Fearless Watercolor for Beginners: Adventurous Painting Techniques to Get You Started by Sandrine Pelissier (2015-06-19) Paperback – 1722

This artist is great at explaining and demonstrating different techniques and media and you can also visit her website for online demonstrations. Together with this book you have huge scope for practising lots of ways of producing really interesting art. I've bought many art books before but this one is exceptional in my opinion. It doesn't just cover watercolour but combines inks and acrylics and shows how you can achieve different effects. Sandrine has a very individual style which is fairly contemporary. You can check her out at her website to see whether you like it before you buy the book but, even if you prefer your own style and don't want to adopt her ideas I think you'll still benefit from the techniques in the book.

Amazing ideas. So much information. Glad I chose it

Let's start with the title. "Fearless" - well, yes, you'll need to be fearless to tackle some of these projects. "Watercolour" - here's some of the things that the nicely-named Sandrine wants you to get for your "watercolours": oil pastels, chalk pastels, various inks, acrylic paint, coloured pencils, crayons, markers, ink pens, graphite - and a sewing machine..."For beginners" - Hmm. Well, if you don't know what a watercolour brush looks like, there's two pages of big pictures of them to help you learn. She also answers a few questions to calm your nerves, including "Is watercolour a difficult medium ?", to which she gives the classic politician's reply - ie, she answers several other questions instead of the one posed. (For those of you new to painting, it is in fact the most difficult medium of all to master successfully; if you want "easy", choose acylics.)"Do I need a studio ?" Again, a politician's answer - but she clearly thinks you do, and includes a half page picture of her own luxurious watercolour studio to reinforce her non-answer.A vast amount of space is wasted on photos, often quite large, not only of brushes, but of soap, hairdryers, pencils, hands, fingers, crumpled paint tubes and all the other useless garbage that publishers like to insult our intelligence with instead of showing us more illustrations of the author's work. Or, indeed, of some other artists' work, as some better-produced publications do. But a photograph of an artist's hand usually comes free - whereas an artist might want paying for a shot of a painting...So, what's with all that criticism and the 5 stars ? Because Sandrine (I do like that name) has managed to rise above the design disasters that publishers commonly inflict on us these days, and whereas one star would be appropriate if the works, and the advice, were no more than average, we have here watercolour (I use the word loosely) for the 21st century, and advice way beyond that offered by certain hacks. In fact, it's a thoroughly enjoyable and refreshing book, and its benefits outweigh the publisher's obsession with garbage pages.For beginners ? Well, if it does nothing else, this book enlarges the compass of this ancient (and difficult !) medium, and will avoid your being trapped in the conventional watercolour world - and entertain you as well. Those already so trapped may be inspired to look for more adventurous outlets for their creativity. And you don't have to like her work to make use of her horizon-widening advice.Oh yes, why the sewing machine ? Goodness me, didn't you know ? Every fearless watercolourist should have one...

I really enjoyed this book having followed Sandrine's blog and webpage for sometime, I felt the book was an excellent and worthwhile addition to my library.