Exploring Watercolor: Creative Exercises and Techniques for Watercolor and Mixed Media [Spiral-bound]

Elizabeth Groves (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2007

What if... instead of waiting for the "big idea," you begin a painting by dropping beautiful color onto your paper and seeing where it takes you?
What if... you paint with a leaf (or a sponge, or a string) instead of a brush?
What if... you start painting not on a blank sheet, but overtop an abstract acrylic background?

Exploring Watercolor is a book full of fresh perspectives, open doors, and creativity-expanding "what-ifs" to help take your work to the next level. Discover new ways to get expressive with color, ideas for using nature's patterns and motifs to inspire enticing designs, how to expand your repertoire and unleash your creativity by experimenting with freeform collages, found imagery and other innovative techniques.

Inside you'll find:

• 22 open-ended, step-by-step demonstrations designed so you can do them over and over again, using various combinations of colors, papers and techniques for a different result every time.
• 9 exercises illustrating expressive ways to put paint to paper
• A fun and inspiring sampler of texture-making techniques—including printing methods, resists, sprinkling, spattering, stencils and "paper torture"—for paintings that sing with vitality.

Wherever you are as an artist, this hands-on guide will help you master the watercolor medium, develop your individual style, and move beyond a literal rendering of your subject matter to a more meaningful and memorable interpretation that expresses your unique vision. So let go of your self-imposed limits, play with different ways of painting, and—above all—paint with passion and joy!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Elizabeth Groves has studied with numerous nationally known artists across the country. Her work has been exhibited in several US cities, won dozens of awards and can be found in many private collections. She has been on the board of directors of many arts societies, including the Woodlands Art League in Houston of which she was a founding member and president. She was president of the Alamo-Danville Artists' Association for the 1987-88 term of office. She teaches watercolor and oil workshops and private lessons and lives in Alamo, CA.

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 144 pages
• Publisher: North Light Books (August 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581808747
• ISBN-13: 978-1581808742
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 9.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #390,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exploring Watercolor, June 18, 2008

By 

Christin "Craftologist" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Exploring Watercolor: Creative Exercises and Techniques for Watercolor and Mixed Media (Spiral-bound)

I was drawn to this book because of the colorful pictures. I couldn't believe it was possible for watercolor paintings to be this vibrant. I was really motivated to dust off my paintbrushes and paint along with the many demonstrations. This book goes into the usual detail about how to design your painting, playing with color, and of course techniques of wet-in-wet, dry brush, glazing, etc., but unlike a lot of watercolor books the finished demonstrations look like something I would want to frame and hang on my walls. The best part of the book, for me, was the chapter on color. I have a pretty good grasp already of the color wheel and mixing colors, but it never occurred to me that there were so many ways to mix different greens, for example, or grays. I consider myself an advanced-beginner at watercolor and would definitely recommend this to other beginners, but surely someone with more experience would find techniques/hints here that would inspire them.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exploring, experimental, June 20, 2008

By 

M. Du Toit "Moggie" (Sunnyvale, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Exploring Watercolor: Creative Exercises and Techniques for Watercolor and Mixed Media (Spiral-bound)

This is a great book , easy to read and follow...she does go into design,focal point,composition, etc., but does it in a very descriptive way that doesn't get bogged down and boring.
She also introduces quite a lot of different textures, which a lot of people like, bubble wrap, stamps, modeling clay, sponges, but it is not my thing....but at least her explainations and pictures make it easy to understand.
She has a few step by step demonstations, simple, easy to follow, but my favourite is her pages of colour combinations.
A book worth buying even if you are a beginner like me, and of course the more advanced artists should love this book.

29 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book well worth reading, January 18, 2008

By 

B. Robin (switzerland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Exploring Watercolor: Creative Exercises and Techniques for Watercolor and Mixed Media (Spiral-bound)

I thoroughly enjoyed "exploring warercolor". I found that the book covered a lot of territory in the watercolor field and that the explanations given were very clear. I have been painting watercolors for many years now and still learnt quite a lot from this book. In conclusion I would reall recommend it to anybody who is interested in watercolors.