1. Watercolor Essentials, by Birgit O'Connor. North Light Books, 2009. This book, which comes with a DVD, clearly explains the basic watercolor techniques. It's great for a beginner, but is also very valuable to the more experienced artist as a refresher and a helpful reference book.
2. Creating Textures in Watercolor, by Cathy Johnson. North Light Books, 1992. Shows you how to depict many textures, ranging from hair to fabric to metal to glass to wood to water. I use this book frequently.
3. Watercolor Bold and Free, by Lawrence Goldsmith. Watson Guptill, 1980. This book of experimental watercolor techniques inspires you to go beyond the same cliched subjects and paintings.
4. The Watercolorist's Answer Book, by Gina Rath. North Light Books, 2005. Subtitled "425 Tips, Techniques and Solutions", this book is chock full of practical techniques, information on value, color, composition and design.
5. Step by Step Watercolor Painting, by the Alexander Brothers. Sterling Publishing, 1994. While I generally avoid "step by step" books, these beautiful paintings by two brothers with very different styles can't help but inspire, and the book contains lots of interesting ideas.
In the future I'll post about more books, that cover painting in general and aren't specific to watercolor.
Do you own any of these books? What's your opinion? Do you have other favorites?
