180 of 181 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Book For Beginners, May 15, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Watercolor Basics - Let's Get Started (Paperback)
I had assembled nearly a dozen books on watercolor painting instruction and techniques. I wish I had bought this book first. While the other books do contain useful instruction, the demonstrations--beautiful, inspiring--are often too difficult for the beginning painter. Not so with this book.
The book begins at the beginning, with no assuptions of a certain level of skill. The book then takes you through a series of exercises, based on certain basic skill such as a flat or gradated wash, proceeding to still more difficult techniques. Yet the exercises are sufficiently simple, with easy to reproduce sketches, that you end up with a small work of art: simple, but solidly founded in an essential technique and its mastery.
There are also sections which focus on monochromatic studies to help the student think about and approach the concept of values. The exercises in these sections enable the beginning painter to produce lovely, sophisticated-looking pictures with just a few newly mastered concepts and techniques. I have never before been so pleased with the results of my exercise paintings than those introduced in this book.
I think this book would be an excellent, even essential, item for the beginning painter looking for a solid foundation in this often capriciously difficult medium. I cannot recommend this book more highly. Thank you to Jack Reid for this marvelous book.
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54 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent introduction of techniques for the beginner, July 23, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Watercolor Basics - Let's Get Started (Paperback)
Jack Reid does an excellent job of introducing the basic watercolor techniques to the novice. These include wash, graded wash, dry-brush, and wet into wet. He also provides insight on materials that will be valuable to those entering those intimidating art supply stores. The techniques are presented in the form of several exercises with limited palettes. This helps the beginner not only in learning the techniques, but having a direction in which to go for practicing them. The book also introduces painters to value, color, and composition. In the last portion of the book, there are more in depth projects that will challenge the reader who has begun to master the techniques presented earlier.
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50 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very nice book for beginners, March 3, 2005
This review is from: Watercolor Basics - Let's Get Started (Paperback)
The taget audience of "Watercolor Basics" is people who want to learn watercolor painting from scratch. This book presumes no prior knowledge of art or painting or drawing. The lessons make good use of step-by-step examples to demonstrate watercolor techniques and help the reader reproduce those techniques. Normally I abhor step-by-step examples, but these are very well done and really quite helpful. People with a lot of experinece in drawing or painting other mediums will find this book a quick read but still useful.
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