Landscapes In Watercolour
What To Paint series
Terry Harrison

Search Press
2 June 2010/ ISBN 1844486613
How-To Books/Painting
Amazon US || UK

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde

Search Press has given the beginning artist the wonderful and innovative Ready To Paint series (lots of titles reviewed on this site) and now unveils its latest range – What To Paint. This is suitable for the artist at the next stage, or indeed any stage if you like, who is faced with a sheet of blank watercolor paper and the dreaded “artist’s block”. In here is inspiration!

The book contains twenty-four different and lovely watercolor landscapes,, shown as both full color paintings and outlines. Turn to the beginning to discover how to transfer them, and choose the one you like best. Then turn to the relevant page to find the whole page image in color, plus three or so brief stages showing helpful hints as to tackling various details. There is a palette of the paints you need to buy, shown helpfully in color, plus a description of the brushes and any other items such as masking fluid.

There are various landscapes in here, mostly very English, but there are Continental and American views too including one of snow-covered mountains. Also included are a lot of woodlands, snowy Christmas Card-style scenes, cottages, farms, country towns, seasides, etc. In short, it is where you go after you have mastered those staged projects, and a halfway-house between that and your own work. Better still, you are free to do whatever you wish with the pictures you paint with these outlines. You can sell them for charity of course, but you can also sell them and keep the money! All you need to do is write on the back of the work “inspired by Terry Harrison”. It’s another great idea from Search Press and hopefully the start of a long, and wide-ranging series.