Despite being a published writer, I rarely reviewed books. However, I am compelled to review the Watercolor for Relaxation book because I have been painting from it since Christmas. Although there is a plethora of watercolour instruction books, this one hits all the right notes for me personally for several reasons.
Table of Contents
Watercolor for Relaxation covers a good variation of subjects.
Relaxation Is The Key!
Being a perfectionist, I tend to overwork my paintings to the point of torture. As much as I find painting therapeutic, my tendency to redo and rework my paintings kind of defeats the purpose. I love that this book is all about not being achieving perfection but rather focus on the mind.
To be truly at peace with imperfections, none of the projects required taping, which, in itself, is a big change for me.
Angelica Torres, the author, is known by the name Love Letters to Milo on Youtube, and Instagram. Some of the projects in the book can also be found on either platform.
Zen Influences
Angelica has lived in Japan, which explains some of the projects in the book and why I am immediately drawn to it. Japan is one of my favourite countries I have traveled to and I love its culture.
Instead of the titanium white acrylic paint suggested in the book, I used Dr Ph. Martin’s Bleed Proof White. For the Sakura project, I don’t have a filbert brush so I used my round. I have to tell myself to let go of comparisons and perfection and simply paint these my own way, focusing on the process rather than the outcome.
The method to create the Enso was initially daunting to me, but the circle came out like a circle, though it lacked the dry brush look like Angelica’s.
Repetition is Relaxing!
Since I have a dagger brush from my Craftamo x Lindsay Weirich brush set, I did a very quick painting from the second project of the book called “Relaxing Transparent Leaves”. I had one fatter leaf toward the bottom but otherwise it was not hard. Painting patterns and repeating the same brush strokes are very relaxing.
Simple Seascapes
I always wanted to do seascapes so I painted “Relaxing Day at the Beach” next. My husband thought I painted two eggs by the water. 😛
As you can see, I have not mastered seascapes yet. In addition, my stars looked more like snow! 😛
This is another project I will likely repaint in the future. I had sketched out the buildings before painting, but I reworked the variegated wash to the point of ruining it. Again, this book is good for me because I noticed that the less I retouched/reworked the paintings, the better they turned out, as evident in my next painting from the book.
Since I have painted similar trees from Let’s Make Art subscription box before, this painting turned out better than the rest. Instead of using masking fluid for the “glowing” tree, I used Scrapbook.com’s Pops of Color in Satin.
I did not rework this painting at all, and this turned out the best among all the projects that I did from Watercolor for Relaxation.
Is Watercolor for Relaxation Beginner Friendly?
Apart from 2-3 paintings, the rest of the projects do require a little bit of experience with watercolour. I am not a beginner anymore but somewhere in the intermediate, and I find that there are not too many books for intermediate. I would put this book somewhere in the middle so it is perfect for people who have a bit of experience and knowledge in watercolour but not fully advanced yet. These projects can be modified or serve as inspiration if you have the dreaded block and don’t know what to paint.
“Getting Lost in the Forest” is probably the most advanced out of all the projects. The steps won’t completely guide you how to do it but give some tips so you can adapt and adjust as you wish. For the beginner this particular project may be a little too advanced.
Summary
Overall, I love how meditative Watercolor for Relaxation is. It also has a lot of useful tips. It doesn’t have step by step on how to paint, which is not the objective of this book. Instead, it gives you a lot of ideas what you can paint and your paintings won’t look exactly like everyone else’s even if you painted from this book. It has a variety of different subjects and has repainting values too. I highly recommend it!
