When Julies guide arrived I was intrigued and immediately engaged by the colourful series of sea creatures featured on its cover. I thought they had been skillfully chosen to really bring out the subtlety and wonder of wet-in-wet watercolour.
From the introduction I could tell that Julie genuinely loves the seashore which was infectious. (The book also feels portable enough to tuck it into a pack and take with you on your next seaside trip!) I liked the recommendation on page 39 to visit Derek Jarmans seashore garden at Dungerness - this helped the seaside subject come alive.
The range of twenty-two colours featured was large and suggested substitutes helped. There was additional good advice about setting up your paint box with just the colours you want to use. (Julie introduced me to Pearlescent Shimmer, an interesting colour.) Then followed a useful recap of colour theory. The summary was nice and tight covering just a few pages for easy reference.
The projects that followed were clearly laid out and generously spaced. I decided to try the feather project on page 29 but using my my existing watercolour paper - Id like to try out Julies favoured Panart watercolour paper sometime. I love to set off my watercolour portraits against a white background and so Julies suggestion to place the feathers against clean paper suited me well. For other projects there was a useful set of line drawings available via Bookmarked Hub which was a nice touch. The quick, wet-in-wet watercolour mixes for the feathers suited my experimental style and they came out well using the colours shown in Winsor and Newtons professional range. Elsewhere the step-by-step photos usefully included brush movements. Perhaps Julie can explore lifting off further another time (as mentioned on the back cover) which would compliment her useful I reminder to leave enough white in some of the subjects.
In conclusion I would happily recommend this attractive book to other painters and I found that the feather project was fun to do.
artbookreview.net
This promising new series continues to delight (my general remarks can be found here).
In this volume, Julie Collins provides mixing guides for the colours of fish, shells, pebbles and vegetation everything, in fact, that youre likely to find on a beach walk. This is a slim volume that benefits from Julies light touch and provides everything you need with no complication added simply for the purpose of taking up space.
