One Watercolor a Day: A 6-Week Course Exploring Creativity Using Watercolor, Pattern, and Design (One A Day) Paperback – December 1, 2013

Get a refresh! Well written and a delight to read.

The media could not be loaded. One Watercolor A Day follows the same style as Veronica Lawlor's previous book One Drawing A Day.It's a 6-week course of 42 daily exercises on experimenting with watercolour.The exercises are actually subjects that you can draw such as still life, landscapes, people, places, patterns and other miscellaneous ideas. If you're looking for ideas on things to draw, maybe this is the book for you.This is not a book on watercolour techniques. The visual examples are loose and expressive. Very much like watercolour doodles, not the realistic representational kind, so there's no stress on trying to match the quality that you see. The goal is to have some fun while exploring the styles offered and suggested by the different artists featured in the book.The artists are from Studio 1482, namely Veronica Lawlor, Despina Georgiadis, Eddie Peña, Dominick Santise, Greg Betza, Michele Bedigian and Margaret Hurst.It's a fun book for those who feel like trying something spontaneous, new or different for a change.(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

I've been working my way through the lessons in this book and more and more I am gaining confidence and knowledge about using watercolor and making artwork. I love the loose line and vibrant color in the artwork of Veronica Lawler, as well as the other artists that she works with at her studio and who's work features in this volume. Simple and clear instruction--you get a single lesson a day and enough lessons for 6 weeks and they make a perfect prompt for creating artwork each day. If you like freedom and loose lines in your artwork and wish to develop that style this is a great book for that. I highly recommend it!

This certainly is a different kind of publication. For someone like me whose watercolors do not turn out the way I would like, it's a great book as I see attempts that, to me, look amateurish. So this tell me that others out there who are disappointed with their work might like this book as they can see that some other people think they are good enough to publish. I guess anything goes. It would be good for a potential buyer to look at the video review. I had not done this. Had I done it I probably would not have purchased it. Anyway, I will add it to my collection and make use of it somehow, and thanks to the artists who dared to publish!

This is about the best painting instruction book I have ever worked with. Here's today's project. Here's an example of what someone in our group did. Here's another. Just a thought or two to keep in mind while you are working. OK. Go to it. What else do you need. No gorgeous, professional quality pictures you pretend to copy in four easy steps and then conclude you are hopeless because your version is a mess. I am on Day 14 in this book and I have learned something from each one. I am trying not to look at the next lesson until I finish today's. I suspect some people would be disappointed with "One Watercolor a Day" because of the loose, free-form quality of the examples given. I have read too many teaching books with beautiful pictures and found them ultimately discouraging. The hands-on approach in this book is super.

The worst, no talent author. Seriously this book is an insult to the mind and to the eye. And everything obviously took two seconds to do. Hard to imagine how someone could actually ask for money for this tripe. EDIT 2020. I have to say I just found this book on my shelf (I thought I had thrown it out) and it is the worst book I have ever owned. It actually enrages me. The idea that this person would have the audacity to think that this collection of meaningless crap that is not even recognizable as art... are they supposed to be called paintings?? How could a human being believe that these "paintings" were worth asking money for?? The NERVE! If there were even 10 minutes applied to each piece, even an ounce of thought or love, I would never say such a thing. I believe that if you are TRYING and we can see it...that is the human soul. This is pure conman BS, it's obvious each piece took five minutes to dash off.

This is a wonderful, inspiring book for experienced artists and beginners alike. Unlike many instructional art books, it does not give step-by-step instructions on how to draw/paint exactly like the author. It teaches you how to draw/paint like YOU, and how to learn the medium through using and playing with it. The illustrations included as examples are gorgeous and inspirational. You can take the prompts and follow them to a T, or add your own twist to each exercise. You can follow along in order, or skip around. Highly recommended!

OK, how to say this? This is not a bad book, but it's not the kind of art instruction book I like. I like Hazel Soan, for example, and like to work on pictures where there is some sort of recognizable result. Yes, superior artists often don't bother with that nonsense, but I'm a lot more pedestrian than they.I like watercolor art books with lots of neat pictures to give me inspiration. This book has some interesting and bright examples, but they are mostly blobs of color that look neat together. I am amused, for instance, when on page 46 the author says: "You'll notice ... I went back in and added ... detail such as leaves and branches in the trees. I also added a few shapes to describe the fence in blue." Haha! I guess the joke's on me, who noticed no such things. I see no trees, or leaves, and the blue shape looks like the top half of a person in silhouette holding a beach umbrella.I disagree with reviewers who say this is "great for beginners" unless beginners want the reassurance that it's OK if your painting doesn't look like anything in particular.