Abstract Nature: Painting the natural world with acrylics, watercolour and mixed media

I love this book so much. Every single artwork is interesting and inspiring, and the techniques and tools used are fantastic. It is rare to find a book that so perfectly fits into what I am trying to achieve with my art--abstract, mixed media and nature. what a great find!

I needed information on application of natural materials, which it offers.

As a watercolor painter, I wanted to incorporate natural materials in my work and be more abstract. This book gave me ideas I am exploring. Her use of color is great too. Even months later I find her work in this book and her words inspiring.

Some good tips

Good

Enjoy the ideas

This book describes (to a limited extent) how to make semi-abstract paintings of nature subjects using acrylics, watercolors, and mixed media (addition of sand, natural materials such as leaves, etc.). I found the instructions in the first part of the book (pp. 10-28) interesting and useful, providing some ideas and techniques that I look forward to trying. The bulk of the book, however, consists of paintings by the author on the left side of each two-page spread and detailed instructions for producing those exact paintings on the right. One can extract general techniques from studying the examples, certainly, but I doubt that most readers will be interested in simply trying to duplicate her work. I thought the paintings themselves were beautiful, so I enjoyed that aspect of the book, but someone who doesn’t feel that way probably will find the book disappointing because there is so little general information that can be used to create art works of one’s own.

Great book! The pictures are inspirational and the instructions easy to follow. I can't wait to paint something from it.

Girlfriend loved this; the book gives a nice insight to oil/acrylics/watercolouring on canvas and other mediums with a focus on nature. Definitely inspiring and informative.

Il libro fornisce qualche spunto utile ed originale per creare opere nuove. Tuttavia, le idee sono pochine (benché molto interessanti) per riempire un libro, e gli esempi step by step (che invece sono molti) sono poveri di foto (c'è solo la foto del lavoro finito) e pertanto difficili da comprendere e da seguire nei loro numerosi e complessi passaggi.

Beautiful book. Full colour, silky, pages. Some reviews say that the artist's paint 'makes' are not shown. The images don't show the labels but her her favourite makes are given in the description. She also gives the other materials she uses too and provides images of these. The book is full of lovely images of her artworks with descriptions of the natural resources from nature that was used and how to apply them to the paper or canvas. There are brief step by step instructions for recreating some of her paintings but to allow for your own creativity rather than slavishly following her process. Most of her work is mixed media, using heavy acrylic and regular acrylic paint, Aquacryl watercolour and airbrush paints. It is very inspiring, and would encourage anyone to experiment with the processes. After looking briefly through the book I will probably invest in some acrylic paints as I don't have them but use the regular watercolour paints that I have.

Es un libro inspirador y muy bonito. Puede servir tanto para informarse de una vez de cuántas posibilidades tiene el método de la autora como para usarlo de guía y trabajar cada proyecto para aprender. Además, siento que se dispara la creatividad. Y, aparte, la pintora es una crac de hacer cosas bellas. Un goce.

De très bons conseils et informations sur l'acrylique, l'aquarelle et les techniques mixtes (attention, en anglais).