Watercolor Painting (The Artist's Painting Library)

Here is the most comprehensive book ever published on the technique of watercolor painting, with 400 illustrations, including 32 step-by-step demonstrations in color and a total of more than 250 color plates. Every major water color technique is demonstrated and every step is shown in color, with precise instructions that tell you how to execute each painting operation. It begins by showing you the essential brushes and other equipment, then recommends your palette of colors, tells you how to select the best brushes and paper, and explains how to set up for painting. Then famed watercolorist Claude Croney demonstrates the basic ways to apply color: flat and graded washes, drybrush, wet-in-wet. Next he shows how to put these techniques to work in 12 demonstration paintings. Then you learn about special effects; correcting watercolors; and matting and framing. The book then turns specifically to landscape painting, first reviewing how the basic techniques are applied to subjects such as trees, rocks, and water. Next, Croney paints 10 demonstration pictures of popular landscape subjects. You will find guidance on selecting landscape subjects; composing a landscape; lighting and aerial perspective in landscapes; expressive brushwork; studying rock, tree, and cloud forms; and planning a landscape by the three-value system. Finally, The Watercolor Painting Book focuses on seascapes and coastal subjects, first reviewing how the basic techniques are applied to seascape motifs such as waves, clouds, and headlands. Then Croney paints 10 demonstration pictures of popular seascape subjects. The book concludes with recommendations for selecting and composing seascape subjects and mastering technical tricks for painting details such as pebbles and seaweed. Wendon Blake is the author of many popular art instruction books, including Acrylic Watercolor Painting, Creative Color: A Practical Guide for Oil Painters, and Portrait Drawing: A Step-by-Step Art Instruction Book.