Ever since he sprang onto the scene a few years ago, Charles Evans has been in demand as a teacher, demonstrator and author. Although maybe not one of the greatest artists alive, he’s one of those technical painters who can (and do) explain their techniques and who has a wealth of little tricks that make some of watercolour’s more difficult aspects a little easier to get on with.
I always feel I’m being unfair when I suggest that an artist isn’t among the greats, not just because, frankly, I am, but because I’m open to the charge that I couldn’t do any better. I’ll come back to that in a minute. What I mean is that, if you were a collector of contemporary watercolours, you might not find yourself bidding competitively against other collectors as you could for someone like (say) John Yardley. If I could paint like Charles, I’d be perfectly happy to display the results on my wall, though.
And that brings me back to the “could you do better?” issue. The simple answer to that is: no, and that’s where this book and this type of author come in. It’s hard to learn techniques from someone whose style you idolise and aspire to only in dreams. However, there are quite a few painters like Charles Evans who have a sound technical ability that they are willing and, most importantly, are able to communicate. If you or I could absorb just a little of what they have, we’d be infinitely better at what we do. We buy the books, we get what we wanted and we’ve learnt something.
So, take this as a recommendation and gain a wealth of handy tips on skies, trees, animals, people, perspective, depth, distance and a whole lot more. Every volume in this series has been a mine of information and this one doesn’t disappoint.
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