Description
Crispin Sartwell – The Color Change
“This is the best compilation of Color Changes to date. I know this because I’ve been collecting color changes for the last ten years myself. I applaud his research and thoroughness. It is well organized and coherent.”
– Jon Racherbaumer
“Crispin Sartwell has produced a well-written treatment of color changes that is the first of its kind. An important contribution to the art of magic and a must-have resource for every card handler.”
– Jerry Cestkowski (The Flourishman)
“As a professional magician for 36 years, I have been constantly told that my simply done but highly effective color change done at the outset of the one stage card routine I do is perhaps ‘the best thing I do.’ Robert-Houdin wrote in the 1800’s that ‘the observer likes nothing more than to see the cards neatly changed from one to another’ and I can confirm this maxim as absolutely true. It is easy to do, looks like REAL magic, and is highly visual. To me, this is the crux of the magician’s art. This is a great book to understand this most important gem in the conjuror’s arsenal. Well done. Well produced and well written.”
– Ben Robinson
Jon said it best, there is nothing like it that has been published before. It is an intelligent and thoughtful compilation of color changes published with more than 300 clear color photos including a bibliography and an alphabetical list of more than 80 moves for easy lookup. No matter if you are a beginner in sleight-of-hand or an advanced master, you will find beautiful color changes to add to your repertoire. Crispin Sartwell introduces a convenient categorization and ranks each color change in terms of beauty and difficulty on a scale of 1-10.
What exactly is a color change? Here from Crispin’s introduction:
The primary use of the term “color change” in the literature is to pick out an apparently instantaneous and visible transformation, whereas a switch involves a delay between a display of the initial card and the display of the card that is switched in….A color change is a switch in which the cards are noted by the spectator before and after the switch, and that is intended to convey an effect of instantaneous visible transformation. A color change is an act in which a card is, in appearance, transformed in a twinkling into another card.
This book is not an exhaustive encyclopedia of the change, but it is the most complete and most authoritative such effort to-date. A color change can be performed stand alone as ice-breaker, quicky, attention getter, or opening effect. It can also be strung into an entire routine by itself. Crispin provides two such routines at the end of his book. A color change does not require patter – is visible magic at its best.
