Watercolor Painting at Home: Easy-to-follow painting projects inspired by the comforts of home and the colors of the garden (Volume 1) (At Home, 1) Paperback – May 31, 2022

This is an introduction to watercolor painting for beginners. Hack is an artist living on a farm in Ohio. In this book, she introduces watercolor tools and techniques for folks who have little to no experience painting. The book begins with a few pages covering tools and materials, a few pages for ways to use your brush, and some hints about composition and color theory. Then comes the largest section of the book, with step-by-step illustrated guides to creating still lifes, collages, animal scenes, and flowers. Each of these mini-lessons begins with copying a sketch as an outline, then filling it in layer by layer with paints. The lessons include suggested strokes from the introductory section to use, and some basic hints about composition and color choice. Many of these lessons also provide encouragement for how to take the general theme and modify the idea to fit your own tastes and interests. The book is illustrated throughout with high-quality watercolor images painted by Hack.I have found this book quite useful for improving my painting. I’ve never been artist or taken art lessons, but I thought it would be fun to try a little painting. I soon got stuck because I didn’t know how to use the paints or how to choose paper. I really like Hack’s approach, where she writes “I suggest buying paper that is not so expensive that you are hesitant to use it.” Yes! I found this encouraging—it’s not crucial that every project come out so perfectly that you will treasure it forever. Especially when starting out, it’s important to simply paint, a lot, and keep painting until you get better. If you only work with expensive materials, you’ll never be able to afford the practice to get good at painting. I also like how Hack provides suggestions for composing and painting entire compositions rather than single objects. Overall, this is a great book for beginners and dabblers.

Artist Bley Hack works mainly in watercolors and presents her book "Watercolor Painting at Home. Easy-to-follow painting projects inspired by the comforts of home and the colors of the garden", published by Quarto Publishing Group – Walter Foster. This is a book of the "Inspired Artist Series" that is aimed for art hobbyists and casual art enthusiasts. The first part of the book touches topics such as "Finding Inspiration," "Tools & Materials," "Painting Techniques," "Design," and "Color Theory and Color Palettes." The second part of the book presents fifteen step-by-step projects such as "Fruit Bowl Still Life," "Kitchen Collection," and "Flora Outside Your Window." As a goal for her readers Hack invites them into her house and states: "I will show you how to look around at your surroundings and generate ideas One point I would like to emphasize is that the subject matter does not necessarily have to elicit excitement to make for an exciting painting If you look at historical and contemporary artists, many of them can take the most mundane subjects and turn them into brilliant work While our endeavors may not live on in history, they can inspire us to use the things at hand as fodder for our painting practice" (p. 5).I like it that Hack makes it clear to her readers that one does not have to travel far to find inspiration for painting. There are tips, comments and blobs entitled "More Ideas" throughout the books. They are helpful and I appreciate also the fact that Hack shows ideas how paintings can be used, e.g. as cupcake toppers or for giftbags. I recommend this book for beginners and advanced artists who are looking for new ideas and who do not have the possibility to travel far.The complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley free of charge. I was under no obligation to offer a positive review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.#WatercolorPaintingAtHome #Netgalley

This is an utterly gorgeous and inspiring book.Watercolor Painting at Home is a wonderful guide to finding the beauty in the day to day of your life and painting it. I love the idea of painting our collection of glass bottles that I refashioned to use as kitchen herb planters, or my Kindle or one our cats sleeping next to my mug of tea with a cookie, that concept takes the majority of my stress - my desire to paint with watercolors but my weird anxious worrying about what to paint and then not painting at all because I can’t think of anything to paint. This reminds me to go outside in our yard and look at the spring flowers that have begun blooming about, or take a look at my unorganized bookshelves and try to paint the charm of those perfect imperfections of our lives.The book itself is beautiful. Wonderfully whimsical paintings abound in these pages and I found myself just wanting to start painting again. I can’t give it high enough praise for that.I loved the inclusion of craft ideas for your paintings at the end.This is an absolute recommendation.eARC kindly provided by Walter Foster Publishing - Quarto Publishing Group and NetGalley. Opinions shared are my own.