Landscapes in watercolour - Dave Woolass

This guide to painting watercolour landscapes is ideal if you want to learn to paint but are short on time. Broken down into 33 quick and easy paintings that take no more than 30 minutes to complete, this basic course will teach you all the skills you need to paint landscapes and their components, including trees in winter, sparkling water, hedgerows and gates, animals, human figures and buildings in the landscape.

The 30-minute paintings are all worked at postcard size - ideal for a 6 x 4in (A6) watercolour pad, and tracings are included for those with limited drawing skills. Each small painting is a work of art in its own right, and can be stored in your portfolio for reference later, or framed and hung on the wall to impress your friends.

The book is broken down into chapters that focus, respectively, on essential watercolour techniques including colour mixing and glazing; laying washes and creating skies and realistic-looking clouds; the rudiments of composition; trees and flowers in a landscape; water- still and moving, from stream to open sea; and the living landscape - human and animal figures, structures and buildings in the landscape.

The final section of the book contains three complete paintings that demonstrate how to combine all the techniques and elements of painting landscapes, as gleaned from the preceding chapters. These paintings, too, are accompanied by actual-size tracings.

There are 33 tracings in all to help you compose your own landscape paintings.

Praise for the Ready to Paint in 30 Minutes series:

"This is a genuinely exciting evolution of a popular series. You'll be guided through some simple exercises and on to complete paintings, gaining valuable insights that will develop and improve your skills." -Henry Malt, Artbookreview.net