Painting Nature in Watercolor with Cathy Johnson

The entire book is a pleasure to read and look at even if one had no intention of drawing or painting anything! The author's intent is to encourage artists to get outside, see, and enjoy nature. Many of the examples include the author's particular observations on the weather, sounds, smells, etc. accompanying the plein-air sketch or painting.

After about a year of learning, I'm probably an advanced beginner at watercolor thanks to Let's Make Art.

As a supplement, I thought it would be nice to find books that contain simple exercises to use as warmups to more involved projects or subjects for watercolor cards I've been sending to friends and family.

I checked this book out from the library based on a quick flip through.

What I didn't notice (even though the subtitle clearly states) is that the focus is on using watercolor pencils along with watercolor paint. This is the only book I found that really gets into interesting, detailed techniques on working with watercolor pencils. This book is also a useful guide for a watercolorist using paint or crayons, too, because the demonstrations explain steps in creating a composition and the colors used.

The second chapter is really helpful. The author spends a lot of time explaining how to achieve different effects with watercolor pencil including how to do various washes, how to create different textures, how to order water and pencil steps to achieve certain results, and how to create compositions. The illustrations accompanying her very easy-to-follow instructions allow the reader to clearly see pencil marks and the how the pencils behave on different watercolor papers. Both the written information and the drawings help the reader to recreate each technique.

The third chapter goes into detail about how to select and set up a sketchbook or artist's journal. This is a subject many watercolor books do not seem to address, yet is a topic very popular with many watercolorists. In fact, as one progresses through the book, it is clear that the intent is for the user to use a sketchbook or our general in nature to capture what the artist sees, although loose paper could be used with more difficulty.

The book is beautifully designed and has a nice balance between narrative explanation and illustrator examples. I highly recommend getting this book if you are looking for a comprehensive reference on using watercolor pencils.