Take Three Colours: Watercolour Landscapes: Start to paint with 3 colours, 3 brushes and 9 easy projects

by Geoff Kersey

Geoff Kersey shows people who have never picked up a paintbrush how to paint convincing watercolour landscapes using just 3 colours, 3 brushes, a plastic palette and a watercolour pad. Only 3 affordable Students range watercolour paints are light red, cadmium yellow pale and ultramarine blue; yet from these, Geoff shows how 9 realistic watercolour scenes can be painted. There is no colour theory or long-winded mixing information to put off the first-time painter, but a practical absolute beginner's course that shows the three colours in action. Only 3 affordable brushes are no. 10, no. 4 and no. 2 rounds in a synthetic range, to achieve all of the paintings shown. Starting from the simplest of scenes, Geoff Kersey builds skills through 9 easy exercises, resulting in landscapes to be proud of. Start with a simple sky and progress through a basic scene with a reflected sunset, to landscapes that include simple buildings and even a figure. Clear advice and step-by-step photographs show how to add a simple figure to a scene and how to trace and transfer the basic drawings from the finished paintings, which are shown full size in the book for this purpose. Readers have everything they need to get painting.

64 pages, Paperback

Published September 13, 2016

Reviews

[Natalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

nice book with easy to follow step-by-step instructions. Printed pictures are not the best quality but good enough for the purpose they serve - to learn to paint those projects.

The book has 8 full painting projects, a half project of adding a figure to one of the paintings from the previous pages, and instructions on transferring a pencil drawing from tracing paper onto the one to be painted on. It also has tips throughout the projects to call out what a particular technique is called or small tips like leaving a thin line of untouched paper to suggest water border or a top of a surface that's catching light.

That being said, the book is for beginners in watercolor, and I did notice some of the mistakes in the final paintings: composition, color harmony, not enough done to convey 3D shapes in some of the places, different post painting editing where during one of thee stages the painting looks more saturated than before where in reality once it dries it gets lighter but not that much more saturated, etc.

If you are an aspiring artist, please do not be discouraged as this book is very practical and has detailed instructions that are very helpful in learning unlike other books that skip a lot of the much needed detail and go straight to the almost finished work. Do read it.

If you've been painting e.g. long enough to be able to do the painting on the book cover - move along and get another book instead.

[Shannon Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the few water color books I can actually work through.

[Alexial39 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an easy book to follow for instructions in watercolour painting. It's also great to use it for acrylic painting.

[Sabrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy step by step guide to producing 8 lovely landscapes