What to Paint: Hills & Mountains in Watercolour: (What to Paint)

The What to Paint series is perfect for readers with some painting skills and experience, who are looking for inspiring painting subjects. Each book has 24 beautiful full-page size paintings, a colour palette for each one and informative captions pulling out details, tips and techniques used in various parts of the painting. At the back of the book there is a free outline for each painting for readers to transfer or scan on to paper. There are also instructions on transferring the images, and on selecting parts of the outlines to create new compositions. Watercolour artist, Peter Woolley, provides a stunning range of paintings encompassing a variety of scenes from gentle slopes and rolling hills to dramatic peaks of far off mountain ranges. Every painting is accompanied by outline transfers, which are ideal for beginners who want to get started painting landscapes without requiring the necessary drawing skills.

About the Author :
Peter Woolley has been a professional watercolour artist since 1986. His work has been exhibited across the UK and he tours extensively in the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District, from where he gathers the inspiration for his beautiful landscape subjects. Peter runs weekend courses across the North of England throughout the summer months and has published books and DVDs on watercolour as well as appearing on television in the UK. His work has been published as Limited Edition prints and Art cards and can also be found in private collections throughout Great Britain and overseas. Peter has recently been appointed art tutor on board Saga, Fred Olsen and CMV Cruises. This is his first book with Search Press. Peter lives in Derby.

Review :
April 2015 Peter Woolley brings us a new addition to Search Press' What to Paint series looking at hills and mountains in watercolour. Free outlines of each of Peter's inspiring paintings (24 in total) are included at the back of the book so you can get straight on with the painting. There's helpful advice on how to transfer the image to your paper, plus information on basic watercolour techniques, such as transparent washes, tonal landscapes, and how to paint rocks. Demonstrations include a view from the summit, snow and shadows, hills and lakes and sunshine and rain. March 2015 The What to Paint series is the big brother of Ready to Paint. The larger outlines give you more of an image to develop and the instructions are less detailed, appealing to those who have picked up the basic skills but still need a degree of hand-holding when it comes to composition, perspective and drawing. Because the images are printed on normal book paper and need to be assembled, it's worth investing in some Tracedown paper to make the transfer process easy. Each book contains 24 paintings and, as well as the outlines, you also get the finished result as the author painted it, some basic instructions, palette information and break outs of some of the important details. The idea is not to copy (thought you can do that if you want), but to create your own interpretation from a starting point a little way on from the blank page. Peter Woolley's subjects range from rough crags to more gently rounded uplands and he concentrates a bit more on different weather conditions and times of the year. He'll show you how to create atmospheric mists, the warm light of an autumn day and the chill of a winter afternoon. His paintings include both cloudy and clear skies, demonstrating how lighting affects the appearance of foregrounds and of recession. He'll show you how to use shading to give shape and substance to rocks and valleys as well as how to handle that all-important point where land meets sky in gentle transition. July 2015 A keen hiker, Woolley (Drawing Towards Watercolour) shares here many tips and tricks for realizing the settings of his pastime, hills and mountains, in the medium of watercolor. Techniques detailed in the guide, such as transparent washes and counterchange, help sharpen one’s watercolor skills. Two dozen short designs are included that focus on Earth’s high places. As is customary for titles in this series, the projects consist of finished paintings, a specific color palette list for each, and schematic line drawings of each work, which readers can use as a starting point for their own projects by photocopying and tracing. They may practice their skills by reproducing the author’s paintings as faithfully as they please or altering the compositions and color palettes as creatively as they wish. VERDICT Beginning and intermediate artists are the best audience for this guide.