Member Reviews
An easy to follow tutorial book with simple steps to get the beginner going, plus an explanation of just a handful of supplies needed to be successful with your first watercolor painting.
Full Disclosure: I was allowed to read a copy of this book for free as a member of NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review. The opinions I have expressed are my own and I was not influenced to give a positive review.
As the title implies, this is a practical approach to traditional landscape painting. It is divided into "lessons" that focus on teaching a specific technique or subject: washes, skies, tonal range, texture and pattern, color and composition, foliage in the landscape, perspective and shadow. Each lesson has a project, which consists of a step by step painting of a landscape scene (I loved that!). All the landscapes are based on real locations from around the world like Arizona, West Coast of Scotland, Hawaiian Beach Palms, Petra, Ireland, etc. The book presentation is also fabulous.
This lovely book inspired me to travel and paint! There is something really beautiful about recording your experiences with your own drawings and paintings instead of just taking pictures. I would recommend it for those who know at least the very basics of watercolor and are not completely unfamiliar with the medium (Advanced beginners and up). If you are a complete beginner and have no idea (or feel intimidated) if I say "French Ultramarine", you could find the project instructions overwhelming, but if you just want to fall in love with the techniques and get some inspiration, then don't let the explanations daunt you and give it a try. *I read an eARC
A practical approach to landscape painting as it encourages the reader to learn while the have a go at one of the step by step projects. Each one tackles a specific area of interest and offers the reader something new to learn. The variety of pictures is excellent and I especially like the way the author lists all the projects at the start of the book with a small piece of information on each one. The book is bursting with pictures and I loved the authors style. A great little book that would help any beginner produce some impressive results
This book is a really nice handbook for people who love watercolor but do not really know how to create beautiful watercolor artworks. All the important and basic techniques are explained in very detailed and step-by-step tutorial pictures, and I love the page design --- neat, easy to understand and comfortable to read.
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Overall: 5/5
Appealing: 5/5
Writing: 4/5
Cover: 4/5
Page Design: 5/5
A simple approach for the beginner to watercolours, this book gives step-by-step lessons in various techniques. In addition there is of course information on choosing paper, paint colours and brushes etc. As a longtime amateur watercolourist I found this book useful and inspiring, and particularly liked the explanation of the vanishing point, which can be tricky for the beginner.
Thanks to the publisher for a review copy.
"Practical Landscape Painting" teaches beginners some of the basics of watercolor painting. It will appeal most to those who like to jump right in to the painting. The author explained what materials you need to do the projects in the book. He kept the materials pretty basic: 7 colors, a suitable round brush or two, and cold-pressed watercolor paper.
Most of the book focused on learning landscape painting through doing 7 projects. He started each project with a description of the technique or concept. He then described how to use this to create a simple landscape watercolor scene. There were step-by-step pictures to illustrate the text. The projects were used to explain types of washes and how to do them, painting skies using the wet-in-wet technique, tonal contrast, texture and patterns, color theory and composition, shapes and forms of trees, and perspective and shadows. At the end, there were a series of watercolor sketches which he did in Ireland. He described the techniques and process that he used to create each of them.
PRACTICAL LANDSCAPE PAINTING provides easy-to-follow instruction in watercolor technique through eight detailed lessons. Readers will learn all they need to know — from mark-making to full pictures — for undertaking this satisfying form of art. Examples from a skilled artist are included to inform and inspire. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a landscape to paint! 5/5
Grateful to the Quarto Publishing Group - Ivy Press and NetGalley for the early copy, in exchange for my true review.
#PracticalLandscapePainting #NetGalley
As the title says this is a practical guide to landscape painting in watercolour. The short book is divided into sections including washes, skies, tonal range, texture and pattern, color and composition, foliage and the landscape and finally perspective and shadows. Each section has a tutorial and project that builds on the skill levels learn from the previous section.
I found it a good, honest book that will take the artist a long way into understanding how to use watercolour to its advantage.
Practical Landscape Painting is a concise guide for beginners looking to get started in the wonderful world of watercolor landscapes. This book is less than fifty pages, so do believe me when I say that it is extremely succinct. There’s no space or time for wasted words here, and the author does a wonderful job of getting straight to the point and teaching us what we must know before beginning.
Some may say that a short guide like this is frustrating, but I rather enjoyed the brevity of it. It made things significantly less intimidating, and without huge blocks of words I felt like I was better able to focus on the end goal of the book; learning to create landscape paintings.
This guide covers everything from a brief history, to supplies, paper quality, and beyond. There are guides included on washes (this was my favorite chapter, personally – it was the most informative set of instructions I’ve yet seen for them), skies, tonal ranges, texture/pattern, color/composition, foliage, perspective/shadow, and then a small collection of the artist’s works.
It’s shocking how much they were able to get through in such a short period of time, and yet it never once felt rushed while I was reading it. I greatly enjoyed this read, and look forward to testing out some of the given advice and techniques.
The book is divided into seven lessons that guide you from washes to perspective and shadow. Each lesson includes a project to try out the technique described in the lesson.
Each lesson jumps right in with step-by-step pictures to explain the technique and guide you through creating your own watercolour washes, skies, ...
My favourite parts were lesson four, about tecture and pattern and lesson five about colour and composition - both topics I still struggle with.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who has at least a bit of experience with watercolour and would like to go beyond the swirling splats of colour on wet paper.
Practical Landscape Painting, Materials, Techniques & Projects by David Hollis I found this book very useful throughout.
The book was under 100 pages but has so much information crammed into it. It tells you what Materials you will need to us. With easy to follow techniques & great Projects.
I love the way its broken into lots of sections that are mini lessons, these are really useful and full of information thats easy to follow.
The mini lessons are:-
Lesson 1 Washes.
Lesson 2 Skies
Lesson 3 Tonal Range
Lesson 4 Texture and Patterns
Lesson 5 Colour and Composition
Lesson 6 Foliage in the Landscapes
Lesson 7 Perspective and Shadow
Its nice to find a book that doesn't have "How to paint fruit!" But lovely landscapes.
I found this book excellent, with each section contains various demonstration images that are also fairly simple and can be fun to copy.
Big Thank you to Netgalley and Quarto Publishing Group - Ivy Press Ivy Press for this advance copy for a review.