Customer Reviews

The Dance of Watercolor: Beginners and Beyond

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Where else can you listen to Jazz and learn the basics of watercolor? Julie Cohn's CD is an uplifting, easy to learn and follow instructional DVD. In no time, you can learn techniques and apply them and create a beautiful, one-of-a-kind landscape painting. I also found the "extra" drawing tips, exercises and quick reference so valueable and helpful. My daughter (age 6) was learning along with me. We really enjoyed the slide show during dinner too! I have been painting watercolor for 10 years and learned more from this DVD and Julie Cohn than I have in any other class I have taken. This DVD is a must own!

Let me start by saying I'm a beginner at watercolor painting. I've taken some lessons, and read many books, but I got to a point where there was something missing. What makes this DVD special, is the method of combining the degree of wetness of the paint with the degree of wetness of the paper. It sounds simple, but when you get it right, the paint really does dance. Once I realized what Ms. Cohn was saying, it totally changed the results I was getting. There is some stuff on color mixing and other odds and ends that are covered again and again elsewhere, but she had to put it in for completeness. This DVD was well worth the cost. I don't like the style of painting in the DVD, but the technique was great.

I had no art experience. I am having a blast with Julie's easy to follow instuctions. On the other hand my wife has taken several art classes. She is much more advanced,and has found Julie's instructions to be extremely beneficial. One of the major benefits is that you can keep going back to a concept that would be hard to do in a typical class setting.
Thank you Julie!!

I've been trying watercolor by myself with books for a while, but I'd stalled because I seemed to be missing some key point. This DVD really helped me over a hurdle in that I can now get the paint and water proportions right on the paper and on the brush. I've seen other excellent DVDs on watercolor, but this one taught me a very necessary basic tenet in an easy-to-learn way that the others glossed over, and it actually worked for me.

If you really want to learn to watercolor, this is the DVD for you.

Organization is one of it's best features. Julie Cohn has lots of easy to understand techniques. She explains why you do something, as well as how to do it. You can refer back to a painting technique without searching through the whole DVD.

There are sections on: shortcuts; how to find a good brush; drawing tips; and the all important question of how much water vs how much paint. Julie has easy to remember names for all the varying degrees of water and paint and when to use them. There are lots of quick reference guides about color and painting techniques that I found really helpful.

Julie's original music adds just the right touch!

I enjoyed the slide show with the music and used it as a screen saver.

A great value for aspiring water colorists.

I've been trying to learn the basics of watercolor from books and DVDs with little success until now. Her explanations and demonstrations are very detailed and have given me a base to work from and build on. I've learned so much about watercolor from this DVD and I'm having so much fun playing with the techniques and concepts presented in the DVD.

A good video, especially as an introduction. I've taught watercolor at Fullerton College for about 16 semesters and even though this is aimed at beginners, I still enjoyed watching it and look forward to watching it again. Julie has some unique approaches that simplify the learning curve. I wish I'd found it years ago. I also wish it had been longer, but what she has on here is well worth the time and money.

This video is a relaxed version of instruction that could complement a more advanced beginner's watercolor experience. Obviously a very talented watercolorist and instructor, Julie Cohn provides wonderfully calming examples and demonstrates accurate techniques. However, care of brushes and accurate terminology are necessary in preparatory instruction. Both are not obvious enough in this video, and would require a teacher's interruption of the video to give clarification and terminology emphasis. For example, one should never squeeze and pull on the bristles of the brush to remove water; instead, squeeze and dab the brush gently, which she does, but does not mention. The gentle rubbing to remove the water or to flatten the bristles needs clarification to ward off students' pulling out the bristles. Also, the terms glazed, layered/overlapped, opaque, transparent, and semitransparent, blended and graded, wash, hatch, stipple, and dry-brush would be on my students' "sampler" charts, along with her terms of moisture content: puddle, dot, dash, and pile. Julie Cohn's emphasis on achieving effective application using moisture control makes this relaxing video useful to an educator on a personal talent improvement level, and provides diversion from the stilted, but required discipline of the classroom: possibly a good application review prior to first painting. I will definitely use her beneficial idea of dancing with watercolor.

Julie is a delight. Her explanations and demonstrations are concise and easy to follow. Julie's method of getting the correct paint consistency is essential. I highly recommend this DVD for beginners and those of us who are a little beyond beginning.

I will be loaning this DVD out to novice watercolor students. I found it to be very well produced and thought out. Julie meticulously measures how much water should be used on the brush and mixing the paint, and "names" each of four combinations, which is too tedious for me or for experienced painters...but for a beginner who knows nothing, it's quite helpful.