This take-along guide features a lay-flat binding and hands-on instruction, teaching you everything from key concepts, such as compostition, value and color...right down to specific details, like how to master large washes or rescue paintings from run backs.

Sprinkled throughout, you will find dozens of practical tips, techniques and advice, such as:

• Colors to avoid
• Three no-fail approaches to composition
• Why expensive paints aren't always best
• Tricks for working wet-in-wet
• The dos and don'ts of masking
• Which brushes and paper work best

Gordon MacKenzie has been an artist his entire life and an art instructor for more than thirty years. During his career, he has served as a teacher and art consultant for the Sault Ste. Marie Board of Education and has taught university-level art education courses for teachers and watercolor workshops. He has been a successful participant in the last nineteen Buckhorn Art Festivals and his work has made the cover of Readers Digest in Canada, Switzerland, Finland, Australia and the United States. He lives in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

Introduction

Chapter 1-Tools of the Trade
Watercolors
Brushes
Paper
Palettes
Palette Knives
Painting Sponges
Masking Materials

Chapter 2-Painting Techniques
Painting with Brushes
Painting with a Palette Knife
Painting with Sticks
Painting with a Sponge
How Paints Interact with Water
Mastering Washes and Glazes
Fading out a Color
Working Wet-in-Wet
Masking
A Mix of Techniques

Chapter 3-Putting Together Your Composition
Factors to Consider
Ways to Approach Composition
Developing a Series of Paintings
Intuition vs. Planning
To Save or Not to Save

Gallery

Index

Watercolor will entertain you for a lifetime. Those who have spent decades with it can testify how they are continually charmed and amazed by new discoveries every time they put paint to paper.

This book was developed to clarify and simplify various aspects of painting with watercolor, while at the same time challenging you with new possibilities. However, unlike a book of rules that tend to close our minds, this is a collection of principles, concepts and general information designed to expand the creative process.

This is your invitation to join the magic world of watercolor.
—Gordon MacKenzie"