Painting Greeting Cards in Watercolor [Paperback]

Jacqueline Penney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1997

More than 35 step-by-step projects show you how to create miniature works of watercolor art. You'll be amazed at their vibrant colors and exquisite details - not to mention how quick, easy and fun they are to paint! Your original mini-creations will make perfect from-the-heart greeting cards. But the possibilities don't end there. Framed, they add a charming touch to your home decor. Created with someone special in mind, they're unique gifts. Painted on-the-spot, they make great personalized postcards or an evocative, visual travel journal. This book will get you started with instruction and lots of ideas. Then let your creativity and imagination take over.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

While this book could certainly get one started in making and marketing greeting cards, it is far better than its title implies. It is basically a very fine book on painting in small format. Penney distills her art into miniature studies that make use of techniques necessary for any size watercolor. Moreover, the explications of wet-on-wet, waxing, and masking techniques and the specific treatments of varying skies, seasons, and textures of stone are nicely done. Lacking, however, is advice on marketing one's work. Nevertheless, a unique book that is useful for a broad audience.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Any artistic endeavor that is confined to a small format still has the potential to be visually expansive. That is the philosophy of Long Island watercolorist Penney, whose book is aimed at practitioner and novice alike. Her angle is to use landscapes, seascapes, and natural scenes in postcards and greeting cards. Each of the more than 35 projects features step-by-step color photographs as well as indications of potential problems, such as changes in the weather. The last two sections include a look at creating fantasies and Warhol-like pictures from paint drips, plus tips on presentation. Barbara Jacobs

Product Details

• Paperback: 127 pages
• Publisher: North Light Books; 1st edition (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891347151
• ISBN-13: 978-0891347156
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #320,609 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for little ditties, November 22, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Painting Greeting Cards in Watercolor (Paperback)

I really enjoy using this book for inspiration and practice. I don't use her ideas for greeting cards, but for small paintings. Most of the paintings can be finished rather quickly. The topics are appealing and I have sold a number of them. I like her 3-in-1 compositions, dividing the paper with masking tape and having related subjects treated differently within each block. It is a practical and user-friendly book, well worth the purchase.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent step-by-step instruction, February 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Painting Greeting Cards in Watercolor (Paperback)

I have painted all the pictures in Jacqueline's book. Her detailed instructions make copying her art miniatures easy. Her instructions apply not only to miniatures but also larger sized pictures. I have used several of her designs for greeting cards.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional One-of-a-Kind Watercolor Book., January 9, 2008

By 

silky69 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Painting Greeting Cards in Watercolor (Paperback)

This is an exceptional watercolor book that offers over 35 step-by-step projects in miniature art. It is not just for beginners. It is packed with useful information on how to design a painting, vary a theme to create a series of paintings. By walking you through the various painting techniques, then using them in step-by-step projects, Jaqueline Penny shows you how to how to turn one small painting into variations based on such things as differing the arrangement, color schemes, weather themes, horizontal vs. vertical presentation, etc..

Here are some excerpts from the Table of Contents:
Chapter 3 guides you through 5 projects that vary one scene by changing the sky, color, season, time of day, size and location.

Chapter 5 gives 8 projects that help you become more creative by showing how a subject can be painted different ways--project 18 is how to paint a pear, including how to paint a droplet of water on the pear. Project 19 is painting an apple half. Project 20 Painting Hard Rocks--the author then shows how that same scene can be painted again, but by using different painting techniques, it does not become the same picture, but one with a whole new statement. The next projects are soft rocks, coastal rocks, little rocks. Next, painting two adirondack chairs(facing the viewer), then varying that theme by painting them facing out away from you, and changing the scenery surrounding them.

Penny also teaches how to set up your paper so you can paint several paintings all on the same board, and how to do such things as making a postcard with three related small paintings--one of a landscape, then zeroing in on what's in the landscape and painting a close up of some flowers, or seeing the landscape from a different perspective, or changing the angles of 3 related paintings on a postcard, etc..

I love Chapter 20, because it really shows where creativity and imagination can take you, and it's FUN!! Penny demonstrates how you can allow paints to run together to skies and flowers, then how to make minature paintings for the walls by varying mat colors. She gives you ideas on how to use such things as drips dropping on wet paper to make a colorful flower scene, and how to use that colorful painting along with a colored border cut in various shapes to add interest and make a variety of different greeting cards.

Project 35 is especially exciting for me. It's title is "Pure Fantasy Another Way" It shows you how a wet-on-wet floral painting with a lot of soft edges can be used to create a beautiful fantasy scene with a tiny boy who is about 1/1000th as big as the flower is standing on the stem to gaze at the flower....This idea is then FURTHER EXPANDED by taking that floral idea and changing the boy to a girl, with a different pose and slightly different floral scene, or adding poetry to the scene of zeroing in more to one or two flowers.

This book really demonstrates the multitude of possibilities in painting greeting cards, miniature paintings for the home, post cards, etc. The lessons are not difficult, and are easy enough for beginners, but it is also good for someone who is beyond the beginner stage, as it is also a book about design and creativity.

A Wonderful book, that will help you expand on ideas for watercolors.
If you like the book Work Small, Learn Big, this might be a good companion.