Professionals tend to use no more than a dozen of the ACRYLIC PAINTING colors. Watercolor paper's slightly rough texture brings out the precisely fluid color of drybrushing a green pepper and the scrubby back-and-forth strokes of scumbling a peach. An Old Master technique monochromes lights and shadows before color glazing a kettle. The trick to painting glass or water is using the same mixtures as the background for patches of light and dark, but with more white for lights and middle tones. These are some of the tips that Wendon Blake shares as he follows artist Rudy De Reyna's demonstration paintings through covering shapes with flat tones, modeling lights and darks, and adding highlights, textures and details. The author also covers special techniques, such as cloth dabbing; correcting by darkening, lightening or repainting; impasto; paper crumpling; scratching; spattering; and sponging. He says good painting means working with cleanly stored supplies; chemically stable colors on acrylic gesso-coated hardboard, chemically pure 100% rag stock watercolor paper, or real artist's canvas; and museum-quality mat boards for taping with glue-coated cloths or homemade drawing paper strips with white water soluble paste. He has covered just about everything needed for going on to Earl Grenville Killeen's THE NORTH LIGHT BOOK OF ACRYLIC PAINTING TECHNIQUES, Barclay Sheaks' THE ACRYLICS BOOK, and Rachel Rubin Wolfe's THE ACRYLIC PAINTER'S BOOK OF STYLES AND TECHNIQUES.

If you are an uncommonly patient and detail oriented person, who has a high threshold for tedium, this is the book for you. Yes it does go over basic shapes, etc. Chances are, if you are trying to learn out of a book and not making the commitment to take some art classes or find an instructor, then you will likely get bored drawing pages and pages of geometric shapes. ( I would also clarify that you are likely to get bored with this even if you take a class.)

Some art instructors are like drill sargeants and will bully their students through weeks of these sorts of drills. While they have merit, almost everything has some merit, the student who is just beginning on their own, or hobbyist is likely to find these drills discouraging.

A series of warm up sketches, getting a feel for the whole page and learning to work the page altogether is a much better start, while keeping in mind, shading and proportions, which you no doubt learn through so many other beginner exercises. Immersing oneself in these geometric grinds at the start is unnecessary self sacrifice, similar to learning to drive by starting with a class in how to change the valves on its motor.

The beginning of this book and the idea behind it are simple and straightforward: behind every object you see there is some "skeletal" figure made of simple geometric shapes - the cube, the cone, the cylinder and the sphere. If you know how to draw these and string them together you can in theory make any drawing you want. Sounds simple, right? Well, it is. Only the book doesn't fully realize its potential.
The first part of the book which deals with these basic shapes, how to draw them, shade them, etc ... starts out well enough. But by the time the author reaches the more advanced subjects, such as drawing nature, portraits and the human figure the book degenerates into yet another book filled with the author implicitly saying, "look at how well I can draw!", filling pages upon pages with finished, beautiful drawing a beginner can never hope to achieve. For example: when discussing feet and hands, the author provides two drawings of the foot and briefly tells the student he should observe the foot and note its proportions. Really? And I thought I should stand on my head and sing the star spangled banner. Sorry for the sarcasm, but that is not an acceptable way of teaching how to draw the foot.
Another example: when discussing figure drawing the author does not explain the figure's anatomy. Rather he says how he has followed his 14 years old daughter around the house and drew her in various natural positions. The reader is then presented with the final sketches, which by the way are very beautiful sketches. How did he achieve them? What are the principles he followed? How should one go about practicing sketching people? That the book does not reveal.
It seems to me the main problem of this book is that it tries to do too much - portraits, still life, landscapes, charcoal, wash, all in one short book? The more topics you choose to cover, the less space you can devote to each. I think it would have been much better had the author devoted more space to basic issues such as perspective, shading and textures, rather than rush headlong into complex topics. As it stands I cannot be sure whether it is intended for absolute beginners or advanced students.
In short, this may be a good source for inspiration or for tips for people on many levels, but definitely not your main source of information.

I found the first few chapters to be pretty good but the drawings were too advanced for a complete beginner like me.
Well it's not that a beginner can't do them it's just that they take FOREVER to complete correctly. I felt better having some initial success and building confidence on much less complex and complete drawings like some other books do. It does do a good job of explaining shading though which is why I gave it the 3rd star, it's worth the 11 bucks but is more useful in addition to several other beginner books on the subject, I would read the first few chapters and practice them then do another beginners book and come back for the last few chapters a few months later if I could doit all over again.