Archive for category Author: Ann Mortimer
Ready to Paint in 30 Minutes – street scenes, flowers
There was much to like about the old Ready to Paint series. The pre-drawn outlines and extended demonstrations made light work of a wide variety of subjects.
This new departure is more than just a re-vamp or extension of the original idea. In place of the complete paintings, there are thirty-odd smaller exercises that concentrate on a particular element of the subject, or a technique in the medium. Being A6, they can be completed in the field if you want, and using a pocketable watercolour pad (the series is all watercolour so far). The finale is 3 full-size (A4) paintings that bring everything together – the full orchestral run-though, as it were.
The approach is nicely progressive and these first two volumes cover subjects (street scenes and flowers) that benefit from the breakdown approach. Two more are in the pipeline for next year . There’s a pleasantly solid feel to the books and plenty of technical sections, hints, tips and generous instruction in the step-by-steps.
The original series went a long way and this deserves to as well.
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Orchids in Watercolour (Ready to Paint) || Ann Mortimer
Posted by Henry in Author: Ann Mortimer, Medium: Watercolour, Publisher: Search Press, Series: Ready To Paint, Subject: Flowers, Subject: Orchids on Jan 7, 2013
There’s a good variety of material here and it’s very well executed. Ann has taken the Ready to Paint format well beyond the basic fill-in-the-outlines approach and uses tints and shading to give depth and substance to her subjects.
Orchids are, as she says, “exotic, sensual and mysterious” and they offer plenty of challenges and opportunities as a subject. As an exercise in flower painting in general, on top of its specific subject, this is an excellent guide.
Flowers in the Landscape || Ann Mortimer
Posted by Henry in Author: Ann Mortimer, Medium: Watercolour, Publisher: Search Press, Series: Tips & Techniques, Subject: Flowers on Nov 9, 2009
This is a useful guide to flowers as an element within a larger painting rather than as a subject in themselves. Given that flowers feature in many landscapes this is timely, although there are a couple of demonstrations where the surrounding landscape rather seems to have disappeared and the flowers are, perhaps, more prominent than you might at first think. This isn’t necessarily a let-down, but if you were expecting less defined shapes and blocks of colour in place of quite a lot of botanical details, let’s say you might be surprised. If it’s the former you’re looking for, then you might find that Terry Harrison’s Watercolour Flowers fits the bill rather better.