How to paint Fantasy Art in Watercolour - book review

Being an avid fantasy artist I wanted to highlight this great book from Search Press 'Fantasy Art in Watercolour-Painting Fairies, Dragons, Unicorns & Angels' , a genuinely interesting book with easy-to-follow projects by Rebecca Balchin, Elaine Hamer and Paul Bryn Davies, top watercolour artists who are expert at painting fantasy art using the difficult medium of watercolour.

I have been a collector of fantasy art books (and an artist myself) for about 22 years and this particular books struck me with the number of step-by-steps for each project which allows the user to follow projects ilustarted in great depth. To often, the step-by-steps are lacking and can be sparse with the reader left a little high and dry having to fill in the gaps. This book does a good job of offering enough steps to be easy informative and allow the artist to work through he projects well.

Fantasy Art in Watercolour is a compilation of four earlier fantasy art books, brought together in one enhanced volume. There is advice on each individual area including subjects and backgrounds with ideas for producing artworks that vary from the traditional fantasy images to work with more depth and excitement. Each section covers the subject in detail showing you not only individual sections such as fairy limbs, unicorn hooves and horns or dragon scales, but how to use different watercolour painting techniques to create unusual effects. Each section also ends in two step-by-step demonstrations for the reader to follow which are easy to follow and utilise techniques covered in the book

 An additioal feature of the book are the fold out tracings for each demo which clearly mark out the practice paintings, so any budding artist can focus on making best use of the many techniques learnt in the book. Clear step-by-steps and fold out tracing guides, along with the informative nature and clear expert advice make this an ideal book for watercolour artists wanting to create paintings based on the realms of fantasy.

Watercolour painting is a skill not easily learnt and being more of a heavy acrylic painter myself, I always want to put more paint down on the canvas. With this in mind, I found the book easy to follow and genuinely think it would be a good addition to the watercolourists library of reference books.

A little about the artists
Paul Bryn Davies is a commercial illustrator who has designed more than 150 book jackets for best selling authors such as Stephen King, Christopher Pike, Robert E. Vardeman, and Lyall Watson. He is the author of several books, including Dragons in Watercolour, Fairies in Watercolour, Painting Fairies in Watercolour and How to Draw Fairies.

Rebecca Balchin is an art instructor and equine-portrait artist. She is the author of Angel and Fairy Designs.

Elaine Hamer is a professional illustrator, a jewellery designer, and the author of Painting Angels in watercolour

The images below illustrate the easy to follow steo-by-steps which accompany each project and an example of the fold out tracing images which the artist can use as an excellent guide to their fantasy art water colour painting.

If you are interested in painting, be it traditional or digital then take a look at some of the other reviews below.

• Dragons Domain by Bob Eggleton - book review
• How to Paint Fantasy Art in Watercolour - book review
• Star Wars Visions - fanatsy art - book review
• Other Worlds, Tom Kidd fanatsy art - book review
• How to Paint a Dragon
• How to paint Vibrant Flowers in Watercolour - book review
• How to Draw and Paint Fantay Warriors & Heroes with Alan Lathwell - book review
• International Artist Magazine
• Winsor & Newton Watercolour box set