Waterstones The Essence of Watercolour
358 ratings
TO EXPLORE MORE
Price: £14.99
Brand: Waterstones
Description: A paperback reissue Hazel Soan's classic practical art book. Hazel Soan is a well-known and popular artist and an enthusiastic and inspirational teacher. In The Essence of Watercolour Hazel shows how wonderfully versatile and beguiling the medium of watercolour is and how to get the most out of it. Hazel stresses how important it is to understand the characteristics of the medium in order to exploit it to the full. She encourages the reader to explore the properties of watercolour and to be unafraid of strength of colour and brushstroke. Hazel shows through demonstration and projects that tone is king in watercolour and illustrates how to paint light with the use of shade. Armed with this understanding she demonstrates that watercolour is not such an unforgiving medium after all: accidents and mistakes can be disguised, overridden and corrected. The Essence of Watercolour is a culmination of many years of Hazel's teaching and demonstrating, in which she offers inspirational insights into the secrets of watercolour painting and encourages artists to take their art to the next level.
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9781849944601
Delivery cost: 2.99
ISBN: 9781849944601
Author: Parka
Rating: 5
Review: The media could not be loaded. I've no idea who Hazel Soan is when I bought the book. Now, I'm a fan of her work. The Essence of Watercolour contains very beautiful and inspiring paintings. I like her suggestive style, which is to draw just enough and let the mind fill in the rest. Her use of wet on wet for blending colours is masterful and the pastel colours used are a joy to look at. It reminds me of the feeling you get when you watch a beautiful sunset. Accompanying the paintings are brief but insightful instructions that are easy to try. There are lessons on transparency, layering, experimenting with colours, understanding brushstrokes and other watercolour techniques. Even though the watercolour tips are not unique to this book, it's always interesting to read it from the perspective of different artists. Highly recommended to watercolour lovers. (There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)
Author: Florence319
Rating: 2
Review: Whilst this has a few new tips which are useful, overall I am rather disappointed in this book. I appreciate that Hazel Soan has a 'loose' style - and I would not have bought this if I had not wanted to produce loose watercolour paintings myself. I do 'get' the importance of the energy in quickly produced watercolours; and enjoy doing these. However, there is for me a line between 'loose' and 'slapdash/lazy'; which I think this book crosses. Almost all of the illustrations are sketches in my opinion, not finished and saleable paintings. I would have liked more detailed instruction on how to produce the latter. There are glaring anatomical inaccuracies, e.g. the female figure on page 125 has a left arm about 1 foot longer than her right; Racehorse No. 4 on page 127 has extremely inaccurate legs (similar to the racehorse on page 108 whose left hind appears attached to its belly); and the sketch/painting of the 'moon' on page 84 looks really nothing like the moon and very much like a scotch pancake. There are many other examples like these. The narrative is enthusiastic but rather repetitive and for me,as I said, lacks the necessary detailed instruction for a really professional guide. . .
