Exploring Watercolor: Creative Exercises and Techniques for Watercolor and Mixed Media

What if . . . instead of waiting for the "big idea," you begin a painting by dropping beautiful color onto your paper and seeing where it takes you?
What if . . . you paint with a leaf (or a sponge, or a string) instead of a brush?
What if . . . you start painting not on a blank sheet, but overtop an abstract acrylic background?

Exploring Watercolor is a book full of fresh perspectives, open doors, and creativity-expanding "what-ifs" to help take your work to the next level. Discover new ways to get expressive with color . . . ideas for using nature's patterns and motifs to inspire enticing designs . . . how to expand your repertoire and unleash your creativity by experimenting with freeform collages, found imagery and other innovative techniques.

Inside you'll find:

• 22 open-ended, step-by-step demonstrations designed so you can do them over and over again, using various combinations of colors, papers and techniques for a different result every time.
• 9 exercises illustrating expressive ways to put paint to paper
• A fun and inspiring sampler of texture-making techniques--including printing methods, resists, sprinkling, spattering, stencils and "paper torture"--for paintings that sing with vitality.

Wherever you are as an artist, this hands-on guide will help you master the watercolor medium, develop your individual style, and move beyond a literal rendering of your subject matter to a more meaningful and memorable interpretation that expresses your unique vision. So let go of your self-imposed limits, play with different ways of painting, and--above all--paint with passion and joy!