Explore and create expressive palettes and paintings with Color Harmony for Artists. Watercolor author, artist, and teacher Ana Victoria Calderon guides you through choosing, mixing, and using color with watercolor and mixed media to create the most expressive and appealing combinations and effects for a wide range of moods and subjects. You'll explore a variety of subjects and themes, including flowers, foliage, landscapes, skies, cities, figures, art movements, and historical eras. Begin with a quick overview of the basics of color, color mixing, and mixed media. Explore a variety of color and media combinations, including brilliant brights, muted neutrals, high-contrast complements, and special effects. Find inspiration in evocative photos, abundant palettes, and beautiful paintings. With Color Harmony for Artists, every artist, from beginner to advanced, will be inspired to embrace the creative possibilities of color and paint!

Ann Blockley is a very successful artist, known for the innovative way in which she uses texture as a key element in her work. This book, in Collins Artist’s Studio series, looks at how she achieves her stunning effects and provides essential guidelines for the intermediate painter wishing to develop this aspect of their own painting.

Step-by-step guide to creating 83 different textures using watercolors.

You need only look at a field of sunlit daisies or the elegance of a single rosebud to know "why" flowers have always been a favorite subject of artists. This book will show you "how" 24 water color painters capture their subjects' brilliant colors, subtle shadings, graceful shapes and delicate textures. Assembled from some of the best teaching available, this comprehensive, step-by-step instruction will help you create your own, breathtaking watercolor gardens.

Michael Rocco's methods are simple - gentle blends, delicate washes, drybrush, stippling, glazing, scrubbing away. But the results are incredible...lifelike textures that he uses to translate everyday objects and scenes into remarkably realistic paintings. In this book, Rocco will show you how to create textures and effects that will add depth, weight and "realness" to your art. Step by step, you'll learn how to achieve: natural textures... apple tree leaves, bare branches, clumpy earth, feathers, stone, morning clouds, tall grass, trees, wildflowers; man-made textures... barn siding, bright metal, old brick, old metal, painted wood, rusted metal; light and shadow textures... flowing water, moonlit snow, reflections, snow shadows, sunlit people; and still life textures... dark glass, draped cloth, glazed crockery, rope, stained glass, wicker. In eleven complete step-by-step demonstrations, you'll see how you can use these and many other textures - woven baskets, icy ponds, the sheen of a horse's coat - to bring your paintings to life.

Texture is one of the most crucial elements of any successful painting - and now, with Paint Luxurious Textures in Watercolor, readers can discover the secrets of this powerful technique. This book features: An overview of texture techniques, including glazing, underpainting of and masking; 15 close-up, step-by-step demonstrations of how to create texture for a variety of subjects, including lace, embroidered silk, silver teapots of and cats; Two longer demonstrations that show readers how to combine all of the texture techniques discussed throughout to create a sophisticated, multi-layered painting; Readers will learn how to capture rich textures so realistic of that their paintings will seem to jump off the canvas.

An inspirational and practical art manual, packed with step-by-step projects. Artist Ann Blockley is renowned for her innovative approach to watercolour painting. Her highly anticipated new book provides a series of workshops demonstrating how to push the boundaries of watercolour, using key techniques to develop your own work and take your paintings to the next level. Ann's easy-to-follow, step-by-step projects demonstrate how some of her most dramatic paintings are created. She describes in detail some of the key techniques used and how you can experiment with alternative methods to create your own interpretations. Finally, her beautiful and inspirational artworks demonstrate how different interpretations of a subject might take an unexpected or unusual direction, and how to make the most of these opportunities. The book moves, with progressively challenging projects, from loose wildflower meadows, textured woodland and rustic rambling walls to atmospheric or semi-abstract landscape corners, all rendered in Ann's adventurous signature style. Loose, expressive mark-making and unusual techniques include combining water-based paint and ink with granulation medium for dramatic texture, drawing with twigs, using gesso and collage to create unique effects; manipulating paint with materials such as plastic wrap (clingfilm); developing printed marks made using found materials. Following the huge demand for more practical guidance in experimental painting, the book provides plenty of techniques and instruction. Ann's personal commentary also gives a unique insight into the mind of the artist – ways of looking at your subject, how to explore and experiment – to unlock the potential of your watercolour painting.