First published in 1816, this lively and informative narrative of a walking tour of North Wales was written by Edward Pugh (1763-1813) and richly illustrated with engravings of his own watercolour drawings of people and landscapes. (In this reissue, the drawings are reproduced in black and white, but the colour originals can be viewed at http://www.cambridge.org/9781108061483.) Pugh, a native Welsh speaker, travelled some 800 miles, criss-crossing Wales in every direction, collecting information about the industrial and agricultural condition of the country. He conversed with almost everyone he met, on the road and in the inns where he stayed. The book began as a guide to artists unwilling to risk departing from the main tourist routes where English was spoken. By the time it was published, however, its main aim was to vindicate the character of the Welsh people from the ill-informed accounts of English tourists.

This title offers practical techniques and projects for beginners. It is a practical guide to watercolour painting for beginners, with expert advice, step-by-step techniques and hands-on demonstrations to build skills and confidence. It is illustrated with over 250 photographs, including easy-to-follow sequences and original artworks to guide and inspire. It explains the fundamentals of art, such as the basics of colour theory, scale and perspective, in a manner that makes learning easy. It introduces the equipment needed to get started in watercolour painting, including all the paints, brushes, palettes and pencils you will need. It features simple demonstrations of basic watercolour painting techniques, from laying a wash and working wet into wet through to textural styles, such as spattering, drybrush and sgraffito. This is the complete practical introduction to watercolour painting techniques for beginners. Each technique is introduced as a step-by-step sequence that enables the reader to learn the brush stroke, and is accompanied by a short exercise to allow even complete novices to produce simple studies from the outset. Written by two highly accomplished artists, the book explains the fundamental theories of art, such as understanding tone, scale and perspective, and is packed full of valuable hints and tips. With step-by-step techniques and easy-to-follow projects that allow new skills to be put into practice as they are learned, this is an essential manual for all beginners.

A modern twist on watercolour flower painting - learn to paint your houseplants in the comfort of your own home. London-based designer Nikki Strange takes you through 20 highly visual step-by-step projects. New and budding artists can learn to paint beautiful leafy balms, exotic flowers, succulents and more, so you can create a modern artwork that you'll love to display in your home, use as stationery or proudly give to your friends and family. The process of studying and recreating each plant is described in clear step-by-step instructions, accompanied by stunning photography and a clean, contemporary design. In addition, a 25-sheet sketchpad with outlines of all the projects faintly printed on the pages is attached to the book for you to draw and paint on, so you can get started right away.

Ann Blockley is a very successful artist, known for the innovative way in which she uses texture as a key element in her work. This book, in Collins Artist s Studio series, looks at how she achieves her stunning effects and provides essential guidelines for the intermediate painter wishing to develop this aspect of their own painting.

Creating texture in watercolour can be quite a challenge but this book provides a fresh approach to the subject. It focuses on a wide range of unusual techniques, some of which depart from the more conventional methods, revealing how to portray texture by a variety of means. Ann explains how to manipulate the paint by lifting out colour, scraping and scratching the paint, and by using additional materials such as wax, clingfilm, salt and metallic pigments. She also explains how the surface itself can play an important role in the effects that can be achieved, and experiments with acrylics, inks, gouache and collage as well as watercolour.

In later chapters Ann looks at the creative process and provides insights into how to develop ideas, then concentrates on how to portray texture in specific subjects, such as flowers and foliage, animals, still life, buildings and landscapes. Practical exercises, projects, step-by-step demonstrations and studio tips are included, as well as the work of several guest artists John Blockley, Moira Huntly and Shirley Trevena."

This guide to painting watercolour landscapes is ideal if you want to learn to paint but are short on time. Broken down into 33 quick and easy paintings that take no more than 30 minutes to complete, this basic course will teach you all the skills you need to paint landscapes and their components, including trees in winter, sparkling water, hedgerows and gates, animals, human figures and buildings in the landscape. The 30-minute paintings are all worked at postcard size - ideal for a 6 x 4in (A6) watercolour pad, and tracings are included for those with limited drawing skills. Each small painting is a work of art in its own right, and can be stored in your portfolio for reference later, or framed and hung on the wall to impress your friends. The book is broken down into chapters that focus, respectively, on essential watercolour techniques including colour mixing and glazing; laying washes and creating skies and realistic-looking clouds; the rudiments of composition; trees and flowers in a landscape; water- still and moving, from stream to open sea; and the living landscape - human and animal figures, structures and buildings in the landscape. The final section of the book contains three complete paintings that demonstrate how to combine all the techniques and elements of painting landscapes, as gleaned from the preceding chapters. These paintings, too, are accompanied by actual-size tracings. There are 33 tracings in all to help you compose your own landscape paintings. Praise for the Ready to Paint in 30 Minutes series: "This is a genuinely exciting evolution of a popular series. You'll be guided through some simple exercises and on to complete paintings, gaining valuable insights that will develop and improve your skills." - Henry Malt, Artbookreview.net

It is a thoughtful and fresh approach to one of the most popular paint mediums. It emphasis on taking chances and making informed risks makes this book invaluable to serious watercolourists. It features artwork with a wide range of subjects and styles. For serious watercolourists seeking a vibrant expressive quality in their work. "Watercolor Painting" is designed to promote a more thoughtful, fresh and original approach to watercolour. A medium known for its beguiling ironies, watercolour takes great skill to control, yet must appear to be free of control. Throughout the book, notable artist and teacher Tom Hoffmann stressed that students of watercolour must understand that realising the potential of watercolour involves taking chances and informed risks. The key to success lies in knowing what will happen when brush touches paper.

