My Favorite Watercolor Books

"Fading Fast" watercolor 12x16

Taking a break from oil painting today to do a watercolor. This is a watercolor study of some large roses in the Washington Park garden from early September. These flowers were starting to get a bit worn and shaggy at the end of the season. But still a wonderful vintage-y pink lavender color none the less. It's our first really chilly day of the fall season so painting colorful flowers is always a nice way to warm up the day.

For my fellow watercolor enthusiasts, I painted this on a 140 lb. Cold Press Arches Block. It's my go standard for smaller watercolor paintings. My color palette for this was primarily transparent colors which I prefer: permanent rose, opera, some quin magenta, cobalt blue, thalo blue, ultramarine blue, lemon yellow, and aureolin yellow. I used a combination of wet in wet and dry transparent layers here, which is pretty typical of most of my watercolor painting.

My Top Ten Favorite Watercolor Books
While I own dozens of watercolor books, these are the books I find myself rereading for practical tips as well as inspiration. Best of all, many of these gems are quite affordable (under $10) used on Amazon.

1. How to Make a Watercolor Paint Itself by Nita Engle
2. Watercolor Painting Outside the Lines by Linda Kemp
3. Interpreting the Figure in Watercolor by Don Andrews
4. Making Watercolor Sing by Jean Dobie
5. Pouring Light by Jean Grastorf
6. Painting from the Inside Out by Betsey Dillard Stroud
7. Transparent Watercolor by William Condit
8. The Collected Best of Watercolor by Schlemm and Doherty
9. William Mathews: Working the West
10. Reflections of Nature: Paintings by Joseph Raffael (one of my all time favorite contemporary watercolor artists)

Quick welcome to my new fall students and to my loyal ongoing students my sincere thanks for sharing your painting time with me. I'm looking forward to painting this winter with all of you. For as long as I can remember, painting is a powerful antidote for colder, grayer months. For more info regarding my classes, please visit My Classes Page. Thanks for stopping by!