Painting Greeting Cards in Watercolor

This is an exceptional watercolor book that offers over 35 step-by-step projects in miniature art. It is not just for beginners. It is packed with useful information on how to design a painting, vary a theme to create a series of paintings. By walking you through the various painting techniques, then using them in step-by-step projects, Jaqueline Penny shows you how to how to turn one small painting into variations based on such things as differing the arrangement, color schemes, weather themes, horizontal vs. vertical presentation, etc.. Here are some excerpts from the Table of Contents: Chapter 3 guides you through 5 projects that vary one scene by changing the sky, color, season, time of day, size and location. Chapter 5 gives 8 projects that help you become more creative by showing how a subject can be painted different ways--project 18 is how to paint a pear, including how to paint a droplet of water on the pear. Project 19 is painting an apple half. Project 20 Painting Hard Rocks--the author then shows how that same scene can be painted again, but by using different painting techniques, it does not become the same picture, but one with a whole new statement. The next projects are soft rocks, coastal rocks, little rocks. Next, painting two adirondack chairs(facing the viewer), then varying that theme by painting them facing out away from you, and changing the scenery surrounding them. Penny also teaches how to set up your paper so you can paint several paintings all on the same board, and how to do such things as making a postcard with three related small paintings--one of a landscape, then zeroing in on what's in the landscape and painting a close up of some flowers, or seeing the landscape from a different perspective, or changing the angles of 3 related paintings on a postcard, etc.. I love Chapter 20, because it really shows where creativity and imagination can take you, and it's FUN!! Penny demonstrates how you can allow paints to run together to skies and flowers, then how to make minature paintings for the walls by varying mat colors. She gives you ideas on how to use such things as drips dropping on wet paper to make a colorful flower scene, and how to use that colorful painting along with a colored border cut in various shapes to add interest and make a variety of different greeting cards. Project 35 is especially exciting for me. It's title is "Pure Fantasy Another Way" It shows you how a wet-on-wet floral painting with a lot of soft edges can be used to create a beautiful fantasy scene with a tiny boy who is about 1/1000th as big as the flower is standing on the stem to gaze at the flower....This idea is then FURTHER EXPANDED by taking that floral idea and changing the boy to a girl, with a different pose and slightly different floral scene, or adding poetry to the scene of zeroing in more to one or two flowers. This book really demonstrates the multitude of possibilities in painting greeting cards, miniatu

Thank you Jacqueline Penney for making my introduction to watercolor painting fun, informative and very helpful.The book, Painting Greeting Cards in Watercolor, was a step by step introduction to watercolor painting through the practice of greeting card design. The lessons were fun, quick and very easy to follow, making the student beg to beging the next lesson. After every lesson I felt like I really learned something and was proud of my accomplishment. I'll be honest, as a first time watercolorist I would have given up if this book wasn't easy, fun and easy to understand. Luckily it was a superb introduction and I am very happy.Thank you again.

I really enjoy using this book for inspiration and practice. I don't use her ideas for greeting cards, but for small paintings. Most of the paintings can be finished rather quickly. The topics are appealing and I have sold a number of them. I like her 3-in-1 compositions, dividing the paper with masking tape and having related subjects treated differently within each block. It is a practical and user-friendly book, well worth the purchase.

I have painted all the pictures in Jacqueline's book. Her detailed instructions make copying her art miniatures easy. Her instructions apply not only to miniatures but also larger sized pictures. I have used several of her designs for greeting cards.