Painting in Watercolor: The Indispensable Guide

I put off buying this book for a very long time, and now I'm sorry I didn't do it sooner. Beautiful book, filled with gorgeous illustrations and very useful information.

Great book! Good and thorough instruction.

Great book for beginners, nice tips, very good quality pictures, easy to understand, if you have a moderate/pro level watercolor perhaps it's not for you

I read the reviews. I’m fact i heard mention of this volume in a pan of another artist who actually Wrote a 30 day course to learn how to start to get to know this medium. It is a wonderful encyclopedic compendium of watercolor technique performed by well practiced artists. Absolute inspiration for you to get going. However if you are just beginning, or picking up this medium after having painted in another, the first couple of chapters will be a nice to “know where you might be going”. This is a nice book for your personal library, but it is NOT instructional. There are maybe a handful of step by step examples… but they are not tutorials meant to be followed start to finish. They are commentary on a blend or a color mix. For example the portrait in the photo attached is not showing how to paint the portrait… it is about composition, lighting, approach, etc. All valuable if you have never taken an art class or specifically a portrait class. Think of this as “survey of watercolor “. In the end there is value here. Thumbing through it over coffee inspired me to keep going with Jenna Rainie’s “essential” 30 day technique class in a book. David Webb’s book has value as everyone needs the perspective of a 30 year veteran to really get a grasp on what to expect after only 30 days of paint to paper. And this is a helpful kind of “all the things I wish someone had mentioned early on” compendium. This is for beginners if you are seeking an understanding of everything you have yet to learn, but that cannot be gained without tons and tons of practice.

There are so many books available on the subject of watercolor painting that one can get bewildered as to which one is "best" for you. Simply put, no one book is the "best" because of the complexity of the subject. Watercolor is a wonderful and yet sometimes awfully difficult medium. Therefor the painter needs all the help he or she can get on the demonstration of the basics. One needs a book on this subject to be clear and unambiguous, particularly for the beginner or the painter who has dabbled in watercolor but wants to go to the next step. In that capacity this book is excellent! I often add a watercolor book to my collection purely because of the painting examples that are included. The text may be boring, poorly written or even useless but the watercolor illustrations can make it worthwhile having. The examples in this book by both the author and other artists achieve that. The demonstration illustrations are clear and the selection of other artist's works are varied enough to show the reader a great variety of approaches to watercolor painting.

I found this to be one of the best books on watercolor painting available. It gives a thorough, step-by-step instruction on painting with watercolor. There are simple, basic examples and tutorials that build up your painting skills. These tutorials progress in a logical fashion building the students confidence and skill in handling watercolors. It is a joy to use and author David Webb not only uses his brilliant watercolor paintings as examples but he showcases other watercolor artists as well. Worth the price!

I am totally new to watercolor painting and this is just the right book for me. I am enjoying trying out each project and learning new techniques. I have watched and painted with a few youtube videos, but sometimes the videos are faster than I would like and not having a checklist of the supplies/paint colors/etc... beforehand proves difficult. That is where this book is helpful! And I can always refer back to the projects when I need to. Overall, this book is well written and the projects are great. The projects may not appeal to everyone's taste, but they do teach you how to get the look you want in your paintings.

If your a serious beginner at watercolor this book has it all. The tutorials are not cute and whimsical but real nitty gritty exercises to teach you how to paint with water. I have not finished the book yet and I'm mixing it up with other beginner watercolor books that are cute and whimsical. However, David Webb's book is one to keep coming back to. A book to keep in your library as a reference. You can't go wrong buying this book.

One of the best books on watercolour. Clear instructions and good range of techniques.

Excellent instructional watercolour book. However, I found the illustrations to be too dark.

En definitiva una de mis libros preferidos de acuarela. Me encantó la manera en que está estructurado y como va desarrollando las técnicas. Muy recomendado.

Este libro es indispensable (como su mismo nombre indica) para todos aquellos que les gusten las acuarelas, tanto principiantes como más avanzados. Recoge todas las técnicas, muchas de las temáticas, ofrece ideas, recomendaciones... y todo ello con ejemplos de acuarelas de pintores profesionales. Está en inglés. Sería necesario tener nociones mínimas, pues a mi modo de ver es un libro de texto con muchas imágenes.

In Painting in Watercolor, author David Webb covers every aspect of watercolor painting from tools and materials to a variety of approaches to the medium. Throughout the book there are step-by-step demonstrations of techniques such as lifting out, backruns and spattering. One of the best things about this book, however, is the fact that it is filled from cover to cover with hundreds of examples of work from well known artists from around the world.