If you were going to buy just one book on painting in watercolour, you wouldn’t go far wrong with this one. Looked at from the perspective of someone who has seen a great many art instruction books, from the basic to the advanced and from the brilliant to the terrible, my first impression is that there isn’t anything special about this one. On the other hand, that is in many ways its strength. Sally Harper covers a wide range of techniques and subjects without going into more detail on any of them than a beginner needs. The page format is relatively small, but that also makes it unintimidating and tends to concentrate one thing to each spread, which also makes it straightforward to follow.
All in all, this is a book it’s hard not to damn with faint praise, which is a shame, because it’s good value and sits well with the market it’s aimed at.
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