Product Details
How to Make a Watercolor Paint Itself: Experimental Techniques for Achieving Realistic Effects

How to Make a Watercolor Paint Itself: Experimental Techniques for Achieving Realistic Effects
By Nita Engle

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Product Description

Award-winning artist Nita Engle’s breakthrough approach to watercolor shows readers how to combine spontaneity and control to produce glowing, realistic paintings. Her method begins with action-filled exercises that demonstrate how to play with paint, following no rules. Subsequent step-by-step projects add planning to the mix, demonstrating how to turn loose washes into light-filled watercolors with textural effects achieved by spraying, sprinkling, pouring, squirting, or stamping paint. Engle’s approach, and her results, are dramatic and dynamic; now watercolor artists can create their own exciting paintings with help from How to Make a Watercolor Paint Itself.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #22288 in Books
  • Published on: 2007-07-10
  • Released on: 2007-07-10
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 144 pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author
Nita Engle, whose work appears in national magazines, is the subject of a PBS documentary, Wilderness Palette: Nita Engle in Michigan. She lives in Marquette, Michigan.

Customer Reviews

Technique over art3
This book has a lot of good information about choosing paints, supplies, and so forth--strongest portion of the book, in my opinion. Also several good techniques, though little you wouldn't see on say Sue Scheewe or Terry Madden (both PBS shows).

What I liked least was where she essentially makes a "stamp" and stamps out a bunch of trees in one painting. Would you pay big money for a painting knowing it was created that way? How is it art rather than craft (as in, paint this picture in 30 minutes or less)? Granted, lot of techniques are shortcuts of one sort or another, but stamping makes the same image again and again, whereas salt or crumpled paper/plastic will give a different result every time.

I liked the book, but after reading it you will definitely look at watercolor paintings in a different way (look, the artist did this here, and that there, etc.), and I'm not sure that's a good thing, because it detracts from appreciating the art if there is too much technique going on in a picture.

A really good book for watercolor painting that is not so technique-dependent is Painting Greeting Cards in Watercolor by Jacqueline Penney.

must have5
This is the best book on water color technique around. Nita Engle is way ahead of the pack in her endless creativity and ways of applying watercolor to paper or illustration board. The results are always water media, not mixed media. Her palette is dated, but fantastic for depicting water, which she is a true master at. I've had this book for years, this must be a reprint, and every time I open it, I see something new. Not for beginners, but if you love playing with watercolor, this book is a must.

entertaining lights5
The artist creates visual stories of color and light in such a delightful manner. It leads one to experiment how to try her way of painting with watercolor. Especially helpful is her use of masking gum.