This is a small and slim volume and you would be forgiven for thinking it can’t have much to say. Look inside, though, and there’s a remarkable amount of variety, both in subject matter as well as approaches and techniques. The secret is some really rather nifty design work that allows the maximum number of illustrations with a text that’s mainly there to point you in the right direction. If you wanted proof of the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, this is it.
So, you’ll find birds and animals – both wild and domestic – and an imaginative use of colour that perfectly suits Liz’s loose, painterly style. There’s not a lot about anatomy and structure beyond some basic information, but this is a book about interpretation rather than necessarily strict detailed representation. If the subjects were flowers, this would not be botanical illustration.
Basically, it’s not so much a book about animals as a book about how to paint animals that have presence and character. It’s not a complete course, although it’s a lot more thorough than you’d think and a genuinely worthwhile addition to the bookshelf.
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