Customer Reviews

The Tao of Watercolor: A Revolutionary Approach to the Practice of Painting

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
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2 star:		(4)
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Beautiful to look at, lovely to touch and magical to read, The Tao of Watercolor is all this and more.

In a mere 112 pages, Ms Carbonetti manges to entertwine aspects of living with aspects of painting. She gives the reader a birds-eye view of how one goes about bridging the gap between play and work, between spontaneous expression and careful decision making.

It is important that the painter have had a class or two under their belt to receive the highest benefit from this book.

Jeanne Carbonetti includes exercises that help the painter move through the chapters with ease. She gives demos as well as simple explanations of the techniques.

Ms. Carbonetti is straight-forward when she describes The Tao of Watercolor as A Revolutionary Approach to the Practice of Painting. Basically the author gives the painter permission to try new ways of painting AND new ways of living our lives.

Ths approach may not be for everyone, however what the reader receives is worth purchasing the book.

I purchased this book hoping that it would help me loosen up my watercolor painting. I was disappointed enough to return it, something I rarely do. Clearly, this author has found an enthusiastic audience to which to sell these books and her paintings, but I suspect they are something of a fringe group. That's fine, but I recommend you look over this book thoroughly before committing to purchasing it. There is basically no instruction that will teach you to do a watercolor painting in anything but vague, fuzzy, garishly colored (she really, really likes bright pink) paintings that call to my mind the tie-died T-shirts of the 60's. I was also put off by the self-portrayal of the author as a kind of artistico-spiritual guru. In her experience, she says, all watercolor students fall into one of two categories: those who never finish a picture because they are too hung up on doing things just so, and those who would like to play but don't know how--left brain types and right brain types. She assures us she has had an epiphany and is now beyond such limitations. If you buy her books, she'll share her higher wisdom. Well, good for her, she's got her audience. There are Taoist quotes at the beginning of the chapters, but if you want to explore that philosophy, you'd be better off with a source that truly addresses it. If you want to learm how to do watercolors, this is not the place to do it.

This book is wonderful to look through and has a mystical feeling to it but the actual instructions for the paintings are very poor. I tried some of the demonstrations and even though I liked the end result, the instructions are vague. I would not recomend this book to beginners but rather to people who want to loosen up their paintings.

If you've been painting in watercolor and found yourself somewhat bound up by it all, then invest in this book to help free up and get looser with your painting. This isn't a comprehensive how-to book by any means. It doesn't pretend to be. What Jeanne offers in this book are ways to prepare yourself to paint and to unlock your creative spirit with Taoist thought as an easy-to-accept framework. If you don't have one already, get one of the "complete guide to watercolor" books and get this one too. It's a good read.

This book promotes a certain way of painting watercolors which, while no doubt spiritual and heartfelt in its intent, leaves much to be desired in terms of actual painting. Much of the techniques shown here are short cuts and visual platitudes that create very cliched pictures. The author's spiritual approach to the act of painting is worthwhile but if you really want to learn how to paint watercolor, buy books instead on Winslow Homer, John Singer Seargent and Thomas Eakins and study how these real masters used the medium.

If you started painting with watercolor because you love the color and flow of the paint, this is an excellent book. I found this book extremely helpful in learning watercolor techniques that focus on the flow of the watercolor itself and not drawing. Jeanne Carbonetti helps the painter understand how to let the watercolor itself dictate what the painting is to become by allowing colors to do what they will while still maintaining control of the medium. Reality is added only near the end. This book gave me a great start but actually working with the artist solidified my understanding of the techniques and my own style of painting with watercolor. Carbonetti's style really allows watercolors to sing and have depth.

Ms. Carbonetti is much given to cosmic pronouncements and spiritual ramblings that have little to do with putting paint on paper. She might be forgiven these epic conceits, though, if only she'd spill the beans about exactly how she concocted the appealing pictures in the book. This is not a step-by-step account that might provide practical help to groundlings like me, but a hymnal for an Oriental temple. Bottom line: I like what she does, but I still don't know exactly how she does it.

I was so inspired by the book I when to a day and half workshop of the authors in Pasadena recently. I loved the book and was quite pleased with the results I was getting with my paintings. I am a visual person and seeing her deomstrate her techniques in person was a very valuable learning experience. I am looking forward to her next book - its on order with Amazon but has not arrived from the publisher as yet.

This beautiful book will expand the horizons for artists of all mediums, abilities and experience. It uses the basic concepts of Eastern philosophies in conjunction with western techniques. Moreover, it is inspirational, and will be found so even by non-artists. This is an undiscovered treasure.

I recently was able to see the galley proofs of Ms. Carbonetti's book and was very impressed with the quality of the artwork. The selection of prints and the presentation was incredible. I have already ordered my copy and can't wait to read the text that goes along with these beautiful pictures.