You'll love this watercolor painting book if:

You want a solid foundation in watercolor painting
You're interested in learning directly from Gordon's years of experience
You need help to develop solid compositions in watercolor

Benefit from Gordon MacKenzie's wealth of knowledge and experience in The Watercolorist's Essential Notebook. Begin by learning the tools of the trade: you'll discover more about your paints, brushes, and paper than you thought possible! Learn the difference between transparent, semitransparent, and opaque watercolors, along with properties and behaviors of each type. Gordon explains the difference between synthetic and natural brushes, along with different types of natural bristles and hair, plus explains what paper is the best to get reliable results for every painting.

"Selecting proper tools and materials for watercolors has a profound effect on the results you get. Notice that I said 'proper' and not 'most expensive.' There is a difference between buying the most expensive supplies and purchasing appropriate supplies that perform to the highest level, suit your needs and fit your budget."

Once you've covered the basics of supplies and materials, you'll learn an introduction to a wide variety of painting techniques. Gordon covers paint application (painting with brushes, a palette knife, sticks, and sponges), how paints interact with water, methods to master washes and glazes, how to fade out a color, working wet-into-wet, masking, and more!

Finally, you'll learn the critical components of putting together in a successful composition. Gordon's factors to consider include subject, center of interest, shapes, lines, movement, values, color harmony and contrast, and many other elements that work together to create a successful composition. You'll find diverse ways to approach a watercolor composition, tips for developing a series of paintings, when to plan versus when to trust your intuition, and finally, when to save a troublesome painting and when to get rid of it and move on!