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Very clear and well shot, with a nice even delivery of the scripted narration, this video is a good introduction to this most modern of mounting techniques for watercolors: Using acrylic gel medium to secure either unpainted paper, giclee prints, or completed paintings to Ampersand's smooth, cradled clayboards, then coating the finished work with a variety of Golden's UVLS sprayed- or brushed-on varnishes so they can be displayed without glass. Her methods are very simple and straight-forward; pretty much exactly what you might imagine if you've only heard about the idea, except perhaps for the step of using sandpaper to get the paper completely flush with the board after gluing, and even to cut through thin papers altogether instead of cutting them from the back first with a razor.
I was a bit surprised to see that the artist had no apparent qualms about chopping off whatever parts of her work didn't fit the board, even if these were several inches wide, and took no pains to precisely position or true her work or any of its edges in relation to the boards as she glued them down; she even went so far as to divvy up one of her full-sheet rock paintings into three small chunks that would cover three 5x5-in. panels (instant gift-shop "triptych") as if the work was nothing but wrapping paper suitable for decoupage. And I was decidedly disappointed that she didn't discuss any of these issues about edges and precision placement, which seem to me to be the most puzzling aspects of the technique. I guess the assumption is that if you're going to be fussy about edges, size or positioning, you should work on pre-mounted paper, or buy panels from the manufacturer custom-made to fit your finished work.
But seeing her at work was still very illuminating, as it was clear that you need to really slather on the gel medium to get a good mount. And her troubleshooting section was also worthwhile. Overall, I'm glad I got to see it.
Excellent disk; of course the work is good and fascinating to watch (as usual, it’s not about PS tricks as much as just having a good eye and being willing to endlessly refine), but what distinguishes this disk from most of the other Gnomon DVDs I’ve seen is that Scheurer is quite articulate and a pleasure to listen to as you watch.
Embarassing, useless, painful to watch the presenter fumble and trip as the program keeps surprising him. Whoever released this mess as a shipping product should be ashamed.
This is really something special. Whether you like the author’s virtual style or not, I don’t think you’ll fail to be impressed with his techniques for converting photographic images into striking simulations of natural-media works. The options and possibilities are vast, and there’s clearly ample room for subtlety and uniqueness, even if these are only hinted at in the demos. This approach goes way beyond canned presets and auto-conversions in Painter, and any application of the Art History brush that I’ve ever seen. Fascinating!
Incredibly disappointing if you’re expecting to see how Winton takes a portrait all the way to the level of finish you see in her own works on her website (http://www.suzannawintonwatercolors.com/gallery.htm), or even on the cover of her DVD. In this video, she goes about as far as she can in an hour, and bails. You think you’re going to see her paint the image on the DVD cover, but what you get is more like the barely finished image on the Smartflix page. I bought the video when it first came out, and wish I could get my money back!
What a waste of time, not to mention money; I kept waiting for the presenter to either make a point or do something interesting; didn't happen. Instead I simply got to watch while he slapped out 3 or 4 boring little beginner's exercise paintings from dead simple and completely uninteresting photo references, all the while wondering when he was going to get to what I thought was the stated topic: Increasing the drama in a painting by using light, or something.
