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.

A guide to landscape painting for complete beginners with simple exercises. Hazel Soan is a hugely successful painter and an outstanding teacher and author of art books, which have introduced the wonders of art to a generation of amateur artists. In this book she teaches you how to get to grips with watercolour landscapes in the space of an afternoon. The book explores the basics of watercolour landscapes with lots of simple exercises and step-by-step demonstrations that are perfect for beginners. That life-long ambition of painting somewhere that is important to you can become a possibility with the help of this nifty little book. Topics covered include creating space, composition and focus, light and shadows, colours of the landscape and the mixing of watercolours. Watercolour painting techniques such as painting en plein air, brushwork, creating texture, wet into wet and wet on dry are explained. The book also explores specific landscape themes such as skies, foliage, forests, gardens, seascapes, wilderness, sunsets, urban landscapes, panoramas, sunsets and many more.

This handy, practical and inspirational little book is perfect for the pocket or art bag. It shows watercolour painters of all levels how to loosen up their paintings and maintain spontaneity by painting simple watercolour studies in no more than 10 minutes.

Bestselling artist and writer Hazel Soan has distilled her art teaching into the things that matter most and can be digested in a short period of time – in just one afternoon you can start painting. Learning to paint is one of the life-long aspirations of many of us, and these techniques can be picked up faster than you think. Hazel Soan's concise book, filled with easy-to-follow instructions and step-by-step exercises, is written in an accessible way for those completely new to painting. Chapters include: Getting Started (the materials you will need and those you can ignore in the art shop); Choice of Colours; Mixing Colours; What's the Subject?; What Surfaces to Paint on; Basic Painting Techniques; Brushstrokes and Composition (with details on how to design paintings with horizon, focus and balance, a hint of perspective and the light and shade of a subject). Packed with illustrations for guidance, this is the most comprehensive guide to learning watercolour very quickly.

Bestselling artist and writer Hazel Soan delivers a concise and approachable guide to portrait painting, with simple exercises and step-by-step demonstrations. Whether you are using watercolour, oils or acrylic, Learn to Paint Portraits Quickly explains the key elements of catching a likeness in portrait painting in a mixture of mediums. The book is filled with easy-to-follow instructions and step-by-step exercises that can be digested in a short period of time, and written in an accessible way for all artists to learn about portraiture. The key elements of portraiture covered in this concise book include: Finding the likeness Creating form – the light and shade The facial features Painting the hair Skin tone and colouring The body, clothing and background Illustrated with Hazel's magnificent, colourful paintings, and with practical advice and demonstrations throughout, this book is the perfect tool to help beginners master portrait painting – quickly.

Are you bored of painting tasteful landscapes, light seascapes and delicate still-lifes? Or are you laboring under the misconception that that is simply all watercolor is good for? Maybe you're so bored of looking at watercolor paintings that you've never even tried it! Whether you're at the beginning of your artistic journey, stuck in a rut and in desperate need of some inspiration or simply looking to improve your skills with watercolor, this book is sure to awaken your creativity. Stimulate your artistic minds and open your paint boxes to a whole new realm of possibility, using things like bleach, salt and combs - yes, the thing you'd ordinarily use to brush your hair with - to create exciting results. Professional fashion illustrator Veronica Ballart Lilja shares a wealth of new techniques based on her years of working with the medium that will open up watercolor for beginners, and encourage experts to stray from their more traditional methods. Jam packed with fresh ideas, adventurous tips and techniques, detailed theory and engaging exercises, this book allows you to develop and practise your skills in a free and expressive way.

Jake Winkle's loose, fresh and spontaneous style of painting is very popular. His paintings are full of light and movement and a key feature of his technique is that he doesn't work in the traditional way of light to dark but by placing the darks first. In Light and Movement in Watercolour, his first book, he demonstrates how to paint watercolours in a loose, direct way by step-by-step demonstrations and practical projects. Watercolours are often spoiled by a desire to be entirely truthful to the subject matter, which can lead to a painting that is overworked and tight. Jake's loose approach avoids those problems. He looks at subject simplification and shows how to focus on shapes rather than objects and, by painting what you see and not what you know, demonstrates how to capture the essence of the scene with freshness and clarity. The main topics in this book are: Understanding Watercolour; Building Confidence; What to Paint; Shapes, Tones and Colours; Dark to Light and Freshness and Clarity. Jake considers each topic in detail and shows the reader how to create paintings that glow with life, interest and spontaneity.