Quirky Cat
Written on Jul 9, 2018
Practical Landscape Painting is a concise guide for beginners looking to get started in the wonderful world of watercolor landscapes. This book is less than fifty pages, so do believe me when I say that it is extremely succinct. There’s no space or time for wasted words here, and the author does a wonderful job of getting straight to the point and teaching us what we must know before beginning.
Some may say that a short guide like this is frustrating, but I rather enjoyed the brevity of it. It made things significantly less intimidating, and without huge blocks of words I felt like I was better able to focus on the end goal of the book; learning to create landscape paintings.
This guide covers everything from a brief history, to supplies, paper quality, and beyond. There are guides included on washes (this was my favorite chapter, personally – it was the most informative set of instructions I’ve yet seen for them), skies, tonal ranges, texture/pattern, color/composition, foliage, perspective/shadow, and then a small collection of the artist’s works.
It’s shocking how much they were able to get through in such a short period of time, and yet it never once felt rushed while I was reading it. I greatly enjoyed this read, and look forward to testing out some of the given advice and techniques.
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