Experimental Landscapes In Watercolour, Ann Blockley – Book Review

128 pages.  This is a well-titled book.  Any piece of artwork is an experiment.  You never know how it’s going to work out.  Especially when you use some of the techniques in this book. There’s acrylic inks, gouache, salt, granulation medium, clingfilm, tissue paper, cellophane, prints  from found objects, gesso,…  Anything you can find in the kitchen that’s not nailed down probably appears in a painting in this book.

The results are outstanding.  This is the most beautiful art instruction book I’ve ever seen.  Truly fantastic.  I find the work in this book to be a great inspiration and the main function of art instruction books for me these days is to inspire me rather than to instruct.  People needing instruction rather than inspiration will be disappointed though.  They might want to check out Dynamic Watercolours by Jane Betteridge, which, I believe, uses similar techniques but serves more to instruct than to inspire.  The Betteridge book is on my wishlist but I note that reviewers have accused it of being an Ann Blockley rip off.

There are three more Ann Blockley books out there with these sort of techniques in them.  Two of them are on my wishlist. Even if there’s not that much difference in the techniques that the books describe, there will be different paintings in there.  And, I repeat, this book is about inspiration rather than instruction, so that’s good enough for me.

This book easily scores five stars from me on Amazon.  But five palettes is a higher bar than five stars and this one is just short of that level.