BOOST YOUR WATERCOLOUR CONFIDENCE

From brushstroke basics, understanding colour, ditching the pencil, letting colours bleed and the paint run, building up colours and layering, pulling colour, masking fluid and working with white, finding inspiration, fixing your mistakes, working with mixed media like pens and gouache, the book is organised by themes. We really love the section on painting plants and fungi, including prickly cacti, succulents and fairy tale mushrooms, and flowers with petals and delicate blooms, particularly the watercolour of an iris on page 37, and a template included on page 51. All of the colours - yellow ochre, sap green, green gold, perylene green, ultramarine blue, and pyrrol crimson - are shown in beautiful colour marks alongside what is almost a recipe. Paint animals like the skin and hide of a giraffe, elephant, or rhinoceros with a template on page 55. Try painting an octopus, bees and birds, or food including packaging with colourful sweet wrappers. Compose with confidence following the four clear steps of colour choices, cropping, placement, and distracting elements. The bulk of the book is 24 pages of high-quality tough paper which will give you the chance to practice your new techniques with templates as guides, so you can focus on painting rather than drawing, as the line art is already in front of you. You can practice with colour pencils and finish by adding small textures once the paint has dried, or create paint splotches to make them more natural and less uniform. Colour instruction book plus templates in very large softback.