101 Watercolor Secrets

Improve your skills, explore new techniques, and immerse yourself in the joy of watercolor painting

Watercolor painting is one of the most popular and satisfying art forms, and it offers many benefits: it accommodates a wide range of techniques and styles, allows for vibrant and luminous qualities in your work, encourages spontaneity and expression, and rewards creativity and exploration. But, like any art form, it also presents challenges that can derail your progress and curtail your ability to create the results you want.

In 85 Watercolor Secrets, painter, illustrator, and teacher Anna Bucciarelli shares the knowledge she's gained over years of painting with watercolor. Filled with insights, techniques, explanations, and tips, the book is packed with helpful information that will improve your painting skills and knowledge, regardless of where you are on your watercolor journey.

For each topic, the book devotes two pages to explanation, instruction, and hands-on tips and techniques, along with Anna's beautiful work that visually illustrates the topics and techniques.

You'll learn all about:

• Using Watercolour Tools: Gain a deeper understanding of papers, brushes, watercolour mediums, and other essential tools
• Colour Mixing: Master hues and colour mixing for greenery, skin tones, and beyond
• Building Your Palette: Curate a palette that reflects your unique style and artistic vision.
• Mastering Core Techniques: Learn wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, lifting, glazing, underpainting, and more
• Overcoming Common Challenges: Learn how to avoid overpainting, control water flow, achieve crisp edges, and balance tonal values with confidence
• Painting Popular Subjects: Discover the secrets to painting flowers, birds, fur, skin tones, and white subjects like snow
• Crafting Beautiful Compositions: Explore rhythm, movement, colour harmony, and other key principles to create intricate and visually stunning watercolour compositions

Whether you’re a novice or a seasoned artist, 101 Watercolor Secrets is an indispensable resource that offers practical guidance, artistic inspiration, and a wealth of knowledge to elevate your craft

About the Author

Anna Bucciarelli is a Toronto-based professional illustrator, primarily known for her designs of Canada’s most stunning collectible coins, treasured for their rarity and craftsmanship. Her artwork has appeared on Starbucks holiday cups, New York Times’ bestselling book covers, and colourful murals on the streets of Toronto. Anna’s unique style is influenced by her training in Eastern European folk art, focusing on intricate floral and plant motifs. She brings together various forms of traditional media, such as ink and watercolor, and introduces digital elements that bring delicate, exquisite detail to her designs.