Two new painting books

I had two more painting books arrive today from the 'painting for pleasure' book club I belong to.

The first one is "Watercolour Flower Portraits" by "Billy Showell". Even though I have no particular desire to paint flowers I thought some of the techniques used could help with pet portraits. This is due to the beautiful delicate and detailed nature of flower paintings. I think it may help. I have only had a quick look, but it is a good book with specific sections on creating detail and step by step demonstrations. Billy's paintings are also gorgeous. I will have a more thorough look at a later date and maybe even pluck up the courage to follow a demonstration!

Brilliant new art book

I have just recently joined a book club that caters for artists. It's called Painting for Pleasure and is run by Reader's Union. My latest order arrived yesterday and one of the books I ordered is 'realism in watermedia' by Christopher Leeper. I find it hard to find art books that give instruction on how to paint in a realistic style. A lot of books out there give lots of advice on techniques but a lot of the artwork in the examples is very abstract, and I find it hard to adapt these techniques to produce realistic artwork. I've been looking for books that have step by step demos but also explains how the reader can acheive results in their own work. This book is one of them. It is written in a really nice, clear way and the text is accompanied by lots of photographs.

It has 7 chapters, and covers watercolour, acrylic and mixed media:

• basic materials
• plan values for impact
• painting from life
• painting from photographs
• watermedia techniques
• mixed media techniques
• step-by-step demonstrations

I very rarely read an art book and feel inspired to tackle some painting but this book has given some good advice and inspired me to have a go, so I will be good and work on my commissions tommorow, but I think I may tackle a painting at the weekend.