Herbert Knoetel adroitly brings soldiers of every age and every nationality to life with his detailed sketches and masterful watercolors. "Herbert Knoetel's German Armies" includes 137 never-before-published sketches and watercolors of German military figures from the 18th-20th centuries. This unique art, from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University and the private collection of Alfred and Roland Umhey, offers vivid insight into one of the 20th century's most accomplished military artists. A superb biographical essay from Knoetel's only child provides personal context for the artist's life and brilliant work.

John Singer Sargent's approach to watercolor was unconventional. Going beyond turn-of-the-century standards for carefully delineated and composed landscapes filled with transparent washes, his confidently bold, dense strokes and loosely defined forms startled critics and fellow practitioners alike. One reviewer of an exhibition in London proclaimed him "an eagle in a dove-cote"; another called his work "swagger" watercolors. For Sargent, however, the watercolors were not so much about swagger as about a renewed and liberated approach to painting. In watercolor, his vision became more personal and his works more interconnected, as he considered the way one image--often of a friend or favorite place--enhanced another. Sargent held only two major watercolor exhibitions in the United States during his lifetime. The contents of the first, in 1909, were purchased in their entirety by the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The paintings exhibited in the other, in 1912, were scooped up by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "John Singer Sargent Watercolors" reunites nearly 100 works from these collections for the first time, arranging them by themes and subjects: sunlight on stone, figures reclining on grass, patterns of light and shadow. Enhanced by biographical and technical essays, and lavishly illustrated with 175 color reproductions, this publication introduces readers to the full sweep of Sargent's accomplishments in this medium, in works that delight the eye as well as challenge our understanding of this prodigiously gifted artist.
The international art star of the Gilded Age, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was born in Italy to American parents, trained in Paris and worked on both sides of the Atlantic. Sargent is best known for his dramatic and stylish portraits, but he was equally active as a landscapist, muralist, and watercolor painter. His dynamic and boldly conceived watercolors, created during travels to Tuscan gardens, Alpine retreats, Venetian canals and Bedouin encampments, record unusual motifs that caught his incisive eye.

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.

The New-York Historical Society's drawing collection is one of the earliest assembled in the United States, yet its trove of over 8,000 sheets and 75 rare sketchbooks is surprisingly unknown. "Drawn by New York" presents over 200 highlights of the Society's vast holdings; a collection which spans six centuries, from 16th century avian watercolours and a Dutch view of New Amsterdam (1650), to the facade of St. Patrick's Cathedral captured from inside Rockefeller Center by Richard Haas (2002) and representations of the World Trade Center, both before and after September 2001.There are works by Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, sheets by members of the Hudson River School, including 29 sketchbooks and 310 individual drawings by Asher B. Durand, and a cache of 500 watercolours by John James Audubon. The main catalogue of featured works includes a biography, selected bibliography and full technical entries on each work, and is followed by an essay on the historical and cultural significance of the collection.

* Easy-to-master techniques and achievable projects in a perennially popular medium* Expert instruction from one of the world's best-known watercolor artistsFor beginners, creating a finished watercolor painting can seem daunting. With Charles Evans' Watercolours in a Weekend, even the most inexperienced painter will find a clear and no-nonsense approach to painting beautiful and complete watercolors in the quickest time possible. Featuring eight timeless watercolor projects--a still life, sky, buildings, flowers, and more--this guide provides readers with essential materials lists, technique instruction, practice exercises, and project guidance. The end result? Vibrant finished paintings suitable for framing--in just a weekend!

A no-nonsense trouble-shooting guide to improving watercolour and drawing techniques by artist, Trudy Friend. This book includes an introduction to essential techniques and materials that help to sharpen the skills of the aspiring artist. The unique problem-and-solution format is easy to follow and designed to help tackle any landscape subject with confidence.

Artist Sara Steele is widely recognized for her dramatic watercolors of flowers, vivid still lifes, expansive abstractions, and ethereal landscapes. In the summer of 2005, the artist will celebrate thirty years of painting with a mid-career retrospective hosted by the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art. Sara Steele, Blueprints for Paradise accompanies the exhibition. In addition to serving as the catalog for the retrospective, the book includes an extended survey of Ms. Steele's work covering some 250 paintings. It also introduces the artist and explores her work through an extended interview, a biographical sketch, and in essays that examine the influence of Chinese thought on Ms. Steele's work, consider the natural world in relation to her paintings, and discuss how Ms. Steele's paintings come into being. "In the presence of work by Sara Steele, it is difficult to move away," writes Anne Mugler. "The color and form allow our eyes little choice but to train their sight on her paintings. We are startled by and drawn into the vision in front of us."

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.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art began acquiring American drawings in 1880 and has since amassed a spectacular collection of more than 1,400 works in watercolor, pastel, ink, graphite, chalk, and charcoal. This beautifully produced catalogue, the first volume in a series devoted to the museum's rich holdings, presents works by artists born before 1835, including such great American artists as John Singleton Copley, Thomas Cole, George Inness, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

In his introduction, Kevin J. Avery describes the acquisitions history of American drawings at the Metropolitan from 1880 to the present day. Marjorie Shelley writes on the materials and techniques used by American draftsmen from the eighteenth century until about 1875. The catalogue section of the book features 106 of the Museum's choicest drawings and watercolors, discussed in detail and reproduced in color. A checklist follows of the museum's complete collection of early works on paper, with black-and-white illustrations of 430 additional works and brief artist biographies.

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.

The first volume to appear in the Natural History series catalogues a group of spectacular drawings of citrus fruit in watercolour and gouache, most of which were commissioned to illustrate Giovanni Battista Ferrari's Hesperides, an ambitious attempt at a complete taxonomy and classification of the entire citrological world, which was published in Rome in 1646. Cassiano dal Pozzo played a fundamental role in this project: it was he who commissioned and supplied most of the drawings and then arranged for them to be engraved for Ferrari's projected work. The citrus drawings - grouped in the Catalogue under the headings of citrons, lemons, oranges, pummelos, hybrids, monstrosities and unidentified citrus fruit - are reproduced in full colour and are accompanied by a wealth of comparative material which includes the Hesperides engravings, additional drawings and photographs of actual specimens, mainly of the monstrous kind. In addition to detailed scientific descriptions of the specimens themselves, the catalogue also gives art historical information on watermarks, annotations, types of mount, provenance and literature. The introductory essays explain Cassiano's method of gathering information from a network of correspondents around Europe and consider the relationship between these drawings and other natural history subjects commissioned by Cassiano. The authors discuss the work of the artists involved in the project and assess the major contribution made the classification of citrus fruit by the collaborative efforts of Cassiano of Ferrari.

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.