHAPTER 7: THE MOUTH
CHAPTER 8: HAIR
CHAPTER 9: FOLLOW ALONG EXAMPLES 

3 comments:

  1. I have tried to get the information on how to make my laptop go fullscreen on Windows 8.1 without success.

    Looking at this marvelous portrait book again I am reminded how terrific it would be to view it fullscreen.

    Do you, or any readers, know how? On XP it was simple, just F 11, but that only brightens or dims the screen on this 8.1 version.

    Thank you.

    Lynn

    ReplyDelete
  2. As a largely self-taught artist/art teacher, (other than classes in high school and a few more recent ones more than 20 years ago), I search books and online for information on art materials and techniques as needed. This e-book, Dramatic Portraits in Colored Pencil, by Nicole Caulfield, however, has practically fallen in my lap at the perfect time. I have just finished my first portrait, albeit in acrylic paint on canvas, and am about to embark on another one while the learning is still fresh. I read the e-book through before printing it and found it comprehensive, regardless of its unfinished state, and very user-friendly. Thank you and thanks to Nicole for making it available, for free! Much appreciated.

    L.Marsh

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you very much for sharing. I Just downloaded it. There doesn't seem to be a comment option on Nicole Caulfield's website. So my thanks to her go here/

    ReplyDelete

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