A. Sullivan art

Since everyone seemed to like the watercolor brush review, I decided to put together a watercolor book review. This will be an unfortunately short list, because there are really just so few of these books I can recommend. The trend in how-to-art publishing is to put out books called How to Paint Seascapes, Florals, Horses, etc. These books should be called Here’s a Few Photos of How This Certain Artist Painted This Particular Seascape But It’s Probably Not Going to be Very Relevant to Your Seascape Painting Unless You Feel Like Copying. 

I have chosen the books below because they offer some technical guidance on how to go about your own paintings.

1. Confident Color: An Artist’s Guide to Harmony, Contrast and Unity / Nita Leland

This is an all-star book. I recommend it to everyone. It slightly favors watercolors (in that Leland is a watercolorist and her demo palettes are all painted in watercolor) but the principles apply to any blendable medium.

There is a general intro to color terms and theory in the opening chapters, but the good stuff starts in chapter 4. You probably already know that, in theory, you can mix any color from the primary triad red, yellow, and blue (or their inkjet cousins, magenta, yellow, and cyan). But you’ve probably also discovered that in practice, it’s hardly this simple. Red and blue make purple — unless it’s the wrong red or the wrong blue, and then they make mud. Leland explains how to pick out triads that will blend beautifully. She demonstrates eight triads (shown below: Old Masters triad made up of burnt sienna, yellow ochre, and payne’s gray). In chapter 6, she talks about advanced palettes like cross-complementary tetrads and analogous-complementary combinations. If you’ve fallen into a color rut, even just glancing through the pages can remind you of how many possibilities there are.

2. The Watercolorist’s Essential Notebook: A Treasury of Watercolor Tricks and Techniques Discovered Through Years of Painting and Experimentation / Gordon MacKenzie

4 stars. This is a great book for beginning to mid-level artists. As the title suggests, the book is kind of a hodgepodge of this and that. MacKenzie goes over materials, techniques, composition, color theory, and throws in a few demos as well. Some sections are less useful than others, but there is an invaluable paint guide in the opening pages. First MacKenzie groups pigments by whether they are staining, transparent, opaque, etc. Then he shows a chart of pigments from all the leading manufacturers, rated for quality. He also includes a list of pigments to avoid (because of their fugitive properties). He also discusses brushes, papers, palettes, and extras like sponges and masking fluid. If you don’t know what to buy, definitely have a look at it.

p.s. MacKenzie wrote another book called The Watercolorist’s Essential Notebook: Landscapes. It gets an honorable mention because it contains a very good section on painting water.

3. Artist’s Manual: A Complete Guide to Painting and Drawing Materials and Techniques / edited by Angela Gair

3 stars. For beginners or those who would like to keep a reference on hand. Basically this book is a list of every art supply known to man, accompanied by a short description of how it handles and what most people use it for. It also has handy little things like a metric to imperial conversion chart for the weights of watercolor paper and tips for salvaging your dried-up paint tubes. (It’s not just on watercolors, but it does include them.) If you can already tell your rabbitskin glue from your egg-oil emulsion, you don’t need this book, but if you’re starting out, it’s probably the fastest way to learn what’s out there.

p.s. This seems to be out of print, but is still widely available through resale. There is also a new edition called The New Artist’s Manual, which probably contains much the same info, though I’ve never seen it so I can’t confirm.

4. Painting Spectacular Light Effects in Watercolor / Paul Jackson

3 stars. In many ways, this is the kind of how-to-copy-other-people’s-art book that I deplored earlier. But I make an exception for it because 1) Jackson’s handling of light, shadow, and reflection is amazing and it’s fascinating to see how he pulls it off, and 2) it contains 2 key chapters, Elements of Light and Qualities of Light, about how to set up dramatic lighting, and also how to deal with different types of light (such as candlelight vs, artificial light vs. sunlight). It’s not applicable to every style of watercolor painting, but if you are interested in photorealism and/or drama light, you might check it out.