On trend watercolour painting for beginners! Influenced by the japanese art of watercolour painting called 'Etegami', author Lena Yokota-Barth starts with what you will need by way of materials, moving on to applying and mixing colour. There are then fifty motifs to choose from, all divided into levels of difficulty. For those new to watercolour painting, this book offers an easy introduction. All fifty motifs can be painted in five steps, which are all detailed clearly for a striking end result. Among the motifs are animals such as flamingos and llamas, popular plants, and fun-to-paint fruits, such as strawberries and watermelons. The basics of watercolour painting are presented in an easily understandable fashion, and the fifty motifs will give rise to limitless possibilities for designing posters, greetings cards, journal covers or even thoughtful, framed gifts.

Learn how to use traditional watercolour techniques to produce beautiful, contemporary paintings that are full of light, colour and life. Packed with inspirational finished paintings and step-by-step projects, this engaging book teaches you how to use watercolours in their purest form, without the addition of any other media, to create art that has a radiancy and luminosity that cannot be achieved in any other way.

This is the first book in over a century to examine the important work of the watercolour artist and illustrator Frederick Walker (1840-1875) and his closest artistic allies. He was greatly admired (and collected) by Vincent van Gogh and was described by Millais as 'the greatest artist of the century' and yet his premature death at the age of 35 cut short his promising career. Walker, together with his close friends George John Pinwell (1842-1875) and John William North (1842-1924), forged new artistic identities that sought the perfection of the world around them and the distillation of beauty from seemingly mundane subjects. Donato Esposito focuses successive chapters on the lives and works of each of the core members of Walker's group, charting their unconventional journey from a loosely bound collective rooted in the London-based black-and-white world of commercial illustration to a renowned grouping known as the Idyllists, respected and eagerly collected by galleries and private individuals in Europe, America and Australia. The book, which reproduces many of the Idyllists' works in colour for the first time, represents a vital contribution to the literature on Victorian art and restores the Idyllists to their rightful place in the history of British 19th-century art.

A unique guide that will teach complete beginners how to paint a beautiful floral watercolour in just one weekend. Beginners recognise that they need to acquire basic painting skills - but at the same time they are eager to produce their first finished painting. This popular 'weekend' formula allows them to do both in a limited amount of time - to build skills gradually and to produce an attractive, frameable painting that they can hang on their walls by the end of the weekend. The author starts by introducing the materials required, and then leads readers through a series of watercolour technique exercises designed to provide a basic grounding in the skills needed for this subject area. This instruction is followed by six weekend projects for painting a range of popular floral subjects: a single flower; a group of white flowers; an indoors still life; an outdoors close-up; autumn flowers; and wild flowers in the landscape. Each course starts with practice exercises to be completed on the Saturday; readers are then ready to complete the full watercolour painting on the Sunday. Clear instructions accompany step-by-step photographs throughout, and technical information is given in special feature boxes.

Artists who work from photographic source material need to learn how to adapt and improve in order to create a successful painting. Geoff Kersey is a master of this way of working, and here he shows how it is done. Reference photographs, colour charts and preparatory sketches are shown alongside all the finished paintings in this book, with full details of the adaptations and creative processes involved. There are plenty of clear tips and advice, and an illustrated glossary of all the painting terms used. Readers who want much more advice on adapting from reference sources than is provided in step by step painting books will have all they need here, and there are dozens of beautiful paintings to inform and inspire them.

This invaluable handbook for all watercolourists takes a practical problem-and-solution approach to painting a range of popular subjects, showing common mistakes and how to rectify them. Mastering fundamental drawing and watercolour techniques forms the basis of successful watercolour painting - the author starts by leading readers through a series of examples and exercises that will introduce them to tonal drawing, colour mixing, applying washes, and much more. Readers will then be ready to move on to the eight themed sections designed to help them in their specific areas of interest. Each theme starts by demonstrating the basic brushstrokes required for that subject. Trudy then sets out a series of problem-and-solution pages that are packed with useful tips on how to paint those subjects and avoid common pitfalls. The information throughout is presented clearly with plenty of useful annotations in a handy portable size so readers can take it wherever their painting takes them.

