“Brush with Life” Kevin Macpherson DVD

This DVD, entitled “Brush with Life” is the first in a series of DVDs that will feature many acclaimed artists and their own specialties, including James Asher (watercolor), Joe Anna Arnett (still life), John Burton (figure) and Kenn Backhaus (painting outdoors). I had the pleasure of meeting with Kevin and his wife Wanda while they were in San Francisco today.

Perhaps like you, I’ve experienced many, many bad instructional DVDs. You know the format. Someone (usually a novice videographer) sets up a camera and films a demo. If you’re lucky, once in a while the artist will tell you what their thinking, rather than just watching–not that you can’t learn from the latter. You may even get to see something in focus once in a while. The Brush with Life DVD is the exception–easily the best instructional art DVD I’ve seen, although I believe Kevin would probably describe the audience for it as artist and art appreciator alike.

It’s really well produced. The DVD bounces back and forth between Kevin working on location and in-studio discussion about the topics he’s demonstrating. You may think this jarring, but the format really works, especially for “short attention span” folks like me. It kept me interested, and most importantly, I learned a tremendous amount. The production values are not present for the sake of making it “slick”, instead they’re used to educate. For example, at one point, he talks about organizing values in a pleasing design of abstract shapes. The DVD then shows the scene he’s talking about broken down into value puzzle pieces, similar to the value notan sketches I use. This is just one example in which the technology of video is used not for the sake of jazzing it up, but rather to make an important point. Finally, he takes you through the process for two paintings, from start to finish. I felt I had a complete experience.

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