The Art of Watercolor

Rating:
Summary: Insightful
Review: Perhaps the strongest effort I have read to date for instruction on watercolor technique.(David Dewey's book is also outstanding!) This book is for the advanced watercolorist, as well as the intermediate student. It offers art history, studies in color, tips on still life, specialty items such as how to flatten a buckled paper, and more! Although I have been a watercolorist for many years, Le Clair has brought new insight into working with and teaching the medium.

Rating:
Summary: College Level Instruction Without the College Textbook Price
Review: There are two things about this book I think make it a great book for any watercolorist's library. One is the sheer variety of paintings shown and the other is the numerous 'assignments' at the end of each chapter.

As another reviewer stated this book does not show you only one or a few artist's techniques. Rather it covers a broad range of techniques, art styles and artists and shows a diverse array of watercolor paintings. Everything from traditional representational paintings to contemporary and experimental works are shown. And all are used to illustrate that chapter's main point that they appear in. Works from famous artists to current living ones are displayed.

Each chapter ends with exercises designed to let you practice principles, techniques or styles the preceding pages discussed. Now some people don't like or need such 'assignments'. But other people, like me, enjoy them as a challenge and as a way to see that they've not only read the chapter but can practice till they've learned it. If you don't care for such things it's easy to skip over them. But I actually found some of these projects fun to do.

I have a sketchbook of watercolor paper that I use strictly for trying out projects from my various watercolor or other painting books. It is separate from my other sketchbooks or paintings and its sole purpose is strictly to practice, even copy, the demo projects and assignments. Even the greatest art masters learned first by copying the masters before them. There is so much to learn from this book. Not only how to paint in watercolor but also some art history as well. Definitely a recommended buy.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best
Review: This is one of the best books on watercolor I have read and I have read a bunch. Many watercolor books give demonstrations and descriptions of a limited range of techniques used by that particular author. The authors' focus is primarily on showing you how they painted particular sample paintings. You learn, but mostly how to paint the sample paintings and a little about the author's technique but not much else.

Mr. Le Clair provides the kind of instruction I would expect from a college watercolor class. He covers much more than just the basics but, nevertheless, the book could well serve as an introduction to watercolor. If I had to choose one instructional watercolor book this would be it. The second book I would choose is "The Watorcolorist's Essential Notebook" by Gordon MacKenzie, but it needs to be supplemented with a more basic book.