Painting Little Landscapes: Small-Scale Watercolors of the Great Outdoors by Zoltan Szabo
Watercolourist Zoltan Szabo believes in painting small, and in this book he demonstrates how to create watercolour landscapes no bigger than about 10 x 11. Among the advantages of working in this size are the great spontaneity, resulting from rapid drying, and the pronounced textural effects granular pigments yield on a small surface. Each of the seven chapters covers a specific aspect of nature in its various guises: water (still lakes, pounding ocean surf, ice), mountains (rolling hills, craggy peaks), trees, snow, rocks, skies and clouds, and flowers and closeups. The book is essentially a series of painting demonstrations based on photographs. Each lesson begins with a reference photo and a pencil sketch in which Szabo indicates compositional adjustments. He also presents the palette he has chosen for each painting, explaining his colour selections and how the pigments interact. Then he describes in detail the various techniques - washes, drybrush, and wet-in-wet, for example - and thought processes leading to the finished painting. Assignments are suggested throughout.