Ideal for artists short on time, the Ready to Paint series from Search Press shows you how to complete a painting in just 30 minutes. Leisure Painter contributor, Lesley Linely runs workshops and classes from her studio in Derbyshire and has many years' experience teaching beginners to paint. Her new book, Mountain Scenes in Watercolour is a guide for complete beginners. Information on basic watercolour techniques is followed by sections on how to paint elements of the landscape, such as skies, distant trees or rushing water.
The examples are all post-card size, which are ideal for an A6 watercolour pad. The book finishes with three full size paintings for you to try, and outlines are included on tracing paper to help you being painting straight away.
* Leisure Painter *
This well thought out series goes from strength to strength and, in new author Lesley Linley, has found an excellent demonstrator for a perennially popular subject.
Having spent several years living on the beautiful island of Skye, she is at home with mountains, vistas, water and misty panoramas. All these feature in this exciting and inspiring book and Lesley's considerable experience as an adult education tutor ensures that the explanations are clear and concise. The book is based around 32 postcard-size projects, for which outline tracings are provided. Each one should take about 30 minutes to complete and deals with a single topic - receding tones, rock textures, distant and close-up trees, skies, mist, highlights in a sparkling stream and much, much more.
The result is a comprehensive and, above all, practical course in painting upland landscapes. It's easy to follow, inspiring and most important, great fun.
-- Henry Malt * Paint *
Having lived for several years on Skye, Lesley is well-placed to understand the many moods and atmospheric variation of mountain landscapes and this latest addition to an excellent series covers everything from aerial perspective and tonal recession to textures in rock and reflections in water.
Each of the 32 projects concentrates on a single topic, so there are no complex scenes to get bogged down in. The whole idea is to develop your skills through simple exercises, each with a full-size A6 tracing that's easy to transport and can be completed quickly. If you're stuck on a larger work of your own, you could even break off for a quick bit of revision before going on - so much better than spoiling the whole thing at the last minute!
This is a delightful book in a series that's already been well thought-out and Lesley's confident approach makes it especially easy to follow.
* Artbookreview.net *
From hazy distant views seen across calm waters to rugged snow-capped peaks, Lesley Linley captures every aspect of upland landscapes in this easy-to-follow guide.
Each of the 32 demonstrations is accompanied by an actual-size tracing that allows you to get the outline and composition right first time and concentrate on the actual painting itself.
As well as a full variety of scenes, Lesley demonstrates skies, trees, rocks, water and that elusive quality, atmosphere. Each project is simple and short and concentrated on a single topic, with Lesley's clear instructions making the book easy to follow.
If you want to paint a mountain of moorland scenes, this is one of the best introductions.
-- The SAA * The SAA Catalogue 19/20 *
