Anna Mason - Anna Masons Watercolour World: Create Vibrant, Realistic Paintings Inspired by Nature

Also by

Anna Mason

Reviews of The Modern Flower Painter:

Anna is an award-winning botanical artist and experienced tutor, so the instruction is clear, inspiring and challenging.

The Leisure Painter

The book highlights Annas refreshingly contemporary approach to botanical painting, which sees many of the subjects appear to bloom before your very eyes

Artists & Illustrators Magazine

SEARCH PRESS

Anna Masons

Watercolour

World

This book is dedicated to those of you who pick up your brush even when:

your mind offers you a list of 100 more important things you should be doing.

youre scared youll be rubbish.

you feel its silly to waste time on it.

If youre reading this book, its likely that painting is important for your wellbeing. Painting regularly will be seriously rewarding. And when youre happy, you make the people around you happy so its doubly important!

CREATE VIBRANT, REALISTIC PAINTINGS INSPIRED BY NATURE

First published in 2018

Search Press Limited

Wellwood, North Farm Road,

Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 3DR

Text copyright Anna Mason 2018

Photographs by Aki Lalani: 9, 10, 1617, 20, 3031, 46, 70, 116, 118119, 131

Photographs Shutterstock: 40 (top centre), 42, 43, 52, 53, 68, 7282, 8488, 92100, 102110, 112

Apart from snapshots, all other photographs by

Roddy Paine Studios

Photographs and design copyright Search Press Ltd 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book, text, photographs or illustrations may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche, photocopier, internet or in any way known or as yet unknown, or stored in a retrieval system, without written permission obtained beforehand from Search Press.

Print ISBN: 978-1-78221-347-5

eISBN: 978-1-78126-393-8

The Publishers and author can accept no responsibility for any consequences arising from the information, advice or instructions given in this publication.

Readers are permitted to reproduce any of the items/patterns in this book for their personal use, or for the purposes of selling for charity, free of charge and without the prior permission of the Publishers. Any use of the items/patterns for commercial purposes is not permitted without the prior permission of the Publishers.

Suppliers

For details of suppliers, please visit Annas website: annamasonart.com

If you would like to watch video demonstrations of technique, receive support and personal feedback, as well as share your experience of learning to paint in this style, you are invited to join Annas online class and community via her website: annamasonart.com

Huge thanks to Phil and Carrie; without their committed work Id never have been able to write this book whilst still running my online school.

To Anna Ghublikian from Craftsy who was so skilled and helpful in getting me to think through and verbalise my painting process.

To Aki Lalani for taking the wonderful photos in my garden, and also to Becky Robbins for being such a supportive and empowering editor.

Cover

Annas Hummingbird on Foxglove

71 50cm (28 20in)

Page 1

Peonies

41 31cm (16 12in)

Pages

Purple Phalaenopsis

41 31cm (16 12in)

Publishers note

All the step-by-step photographs in this book feature the author, Anna Mason, demonstrating watercolour painting. No models have been used.

Spring sunshine lights up a vibrant anemone at the side of the path.

Rays of light dapple through branches onto ripening fruit.

A bird perches for a moment on the fence, its feathers iridescent in the fading evening sun.

These precious moments, the kind that make you stop in your tracks and feel grateful to be here, are what inspire my watercolours. In this book Im thrilled to invite you to spend some time with me in my garden and my studio as I share with you my inspiration as well as my tips and techniques for capturing your own inspiration with your paints.

Sunshine and vibrant colour: their power to lift the spirits has made them an enduring theme in my paintings. And thats been reflected in the pages of this book, which I hope will transport you to a warm and sunny September afternoon, while they fire you up to get your own paints out. And once fired up, the book gives you practical exercises to coach you in my method. I believe the satisfaction you get from completing a full painting is so powerful that its the best way of learning. This is why I provide you with four really in-depth painting projects to tackle for yourself. If you need help with any of them, be sure to check out my website, AnnaMasonArt.com , where there are short instructional videos and you can even join my online school. Whether youve taken my video classes for a while now or are totally new to my method, I hope this book will be a ray of sunshine.

Happy painting,

Apple Tortosh

47 35cm (18 14in)

How I got here

Ive been painting since I was two years old. And although I loved to paint and draw when I was a child, I never thought Id become a professional artist. In fact, even though I took art when I was at school, I pursued academic subjects at university and ended up working in local government, spending eight years without painting at all.

It was gardening that got me back into painting. In my mid-twenties I moved into a house with a little garden and became quite obsessed with planting things and watching them grow. All of a sudden it became somehow totally fascinating and inspiring. My creativity was re-ignited and the desire to paint came back again, stronger than ever. It was when I saw some botanical artwork online that I realised there was a style of painting out there that could combine these two passions. And the realism of botanical art really appealed too. I remembered from painting as a child that it was always fun to me to paint a subject and get it to look just the way it does in real life. But Id picked up messages throughout school and since that there was something uncool and even naive about painting in a realistic way, and about painting beautiful things.