Exploring Watercolor: Creative Exercises and Techniques for Painting With Watermedia - Softcover

"Paint what you feel, not just what you see, and you'll begin to see the world in a different light."

What if
...instead of waiting for the "big idea," you begin painting by dropping beautiful color onto your paper and seeing where it takes you?
...you paint with a leaf (or a sponge, or a string) instead of a brush?
...you start painting not on a blank sheet, but over an abstract acrylic background?

Exploring Watercolor is a book full of fresh perspectives, open doors, and creativity-expanding "what-ifs" to help take your work to the next level. Discover new ways to get expressive with color...ideas for using nature's patterns to inspire enticing designs...how to expand your repertoire and unleash your creativity by experimenting with freeform collages, found imagery, and other innovative techniques.

Inside you'll find:

• 22 open-ended, step-by-step demonstrations designed so you can do them over and over again, using various combinations of colors, papers, and techniques for a different result every time.
• 9 exercises illustrating expressive ways to put paint to paper.
• A fun and inspiring sampler of texture-making techniques--including print methods, resists, sprinkling, spattering, stencils, and "paper torture"--for paintings that sing with vitality.

Wherever you are as an artist, this hands-on guide will help you master the watercolor medium, develop your individual style, and move beyond a literal rendering of your subject matter to a more meaningful and memorable interpretation that expresses your unique vision. So let go of your self-imposed limits, play with different ways of painting, and--above all--paint with passion and joy!