This is leading British sporting and wildlife artist Rodger McPhail’s retrospective collection of his most accomplished paintings and portraits of the last 20 years. As a keen naturalist who has spent countless hours tracking and observing his wildlife subjects, Rodger has selected these works on the basis that they truly capture his fondness and enthusiasm for the natural world. With an extraordinary versatility, Rodger is equally at home in watercolours as he is in oils — a master of the finest detail, his remarkably fluid and evocative paintings pay homage to his impressive and multifaceted career. This sumptuous, hardbound coffee table book seeks to shed a light on how his genius works, and Rodger has concluded the book with a chapter that addresses the questions he’s most frequently asked, such as how long it takes him to paint an average picture, or whether he can only paint when the mood strikes — featured alongside plenty of other stories about his life and his art. Appreciated and sought after from all corners of the globe, his paintings and portraits are to be found in some of the most important collections worldwide.

Whether you prefer watercolor, oils, or acrylics, learn how to use color brilliantly in your paintings . . . in just a few hours!

Filled with easy-to-follow instructions and step-by-step exercises, this comprehensive guide from bestselling author Hazel Soan teaches artists everything they need to know about color. Written in an accessible style, it begins with the basics (what color is, how pigments are made) and then explores the palette, the properties of different colors, transparent and opaque colors, granulating and sedimentary colors, and warm and cool colors. Learn how different hues interact, how to blend by eye, and how to create light, shade, depth, and tone in your work. Illustrated throughout with Soan's magnificent, colorful paintings, this beautiful book is the key to mastering color.

Begin your voyage into this ancient style of watercolor painting with this georgeous introduction. Learn everything you need to know, from the essential materials and techniques to mounting a completed painting. A selection of classic motifs, freom enchanting flowers to captivating creatures, is accompanied by informative and inspirational textt that guides you through the creative process. With this unique and accesible approach, anyone can experience The Ch'i of the Brush.

Using the Japanese hake brush, obtainable from most art and craft shops, Ron Ranson demonstrates how, because of its nature and size, it forces the watercolourist to simplify the subject matter and thus distil the essence of a scene. He also discusses the dissecting and dramatizing of the subject.

This comprehensive guide to painting landscapes in watercolour features the expert tuition of six renowned watercolour artists. It covers all aspects of painting, from materials and techniques through to planning a painting, sketching and perspective. Learn the techniques of wet into wet, spattering, dry brushing, lifting out and using salt to create texture and interest, and follow the step-by-step demonstrations to create realistic water, skies, reflections and buildings, as well as mood and atmosphere. With nine beautiful projects to try, and numerous examples of the authors' work to inspire you, this is the ideal introduction to landscape painting for artists of all abilities. This book includes material previously published in the highly successful Step-by-Step Leisure Arts series and the Watercolour Tips and Techniques series.

This richly illustrated and comprehensive resource helps watercolorists plan and create exceptional paintings by focusing on color, value, and other elements in both subjects and settings. Too often, melding the subject with the background is an afterthought for artists. "White! Light! Bright!" is the mantra for this book's unique and effective method for planning your subject in concert with its background and then creating a powerful piece in three major stages: from white, light, and bright color to midvalues and finally to darks. Easy-to-follow text from a skilled teacher alongside visuals and demonstrations helps you catch the energizing spark of light and contrast. Get comfortable with the how-to of building value, color, shape, and background through various edges, textures, and other compositional elements. You'll bolster the creative thinking and planning processes that are key to an artist's ability to turn an abstract idea into a standout representational watercolor painting.

From one of America's favorite artists comes one of the most popular watercolor books ever written. Drawing upon a lifetime of perfecting the craft he loves, Pike provides artists at all levels of expertise with information on everything from choosing a brush to producing a variety of washes. Abundantly illustrated with 166 paintings.

Among the women artists who came to prominence in the postwar era in New York, painter Nell Blaine had a uniquely hard-won career. In her mid-thirties, her horizons seemed limitless. Her shows received glowing reviews, ARTnews honored her with a lengthy feature article, and one of her paintings hung in the Whitney Museum. Then, on a trip to Greece, Blaine developed polio, rendering her a paraplegic. Angry at being told she would never paint again, she taught herself to hold a brush with her left hand and regained her skill. In Alive Still, author Cathy Curtis tells the story of Blaine's life and career for the first time by investigating the ways her experience of illness colored her personality and the evolving nature of her work, the importance of her Southern roots, and the influence of her bisexuality (and, in the latter part of her life, long term lesbian relationships) on her understanding of the world. Alive Still draws upon Blaine's unpublished diaries; her published writing; career-spanning interviews and reviews; and correspondence to and from family members, lovers, and the artists, poets, publishers, rescuers in Greece, and neighbors she knew. In addition, Curtis has conducted interviews with surviving artists and other individuals in Blaine's circle, including two of her longtime lovers. Featuring illustrations of Blaine's work and snapshots of family and friends, Alive Still is a compelling narrative of a leading, productive, and passionate woman artist who overcame the setbacks of disability.