The Secrets of Coloring: Tutorials and Tricks of the Trade from a Professional Illustrator: Volume 1

If you want to improve your colouring, whether you're just starting out or have some experience, then The Secrets of Coloring is the perfect place to begin. Not only does Jennifer Zimmermann include a range of well-explained tutorials with step-by-step photos, she also goes into colour theory, lighting and shadows and other key principles of art. Altogether this makes the book feel much more like an in-dpeth guide rather than a simple how-to.The step-by-step guides range from several types of eyes (which are fabulous!), to two skin-tones, a golden egg, ribbons, pearls and a lot more! The variety means you can apply the lessons in this book to lots of different colouring pages. I have some art experience but don't consider myself skilled, and I was very pleased with how some of the tutorials worked - the results were well worth the effort!Some people have pointed out that Jennifer Zimmermann uses many different media, some of which are quite expensive. Most of it is done in Prismacolor pencils, which most colourists have, but the expensive brands can easily be replaced with others. For example the moon background tutorial uses Copic markers but I used Sharpies and the result still looked great. Plus you can look up online for conversion charts from Caran D'Ache Luminance to Prismacolor or even budget brands.Altogether I would highly recommend this book if you fancy trying new techniques and taking your colouring pages to the next level.

Ordered this one as i have 2 books from another author which ive found helpful. Have found this one a bit more helpful and even easier to understand than the other ones. I may progress with the next one and see if it continues. Great for help in understanding where to apply shading and highlight. I ve no idea not an artist but do really enjoy my colouring and want to progress my work and its enanced it.worth buying if you want to define your art a bit more.

Great, informative book full of helpful tips for people like me, who have no training in colour, how and where to apply light and dark, blending and shading techniques etc. Very user-friendly with easy to follow information. Has duplicate blank pages to allow you to try the exercises yourself, which is a great idea, I feel. The only negative is that I think it's quite expensive (£15.75 in the UK ). The paper quality could have been much, much better. However, I understand that the paper used is meant to be good for using coloured pencils on the blank exercise pages yourself. I get that, but it's still a bit poor quality. The spine doesn't even have any title/author's name printed on it, which is a bit cheap and a pain when searching for it in your pile of colouring books etc., Having said all that, it is a great, well written and easy to follow book which I'm glad I purchased. Would recommend for newbies to adult colouring like me.

What an amazing book! My colouring improved instantly and I just couldn’t live without it. The instructions are CLEAR and EASY to follow, unlike other books of this kind. By far the best out there.

Best book I every brought for learning about colours, mixing them with the blender or other mediums. I was very surprised what I achieved following the instructions and they are very easy to follow.

I bought this book with high hopes, the contents page showed a variety of topics which piqued my interest and they were areas which I hoped to learn more about in adult colouring such as perfecting skin tones, non metallic metals and finally backgrounds.I spend alot of my free time colouring in adult colouring books as I find it a calming and enjoyable practice. Where I have invested alot of time in colouring I have improved alot however I feel that you can always stand to learn more - this is the reason I purchased this book.Upon receiving the book I was incredibly dissapointed in the quality of the book, bottom line is that it is clearly very cheaply made. Every aspect of this books build looks and feels cheap. The book cover is flimsy and barely qualifies as cardstock offering no protection to the inner contents of the book. The pages inside are cheap printer paper with no substance and overall the book just looks and feels cheap. This book includes tutorial pieces for you to colour and perfect the techniques that Jennifer Zimmerman includes in the book - these tutorials require the layering of your coloured pencils - this will be an issue with the poor paper quality. Printer paper has little to no tooth and is very smooth meaning that you are very limited in your ability to build layers of colour. Sadly this is not a book which will stand the test of time!The book arrived with minor damages which I feel was inevitable given how poor quality the build of the book is. The real shame is that given the (I feel) inflated price of this book the quality should be much better! I paid £14.99 for this book in June 2021 which now I have received the book I feel is an incredibly inflated price - I own two other books in a similar topic matter (Adult colouring techniques) and they were cheaper and far better build quality and I have no doubt they will outlast this book!It is a real shame that the build of this book is such a huge letdown as the contents seem to be well thought out, detailed and written with great care. Jennifer Zimmerman offers tips and tricks from her own experience in the field and has gone to great care to provide clear photographs for each step of her tutorials in the book. I feel that this book has wholly been let down by poor quality at every turn. If a little more money had been spent ensuring the quality of this book then it would be worth the money to me however given how cheap it looks and feels I would not repurchase this book again.I hope this review helps someone out there, I apologise as it is a long one! I have never left an Amazon review before but felt compelled to share my thoughts on this book.

I just love this book. Jennifer is such a talented lady and I cant wait to start her tutorials. Amazing for any new colourist or those just wanting to get more realistic life like effects.

What an amazing book. The instructions are CLEAR and EASY to follow, Thank you for sharing this book with us

If you love to use pencil crayons and want to learn more, this is a great book.

WOW Super!!

Livro bonito, muito bem explicado!

Ich habe ja lange mit mir gehadert weil dieses Buch auf Englisch ist aber die Neugier war stärker. Ich habe es nicht bereut und gleich noch den 2. Teil bestellt. Ich bin kein Englischgenie aber dadurch das jeder einzelne Schritt mit Foto belegt ist kann man sehr gut nach Anleitung arbeiten. Die Künstlerin gibt auch genau an welche Stifte sie benutzt hat, da kann man natürlich auch abweichen. Am Anfang des Buches gibt es auch eine gute Zusammenfassung von diversen Materialien die man benutzen kann ohne ein Vermögen ausgeben zu müssen,zum Beispiel für schöne Hintergründe. Wer schon Erfahrungen mit dem Ausmalen hat dem wird das leichter von der Hand gehen wie einem Anfänger. Aber für jeden der eben nicht "nur ausmalen" will sondern etwas Besonderes schaffen möchte ist dieses Buch sehr empfehlenswert.

Attention livre en anglais... mais tellement riche d'explications et de conseils. Pour ma part, je les préfère (j'ai les 2 tomes) aux livres de Helen Elliston (Colorist's special effects) qui après un premier tome relativement intéressant, s'essoufflent au point de ne mettre plus que des images ... et des répétitions de ce qu'on trouve sur le web.