Ray's Top Tips for Watercolour Artists
Ray Campbell-Smith
Spiral bound

Search Press Ltd: A super book, really useful for anyone beginning in watercolour. Ray exhorts the artist to use only artist quality paints and paper, an excellent tip and I'm sure that use of inferior materials is the main reason so many people find watercolours difficult to work with. Ray makes suggestions as to what colours to purchase and that's very helpful, along with his advice on brushes and paper. Having purchased materials - what next? Ray covers use of sketchbooks and photographs, along with a simple viewfinder in order to select a painting subject and shows in a couple of simple paintings how moving position of trees or clouds help form a balanced and pleasing painting. He covers composition, tone, light and shade by way of simple easy to follow explanations accompanied by simple sketches showing what he means. This makes it effortless to understand and gives the artist confidence in what they are doing. This book has sections on shadows, colours and colour mixing, washes and dry brush work - all subjects to master and with Rays simple tips its easy to feel that you too can achieve pleasing paintings. The latter part of the book is devoted to simple tips on how to avoid mistakes like cauliflower runs, not mixing too many colours, painting skies and backgrounds, and adding subjects like tres and buildings into your work, and making them realistic and part of the scenery. An excellent book full of useful advice for all artists wanting to master watercolours. --www.jeanniezelos.com






Ray Campbell Smith shares his years of experience in this book packed full of tips for watercolour painters. Learn all you need to know, from the the tools of the trade, choosing what to paint and avoiding and correcting mistakes, to how to paint skies, water, foliage and more. The tips are clearly presented and explained, and illustrated by many beautiful and accomplished paintings. They will help unravel the mysteries of the watercolour medium for those new to painting and also for more experienced watercolourists on the lookout for tips from a true master.