Practical Landscape Painting by David Hollis

Practical Landscape Painting

by David Hollis

Watercolour is such a rewarding medium for the artist that its well worth mastering it offers both portability and gorgeous, rich, mutable colours. This is the perfect introduction for anyone whos thought about painting in watercolour but isnt sure where to start. Unintimidating and accessible, it will help you to get the pictures in your head onto the page without losing anything in the translation.

Reviewed by Quirky Cat on

4 of 5 stars

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I received a copy of Practical Landscape Painting through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

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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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 9 July, 2018: Finished reading
  • 9 July, 2018: Reviewed