Creating Textures in Watercolor: A Guide to Painting 83 Textures from Grass to Glass to Tree Bark to Fur (Hardcover)

by Cathy Johnson (Author) "Everything has texturesurface characteristics you can feel or that affect the way a thing looks when the light hits it..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

YA-- While excellent steps give a structured itinerary of watercolor painting for novice watercolorists, the tremendous variety of colorful objects and textures provide a reference for more advanced artists as well. However, although all of the parts for producing a good watercolor are here, there is little discussion about catching the spirit or feeling in a completed work. For this reason, this book could best be used as a resource for learning technique and not as a single source on the medium of watercolor.

Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Description
Offers step-by-step instructions on how to depict fruits, vegetables, hair, fur, glass, metal, fabric, flowers, rock, wood, and rust in watercolor paintings.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: North Light Books (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891344179
• ISBN-13: 978-0891344179
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 8.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #177,912 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Wonderful, February 20, 2000

By	Daena Ortego "Cat mum" (Baldwin, LA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a great book for those starting out with watercolors. The format makes everything very simple and gives illustrated step-by-step directions that are simple to follow and easy to elaborate on using your own creativity! I love this book because the author doesn't talk down to the reader, but explains everything in a matter-of-fact way that's easy for beginners and refreshing for the more advanced. Sparse on words and full of pictures/illustrations, I'd highly recommend this book for anyone looking to improve their grasp of watercolor painting.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good tips for textures, April 11, 2003

By	J Johnson (Murfreesboro, TN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creating Textures in Watercolor (Paperback)

This book will not go into detail of what materials you need to paint in watercolor, nor will it teach you how to compose a picture or prepare you for creating masterpieces.

This book will teach you simple tips and tricks to creating different textures such as a rock surface or the bark of a tree. If one is not interested in painting mother nature, the book also demonstrates ways to create brick walls, animal fur, and even human skin.

The book depends on pictures to demonstrate its lessons but also provides some text to explain the lesson to the reader. All the images are in color and most lessons are in step-by-step format. I gave this book four stars instead of five because I feel it could have provided a bit more information of other textures. However, I did learn a great deal from its lessons and therefore cannot complain.

All in all, this book is a great asset to anyone who is attempting to learn how to paint textures in watercolor. The lessons it provides are most useful to amateurs but may prove useful to intermediate artists as well.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Helpful problem-solver, September 20, 2006

By	Nicole N. Pellegrini "sockii" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is not so much a "how-to" or beginner's guide as it is a useful problem-solver for various texture challenges a watercolor artist may face. From painting fruit to fur, metal to dirt, fields of grass to whitewater rapids, the author presents many full-color, illustrated examples and notes on how to proceed. After a few pages of basic paper and application notes, the book goes right into texturing, sometimes with step-by-step illustrations, other times with notes provided on a finished painting.

What I found most useful out of all of these pages was the idea of how to suggest texture without overdoing detail, a common problem in all painting mediums but particularly deadly in watercolor where a certain degree of spontaniety should be embraced. Planning and layering of colors is illustrated as well as how to use splatter, wash, and other unpredicable techniques effectively.

This book will not lead you step-by-step to complete paintings, but can be of tremendous help when dealing with complicated objects and images and trying to find simple ways to approach them. I would definitely consider it an invaluable reference book for most watercolor artists, as you will surely find something in these pages you can apply to your own work and style.