Developing Style in Watercolour

Style is the quality that distinguishes one painter's work from another's. Just as people evolve their own distinctive handwriting, so in time painters develop an individual style. Aspiring watercolourists seeking an effective style often go about it the wrong way - commonly by trying to copy artists they admire - and this book offers them advice. The author explains how the correct choice of materials - paper, paints and brushes - will help in the quest for genuine style. He lays particular stress on the development of fluent brushwork, on the choice of an effective but limited colour palette, and on the search for sound but original composition. Contending that timidity, tightness and the need to paint exactly "what is there", are the main obstacles to the development of fluent style, the author suggests techniques and brushwork for avoiding them. The final chapter includes the work of leading contemporary artists, and discusses their development and work in detail. Ray Campbell Smith also wrote "Fresh Watercolour".