Fall 2000
Keys to Successful Painting, by Tony Couch.
NorthLight, 1992. 126 pp, full-color, $27.95 (May be an old price). For all watercolor painters.
The chapter on value was most
helpful. He showed six value patterns. By doing some quick thumbnail
sketches and tlying different value patterns, artists can come to a
fairly decent composition which will serve as a guidepost when painting
pictures in color. A typical summer value pattern is a mid-value foreground,
a dark middle ground, and a light background. A more dramatic pattern is
dark foreground, light mid-ground, and middle value background. Colors
can be made lighter or darker in value by adding or subtracting water.
Most of our colors are in the mid-value range.
Tony gives lots of tips on the use
of these principles and elements. In his last chapter, he says, ‘Ive
introduced you to eight of the best friends you’ll ever have when you
set out to paint..., eight principles that can be applied to each of
seven elements . fifty-six things to keep track of while painting.” No
one can keep up with all that, so relax! ‘There will always be design
errors in paintings. The only difference between superior paintings and
lesser paintings is fewer and smaller mistakes.
“You’re never going to be happy
with your paintings. No professional ever is. The reason? ~Your
knowledge will always be greater than your ability. Do you want to
increase your ability? Increase your knowledge . . but most of all,
you’ll teach yourself by painting and thinking, thinking and painting.
“You will never be bored with the
craft. There will always be a new idea, a better way that will have you
bounding out of bed in the morning.” Amen.
Carol Barbian
Winter 2000-01
How to Make
a Watercolor Paint Itself— Experimental Techniques for Achieving
WatsonGuptill, 143 pp.
full color, hard cover,
Can be purchased through
the
One
quick glance through this excellent book will make you want to read it
from cover to cover. Nita Engle, a native of Michigan, covers all of her
artistry, including “discovering what motivates you, materials, her
basic approach to harnessing the freedom of watercolor, washes,
texturing techniques, solutions to design problems, the importance of
light in a painting, outdoor and indoor painting and combining them into
a finished painting, and seeking new ways to depict reality.” And
much more.
The down-to-earth writings are a pleasure. There is no big egocentric artist here. She wants us to only be true to our own vision’ no matter what that may he. She suggests we write a ‘short explanation of our goals for our painting and how we want our paintings to look.
My favorite chapters are Washes of light’ and Texturing
Techniques.’ In the first, we arc shown just how she creates a
painting with step by-step full color pictures of her work. Her color
combinations are some of my very favorites. She tackles everything from a very
complicated sea storm to a relatively simple painting of ducks in water
and ice.
In ‘Texturing Techniques,’ she also shows us how
“throwing paint” can enhance simple compositions, how ‘using the
water-resistant technique’ will give us remarkable results, how to
preserve whites without masking, pouring, and squirting paint, using our
fingers and wiping the paint, as well as painting with a knife and using
salt.
There is real value
for
the dollars spent on this book. Engle’s paintings alone are worth the
price. This book is a treasure!
Nancy Beelman
Spring
2001
Painting Close-Focus Flowers in Watercolor,
by Ann Pember North
Light Books
128 pages, 240 color illus., 9 mini demos 5 demos complete paintings,
hard cover, $27.99.
For intermediate to advanced paint
Have
you ever wanted to paint a Georgia O’Keeffe flower? That is what I had
in mind when I purchased this book. Well, of course, Pember is not an
O’Keeffe and she has borrowed some of Jan Kunz’s ideas about letting
paint mix on the paper when doing flowers; still, it is a beautiful book
to the eye.
It
covers all of the usual items about materials, her palette of colors,
mixing paints and composition etc. She uses vibrant new colors from
Daniel Smith and Winsor Newton. There are fine demonstrations in the
step-by-step style and good sections on how to edit and crop your flower
reference photos. I especially liked the demo of a white gladiola, which
is outstanding. Pember urges you just not to render what the flower
looks like up close1 but to use your intuition when it comes
to making your painting either a partial or total abstract work. She
stresses good shapes and patterns while adding your emotions, mood and
drama to the subject. Her shading is wonderful and what there are of her
backgrounds are good.
However,
I found that even though everything is covered nicely, there is a
fundamental flaw in this “how to book.” I kept wondering when she
was going to let me in on her secret for enlarging her flower from what
had to be a regular-size reference
photo to, in one case, over a 21 X 29 inch drawing that she
transferred to her watercolor paper. Did she drag out the old grid or
run down to the handy copy shop to get it enlarged so the proportions
would be correct, or did she assume that the reader could eye ball it
into a larger shape? A couple of pages devoted to enlarging drawings
would have made this book pretty perfect.
—NCB