Watercolour Flowers (Ready to Paint)

June 08

People often want to take up painting when they retire and have more time. Others start sooner, once their kids are grown and in school. The drawing part of painting can be hard for beginners - enough of an obstacle so they give up or never get past painting by numbers.

My friends who paint have always had a natural ability. They drew as children. I don't have that at all. Now two new books promise to make watercolor painting easier for beginners by following what I call an old-but-new approach.

The Ready to Paint series from Search Press in England is designed so that novice painters can pick up a brush and create appealing paintings with easy-to-follow tracings. The tracings can be reused. The idea is that you gain confidence as your hand-eye coordination is trained, by following the tracings, while you have some pleasing results to motivate you to keep trying.

Watercolour Flowers by Wendy Tait has nine reusable tracings to pull out. Watercolour Landscapes by Terry Harrison has six reusable tracings to pull out. Both are to be published in June.

The artists explain how to compose a painting with simple instructions and tips. Both Tait and Harrison are authors as well as artists.

Wendy Tait studied at the Joseph Wright School of Art. She now teaches watercolour painting to adults, runs residential courses and often gives demonstrations to Art Societies. She produces designs for publication as greetings cards, and in 1998 was commissioned by the Jersey government to produce a series of autumn flower paintings for postage stamps. She has also written articles and produced illustrations for specialist art magazines.