Customer Reviews

Paint Watercolors that Dance with Light

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This book is jam packed with tricks and techniques that Elizabeth Kincaid has honed to perfection. Elizabeth is not only a great artist, she is also an experienced art teacher. Her book is organized in such a way that you easily flow from one theme to the next. Her explanations are remarkedly simple - tried and true. She has obviously tested her methods with students and knows the best way to get her point across.

(I've posted photos of a painting I'm working on using the layering techniques from this book - see under Customer Images).

Her paintings are incredible--make sure you take advantage of the "see inside" link to view some of the contents of the book as well as some of her paintings.

Her main focus in the book is how to create realistic paintings that use both light and contrast to come to life. She uses the layering method, painting layer after layer of transparent glazes which create beautiful and lumunious works of art. The layering method is covered in detail in the book with examples laid out step by step so you can visualize the process.

The instructions are very practical, from what kind of paper and brushes to use, materials and other tools required to understanding hue and colour. She uses masking film and masking fluid to protect white or light areas so that she can paint the glazes more freely--all well detailed in the book.

What I like best about this book are Elizabeth's solid examples of problems and solutions--paintings that are just okay or have a problem that needs fixing. She shows clearly the before and after of each painting and explains how to resolve paintings that aren't cohesive or that lack the contrast they need to give them life. She takes an okay painting and turns it into a work of art before your eyes, using contrasts of light and shadow to make it look so real you'd swear it was a photograph.

It is an excellent book, and much more detailed then anything I could find in the stores. It is very detailed and I think will make a great book for learning how to start doing watercolors.

Frankly, I'm not fond of this title. The paintings in the book are high key, too moody, and too loud. So loud in fact, if her artwork could sing, it would shatter the sheet of glass placed over the mat inside the frame. Having saying that, it leaves a lot to be desired.I do admire the author's knowledge of attributes using colour with subtle tones of light and shade, but that's all you see. All her subjects have way too much central focus with very high contrast in the foreground with no color balance whatsoever.

She does acknowledge grey and complimentary colours, but it's forbidden during the dance. She also goes on explaining how to play hopscotch around the colour wheel ignoring Triads and Mid-Values in her demos. I'm going to dismiss this book with saying, it's an academic study of light and shade from a feminine point of view painting with Watercolour.