Botanical Drawing in Color: A Basic Guide to Mastering Realistic Form and Naturalistic Color

I am learning so much from this book. It's not arranged in the order I would arrange it, and it doesn't cover everything I want to learn (there are some big gaps and not as much actual flower painting as I would like), but the information which is there is extremely useful. The exercises are realistic to follow along with (even for a beginner like me) and importantly, she uses a limited number of pencils (Faber Castell Polychromos for the basic palette), which is ideal for beginners to get to grips with. Some coloured pencil artists use a zillion different colours and I can never understand how they choose the combinations, or why they lay them in that order (because they never really explain) but Wendy uses a select number of pencils, and she explains how to choose which ones you need. It actually makes sense to me now.Her artwork isn't quite as amazing as that of Ann Swan, but it's the tuition in this book which makes it such a winner. (I also have Ann Swan's book and it's beautiful and instructive, but she uses dozens of pencils from different brands in each exercise and it's definitely more advanced - less suitable for beginners.)So if you're a beginner, you have Faber Castell Polychromos pencils and want to learn how to use them, and you're only going to buy one book, I'd recommend this.

The instruction is very good, she seemed to know exactly what I would find hard and offer the right help.

Lovely book, very nicely put together with many of the plates shown full page, some beautiful work, most of it coloured pencil though a few watercolours feature also. Useful information on graphite pencil sketching and coloured pencil blending, even for a total beginner to botanical drawing. I bought this alongside the Ann Swan book and they do cover similar ground, the Ann Swan book perhaps more in depth, Wendy Hollender goes off at a tangent on occasion but it's a nice book and certainly both are worthy of a place on my bookshelves.

A good book with various nice and useful little tips. A good addition to reference material.

Very good book, I am enjoying working from the examples. Wendy Hollander is a very good teacher and provides very clear explanations for her lessons. Some of her videos can be found on YouTube. I can recommended this book if drawing in coloured pencils is your choice of medium.

Although I have a large collection of coloured pencils, I had barely used them until I got Wendy Hollender's book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. She shares everything you need to know to produce amazing looking results. I could hardly believe I was the artist! If you follow Ms Hollender's instructions, you can have a very good result, even if, like me, you are almost a beginner.

Have just started taking an interest in botanical drawing, especially for coloured pencil. This book is an excellent way to learn the instructions are clear, the author explains why and what the various exercises are for, the drawings are clear and concise. My understanding of plants has improved. Would fully recommend this book to anyone who has an interest and is already using coloured pencils.

beautiful illustrations. Good book to learn the technique if you already know a bit about drawing with colour.