I have this book “Start to Paint with Watercolours” by Arnold Lowrey. I picked it up a long time ago, and tried the first exercise in the book, with what I felt were positive results. I tried the next exercise in the book, but didn’t find the walkthrough terribly helpful.

Today, I didn’t have much inspiration for a painting, so I decided to dig that book out now that I have some more understanding. I decided to try to paint one of the paintings in the book that didn’t have an associated walkthrough in an attempt to “Learn by doing.”

This was a very rewarding experience. I like the final results that I got, and I’m happy that I was able to get these results just by looking at the source image and guessing about the techniques he used to get the image. While my version isn’t as good as his, and while I still struggle with knifing highlights, I really liked this exercise. I’m probably going to try it again with a different painting.

I should also say that I didn’t find the book terribly helpful a year ago, but looking at it now, I find it much much more useful. So, I don’t think it’s exactly a book for beginners, but I do think it fills a much needed hole by being a really good resource for people like me, who are still very much beginners, but who have started to gain some control and predictability over watercolor as a medium.

With all that said, here is the painting by Lowrey:

And here is my version: