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Powerful Watercolor Landscapes: Tools for Painting with Impact
Banish boring watercolors forever! This guide gives you the "power tools" you need to transform dull, flat landscapes into robust, colorful expressions of your artistic vision. Each chapter focuses on a specific strategy for tackling tough challenges, complete with inspiring examples, hands-on demonstrations and instructional diagrams to make these strategies easy and fun to learn. Following this guide's masterful visual instruction, you'll learn how Whether you're new to watercolor painting or not, this guide will empower you to push shape and color into exciting new territory. Experience the satisfaction of painting with "power tools" and enjoy immediate results in your work.
- GenresArtNonfiction
160 pages, Ring-bound
First published January 10, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 17, 2021
I feel like this was so much good information condensed I one book-some stuff I learned in art school and forgot..this was a perfect reminder. And it inspires me to be more intentional in my paintings and plan out value sketches beforehand!
July 24, 2022
PNW artist Catherine Gill’s 2011 explanation of how to paint in watercolor. Perhaps the best thing about the book is the visuals; she doesn’t explain but shows it, through paintings, diagrams and sketches.
By way of introduction, She writes “ power begins with the way you look at yourself as an artist and the way you connect with the landscape painting. An artist on a mission painting a beloved landscape will get to power whatever it takes”.
The idea of power does a lot of work in terms of organizing the book, with chapters on “the power of a ‘what’”, “the power of dominance” and “powerful color”. Perhaps a little too much work, as the concept gets diluted a bit. I think her best chapter is on dominance. The concept is simple. She says “whatever covers the greater amount of area in the painting is considered dominant.” She systematically covers all difference ways to think about dominance including color shape value and more. Often I find in my own painting if something comes out a bit boring, it often lacks a dominant shape.
The other highlight of the book for me was the emphasis on value studies. Every explanation starts with a value study, and it helps to see the author’s thought process.
I first read this book several years ago, and it was interesting to return to it. There is certainly a lot of information in it— it borders on over stuffed — but I don’t think the goal should be to read it from front to back. Painting is this weird mixture of overthinking and muscle memory and it may just be that 37 tools are needed to be wielded at once to be successful, while only actually thinking about one or two at a time. For example I know I read the tip about “varying color in every shape” previously. But I only recently picked that up in my own painting. At the time I just wasn’t ready. Browsing through this book to see what stands out may be the best way to go.
By way of introduction, She writes “ power begins with the way you look at yourself as an artist and the way you connect with the landscape painting. An artist on a mission painting a beloved landscape will get to power whatever it takes”.
The idea of power does a lot of work in terms of organizing the book, with chapters on “the power of a ‘what’”, “the power of dominance” and “powerful color”. Perhaps a little too much work, as the concept gets diluted a bit. I think her best chapter is on dominance. The concept is simple. She says “whatever covers the greater amount of area in the painting is considered dominant.” She systematically covers all difference ways to think about dominance including color shape value and more. Often I find in my own painting if something comes out a bit boring, it often lacks a dominant shape.
The other highlight of the book for me was the emphasis on value studies. Every explanation starts with a value study, and it helps to see the author’s thought process.
I first read this book several years ago, and it was interesting to return to it. There is certainly a lot of information in it— it borders on over stuffed — but I don’t think the goal should be to read it from front to back. Painting is this weird mixture of overthinking and muscle memory and it may just be that 37 tools are needed to be wielded at once to be successful, while only actually thinking about one or two at a time. For example I know I read the tip about “varying color in every shape” previously. But I only recently picked that up in my own painting. At the time I just wasn’t ready. Browsing through this book to see what stands out may be the best way to go.
May 17, 2021
This is more of a book about art and the composition of paintings than about the techniques of watercolor. It's brilliantly, briefly, and sometimes humorously explained so that someone without formal art training can relate. The paintings featured are breathtaking and it is worth having the book just for that inspiration.
February 20, 2019
I learned a thing or two about how to plan, start and create a watercolor painting. The tools are clear and make sense. I wish it had more demonstration of techniques but great source for all interested in watercolor, from novice to expert. The paintings are really good as well.
May 16, 2017
Best book on impressionistic watercolor landscape painting ever written.
January 18, 2023
Recommend! For artists
September 2, 2020
The author is an amazing artist! Her style and lessons have freed up my perspective for sure. I discovered this a bit later, but she uses pastels-a lot- in her paintings and does not divulge this in her lessons until the end of the book. Otherwise, it’s the first painting book I have finished and learned valuable techniques from. My favorite quote,”your subconscious works full time, for free. It will take care of my painting issues if you just trust it”.
April 4, 2023
One of the best art books I’ve ever read! The thorough breakdown of composition applies to far more than just watercolor, and I’ve already used what I learned in a couple different projects. If you want to learn more about composition in clear language and concrete examples, this book is a great choice!
February 22, 2014
Very good book
April 9, 2017
Powerful indeed
This book is extremely handy for somewhat skilled artists. It shows how to drawing fast, thinking practically and using value sketches. You can get insights on using colors, too.
This book is extremely handy for somewhat skilled artists. It shows how to drawing fast, thinking practically and using value sketches. You can get insights on using colors, too.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews