A Review of My Watercolor Books

Like many other watercolor painters, I have a collection of instruction books that I buy when I'm in between classes and need some fresh inspiration. There are many books available that I don't have yet, so this is far from a complete list of what you might want, but it could get you started, anyway.

Watercolor Lessons from Elliot O'Hara, by Carl Schmalz. This is a foundational book. Eliot O'Hara was a modern master of watercolor, and has been called "America's greatest teacher of watercolor." He had a famous school at Goose Rocks Beach, Maine, and also taught all around the US. His student and assistant, Carl Schmalz, compiled O'Hara's lessons into this book to create a mini course that can be completed in about six weeks. The book is no longer in print, but is available used from various sources, including Amazon. I heard about it from one of my teachers, Tom Hoffman, who was a student of Carl Schmalz while at Amherst College. No matter what your experience level, this would be a great book to have on your shelf. I refer back to it over and over, and always learn something new.

Finding and Improving Your Painting Style, by Carl Schmalz. This book is designed to help you develop critical judgement about your own work. This is not in the negative sense, of course, but in the artistic sense, where you learn to discern whether your painting reflects your vision and intention for it, and if not, why. Schmalz guides you through the process of analyzing your own work to identify the definite "look" that you create, and to focus on developing your strengths and underplay your weaknesses. This is another foundational book, which I also learned about from Tom Hoffman.

Watercolor Basics: Let's Get Started, by Jack Reid. (I am compelled to make an aside here: Don't you just love how these master painters call things "basic" that it takes years to attain any sort of competence at? Not to dis this book. It's vitally important to have stellar examples to look at when you're trying to learn this skill. I just have to mentally cross out the word "basic" when I'm looking at the illustrations.) Anyway, this is a great book for learning essentially everything you need to know about to make a successful painting, from the types of materials to use and how to set them up, to brushes and brush strokes, to techniques such as washes, layering, wet-in-into wet. And if your results don't look like his right off the bat, join the club!

Making Color Sing, by Jeanne Dobie, AWS. This book inspires me. I absolutely love Jeanne's approach to color and design. I would call this another foundational book because it covers the issue of color much more comprehensively than any of my others, as it well should with color as its subject. In a whole bunch of different lessons, you first learn about the characteristics of the different pigments, then about how to select and mix colors, layer, use glazes, make your color pulsate with life, get the most from darks, so on.

How to Make a Watercolor Paint Itself: Experimental Techniques for Achieving Realistic Effects, by Nita Engle. If you're in the mood for something fun and different, try some of the techniques in this book. Nita starts off by talking about materials and how to set things up to paint. Then she goes straight into a variety of approaches for creating a watercolor painting that go beyond the application of paint with a brush, including squirting paint from a bottle, using a knife to sculpt rocks as you would working in oils, throwing paint, stamping with crumpled paper, and so on. I hold a weekly watercolor meetup group and think it would be fun to spend a session or two trying out some of these ideas together. The reason I'm game to do this is because the group meets at the Loyal Heights Community Center rather than my house. :)

Watercolor Painting Outside the Lines: a Positive Approach to Negative Painting, by Linda Kemp. No, no, no! Negative painting is not something you do when in a bad mood! It's in fact a very important and underutilized technique that you can add to your painting repertoire. It consists of defining an object by painting around it. Sounds simple, and in fact is simple. But in this book, Linda Kemp helps you attain true mastery and gives you many ideas about where this can be used to great effect in your work. There's an example of negative painting in the picture below, where I defined the tree trunks by painting around them.

Winter Barn

BTW, I review books on pictorial composition in another post.

PS: If you want to write up any reviews of your own watercolor books, feel free to post them here in comments, and I'll get them up on the blog.

Books on Pictorial Composition

Now that I've got the basic idea of how to put paint on paper and how to take a correctly exposed and focused photo, I've been giving this subject of composition a lot of attention, sometimes reading and studying rather than painting and photographing! Not that I will do this for long, but this is important enough to warrant the special focus.

Here are two books on composition that apply to any type of pictorial art. Although they're written with the painter in mind, these principals are just as important in planning and executing a fine art photograph. Composition makes or breaks a painting or photo. No matter how good the application of the paint is or how beautiful the objects in the photo are, the picture will fail without a good composition. 


Pictorial Composition, An Introduction, by Henry Rankin Poore. If you really don't have a clue about the classical rules of composition, this book will help. It's the kind of thing that every serious artist should at least know, even if they choose to ignore it in their work. It certainly helps you understand why some arrangements in a picture work while others clearly don't. I didn't many of the explanations to be all that clear, but by looking at the illustrations and thinking about them, I got the drift. Then I moved on to the next book.


Mastering Composition: Techniques and Principles to Dramatically Improve Your Painting, by Ian Roberts.This is a beautifully done book and includes a 40 minute instructional DVD. ( I couldn't raise the volume on the DVD on my computer, but it probably works fine in a regular DVD player.) Roberts teaches a five-step approach to creating powerful compositions:

• Choosing good references and create a range of thumbnail designs
• Identifying the structures at work within a composition based on eight common armatures
• Using a viewfinder to determine framing and cropping
• Analyzing color shapes or value, hue, and intensity
• Directing the eye through the picture plane

Favorite Nonfiction Books

My writing teacher, Jim Molnar, wanted us to each create a list of our favorite nonfiction books. Here's mine:

John Adams by David McCullough; Simon & Schuster, 2001, paperback. ISBN: 0-7432-2313-6. This wonderful history gave me new insight into the forces and personalities that formed our nation, and a hearty admiration and respect for John Adams’ role in its founding.

Enter the Zone by Barry Sears, Ph.D with Bill Lawren; Harper Collins, 1995, hardcover. ISBN: 0-06-039150-2. Dr Spears makes a convincing argument about the need to “avoid the dangers of bad carbohydrates”to balance hormone and insulin levels and provides detailed information about a suggested diet. Following this diet has helped address of several health issues that I had been experiencing.

Freakonomics: A Rougue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner; Harper Collins, 2005, hardcover. ISBN:0-06-073132-X. This engaging book has taught me to look “under the covers” of the obvious to look for the real mechanism that may be operating in a socio-cultural situation.

Future Shock by Alvin Toffler; Bantam, 1970.ISBN-13: 978-0553277371. When I read it in the 1970s, this book helped me realize that our society was entering a phase of unprecedented change. It also helped me understand that the stresses we have subsequently experienced over the last 30 years as a result are also unprecedented in human history.

Necessary Wisdom: Meeting the Challenge of a New Cultural Maturity by Charles M. Johnston, MD; ICD Press, 1991, paperback. ISBN: 0-89087-650-9. Dr Johnston introduces a theory of social evolution and identifies our place in it as well as the vital issues we must address in our time to remain and healthy and viable society. It is a surprisingly prescient book, and accurately forecasts many of the trends we have seen play out in our society over the last19 years since the book was published.

Providence of a Sparrow: Lessons from a Life Gone to the Birds by Chris Chester; University of Utah Press, 2002, hardcover. ISBN: 0-8748; 0-742-5.This delightful memoir gave me a new appreciation for the intelligence and emotional life of birds and more generally of all living things on this planet.It has reminded me to tread lightly upon the earth for I share it with other species just as deserving of an unsullied place in it as I.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carlson; originally published in1962 - Mariner Books; Anv edition (October 22, 2002). ISBN-13:978-0618249060. Rachel Carlson investigated the strange disappearance of many birds and discovered the cause was the use of DDT, dieldrin and other pesticides.Not only were birds being poisoned, but other animals and humans as well. This book helped launch the environmental movement.

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barak Obama; Vintage, 2006, paperback. ISBN: 978-0-307-45587-1. Obama showcases considerable scholarship regarding the causes of many events and political situations around the modern world. It gave me a much better understanding of American politics.

The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace by M. Scott Peck, MD; Simon& Schuster, 1987, paperback. ISBN-13: 978-0684848587. Dr. Peck describes the process of community building, which can be used by mediators and others interested in helping resolve conflicts between individuals or groups.

The Humanization of Man by John Julian Ryan; Newman Press, 1972, paperback. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 72-79124. Written by an artist living in the woods of New Hampshire, this book became my “bible” during the years that I was involved in technical product development. It taught me that no product should be designed without careful attention to the marriage of form and function.

The Path of Least Resistance:Learning to Become a Creative Force in Your Own Life by Robert Fritz; Ballantine Books, 1989, hardcover. ISBN: 0-449-90337-0. This book has taught me how to visualize and actualize my goals. This may be the most important book I’ve ever read.

The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier by Thad Carhart, Random House,2001, paperback. ISBN: 0-375-75862-3. A lovely memoir about pursuing a dream. It’s a wonderful story and teaches one a great deal about pianos.

A Theory of Personality: The Psychology of Personal Constructs by George Kelly, W.W. Norton & Co. (May 17, 1963) ISBN-13: 978-0393001525. Kelly theorized that we all create our own personal experience of reality via what he calls “constructs” and that we are not passive receivers of environmental or genetic influence, but rather have the ability to create our own selves to a far greater degree than previous theorists had allowed. This book is a favorite because Kelly breaks out of the corner than previous psychology theorists had painted themselves into and so allows new pathways for attaining healing and wholeness.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn, University Of Chicago Press, 3rd edition (December 15, 1996). ISBN-13: 978-0226458083. If first read this book in college in 1974 and it has informed my thinking about scientific and social theory ever since. Kuhn described the process though which theories are born,mature, and supplanted by other theories. This is an essential read for anyone who is the slightest bit interested in understanding scientific thought.

The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking; Bantam Books, 2001, hardcover. ISBN: 0-553-80202-X. Stephen Hawking is so good at explaining the unexplainable. This is a good book for helping sort out some of the mysteries of modern physics, and it has great illustrations.

Thoreau on Man and Nature Arthur G Volkman, Peter Pauper Press, 1960, hardcover. No ISBN. A compilation by Volkman from the writings of Henry D. Thoreau. This is a collection if vignettes, with wonderful descriptive writing regarding various subjects. If I ever want to take brief excursion away from the urgency of the moment, I open this book and read a few lines from it.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose;Touchstone, 1996, paperback. ISBN: 0-684-82697-6. The title says it all. A wonderful story, well told.

Providence of a Sparrow, A Book Review

When I saw the title of my sister’s gift, Providence of a Sparrow, Lessons from a Life Gone to the Birds, by Chris Chester, my first thought was,“Here comes another attempt to convert me into a light reader.” My sister is the self-appointed keeper of my well being and has decided, among other things, that I am way too serious a reader/thinker and that my health is somehow in jeopardy because of this, as my reading interests tend towards the philosophical and instructional. For example, the current population atop my bedside table includes titles such as Necessary Wisdom, Meeting the Challenge of a New Cultural Maturity, by Dr. Charles Johnston, The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge, by Klontz, Kahler, and Klontz and Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays by Stephen Hawking.

“Okay,” I thought, “this will be a quick read, and I can blast through it and let Winser know I read it. That should satisfy her for a while.” Little did I know that this little non-fiction gem would become one of my all-time favorite books.

In it the author, Chris Chester, tells the story of how he and his partner-to-become-wife, Rebecca, adopted a baby sparrow – who had “all the appeal of a testicle with a beak” – that had fallen from its nest under the eaves of their house and not only raised it to adulthood, but gave it the run of an entire room of their home, and provided it with a veritable flock of other rescued birds to keep it company.

Through the process of raising and caring for the sparrow, “B,” the Chesters learned important things about the science of ornithology. They also discovered some non-scientific truths that were even more important, such as how mistaken we humans can be about the intelligence and emotional capacity of the feathered co-habitants of this earth. We humans too frequently assume that birds are stupid, “feather-brained” if you will. The Chesters discovered that, on the contrary, even the much-maligned and disrespected house sparrow is capable of many surprising feats of intelligence and perception as well as affection for its own kind that can even extend to humans.

Chris Chester tells the story with sensitivity and humor. But then I don’t believe such a story could be told successfully otherwise. Nor would the circumstance that led to the story have likely occurred if the teller were not so keenly aware and observant of the unexpected in life.

I love the book because I learned in the reading, and this expanded my own awareness and appreciation of the feathered creatures I encounter. Although I’ve always been a bird lover, I pay more attention to them now, and enjoy them more than ever before.  When our yard robin “hangs out” with me while I’m gardening, I now entertain the thought that this behavior could be on purpose. And when I drag the garden hose out into the yard and every chickadee in the neighborhood arrives to take a bath in the water I deliberately spray on the tree leaves for them, I’m now inclined to believe that they’ve been watching for me to come out and perform just this service.

I also love the book because it taught me in a very enjoyable way, through fresh and engaging descriptive passages and a type of wry humor that I relish. For example:

“I felt as guilty as possible for leaving him alone. Indignant face plastered against the screen, he’d shriek minor-key laments Monday through Friday mornings when, after delivering his breakfast, I’d oil out of his room dressed in my work clothes.”

Chester keeps me engaged with the book from end to end. He never lets up on either the humor or the 

 descriptions, and he slips in factual meat between is done so deftly that I scarcely know I’ve been taught. I just want to pick up the book,and read it again.