Watercolour and Beyond
Exploring the Frontiers of Landscape Painting
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Search Press Ltd
Publishing:13th May '25
£17.99
This title is due to be published on 13th May, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Discover a world of innovation beyond pure watercolour with over 60 exciting approaches and exercises from the master of watercolour landscapes, David Bellamy.
‘In this book I aim to illustrate ways in which to make your watercolours glow with excitement, offer you new methods of working, and at the same time make the whole experience great fun!’ David Bellamy
'Quite simply, David Bellamy's best book and something of a personal manifesto informed by a lifetime of experience... It’s a heck of an achievement.' Henry Malt - artbookreview.wordpress.com
David Bellamy is a successful and long-standing authority on the landscape in watercolour. Throughout this book he shares his extensive knowledge and experience and encourages confident artists to explore the boundaries of watercolour and forge new creative paths for themselves through experimentation.
Alongside over 100 inspiring examples of David’s work there are more than 60 innovative approaches and exercises, with tips, visual examples and step-by-step technique, throughout the following sections:
- Starting traditional (exploring pure watercolour): Approach the basics in a new way – gain experience using just one colour, work with a limited palette, then tackle the striking results you can achieve with harmonious colours.
- Developing your style: Through short step-by-step techniques and plenty of finished, fully detailed examples, learn how to combine watercolour with gouache and use additives, inks, collage, pastels, stamping, gesso, watercolour ground, different surfaces, and found materials to create atmospheric, innovative results, for example for suggesting distant rain or creating dramatic sunlight effects.
- Interpreting and altering your subjects: Discover how to change the light or colours in a finished painting, introduce features that are not present or emphasise those that are, exaggerate perspective, or turn part of the composition into abstraction. Discover also how to alter, rescue and improve a painting where you may have a problem, or decide to change a passage on a whim.
- Taking it further: The final section is devoted to projects which you might like to consider – or what to do with your painting skills: personal projects that may relate to your family, your holidays, volunteer work, or perhaps involving the local community or a special cause.
Watercolour and Beyond is an innovative, practical book, aimed at equipping landscape artists of all abilities with exciting new ideas and techniques.
David Bellamy has been a prolific author of deservedly successful books from The Wild Places of Britain through the now somewhat dated Watercolour Landscape Course to others which have concentrated on more specific aspects of the genre.
I think the first thing to say is that, if you’re worried by the “and beyond” of the title and wondering whether David has gone a bit weird, avant garde or experimental, calm yourself – he hasn’t. Nor is this the landscape course rehashed. What we have is, quite simply, his best book and something of a personal manifesto informed by a lifetime of experience. In the introduction, he says that he intends to “illustrate ways in which to make your watercolours glow with excitement; to offer you new methods of working and new ways of using familiar materials”.
Hang onto that familiarity, because we’re still within the realms of the man we know and love. If there are surprises here, they’re all of delight in exploring the possibilities of a medium David says galleries tend to overlook. That’s perhaps more the view of the professional artist, but as well as filtering down, things can also percolate upwards, so let’s champion the grassroots. Yes, the use of plastic food wrap to produce texture or dipping a toe into mixed media are not something we’ve associated with David in the past, but the results are entirely what you would expect.
A small part of me wishes this had come out as a hardback, which would have given it the heft it deserves, but that would have made it more expensive, perhaps unnecessarily. If you’re a fan of David, you’ll buy it on the spot. If you’re in any way serious about watercolour you should, too. Think of it as a new course, one for the dedicated, perhaps advanced, watercolourist from a teacher at the height of his powers. It’s a heck of an achievement.
-- Henry Malt * artbookreview.net *ISBN: 9781800923003
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
160 pages