These workbooks complement the free tips found on my website, and cover a specific area in greater depth. The workbooks are for beginning painters, with "how to" instructions and pictures that illustrate important concepts. The workbooks are designed to help you develop the practice of painting, which involves observation and critical thinking as well as the physical act of putting paint to paper. There are painting assignments and exercises, and some evaluation questions that help you assess your progress.

The workbook pages are designed to be printed in color on both sides of heavy (35-37 lb) paper; they may then be put in a loose-leaf notebook. For inkjet printers, I recommend Office Depot brand 35 lb. premium matte presentation paper (Item 869-981). You can have the pages laminated prior to hole-punching them, if desired, or you can just slip the printed pages into plastic sheet protectors and then put them in a notebook.

The workbooks are PDF files. You need Adobe Reader® on your computer to open and print them. Most new computers come with Reader already loaded, but if you don't have it, it is a free download from Adobe. Click the link in the yellow box at the right to get it. You also need a color printer; otherwise you will only be able to view them in color on your computer monitor.

READ THIS PAGE BEFORE ORDERING

Scroll down to see the newest workbooks including my latest one on Color Mixing.

View a sample page from workbook 1

View a sample page from workbook 2

Workbook Bundle:
Workbooks 1-5, $45

Get all five workbooks described below combined into a single PDF file

Workbook 1: Working with Washes
16 pages, full color, $9
This workbook focuses on using washes to create paintings in watercolor
Contents:
•Flat, Graduated and Wet-in-Wet Washes
•Glazing and Layering
•Negative Painting
•Using Masking Fluid

Workbook 2: Landscapes in Watercolor
24 pages, full color, $9
This workbook is focused on landscape painting in watercolor
Contents:
•Choosing and Editing Subject Matter for Scale, Impact & Interest
•Arranging Landscape Elements for Balance
•Focus on Background: Skies
•Focus on Middleground: Vegetation, and Rocks
•Focus on Foreground: Textures
•Painting Weather
•Painting Dramatic Lighting

Workbook 3: Still Life Using Glazing and Layering    
16 pages, full color, $9
This workbook focuses on painting still life subjects
Contents:
•Pros and Cons of stretching your paper and how to do it
•Masking out Whites/Lights with liquid masking fluid
•A step-by-step demo of using successive masking to paint a controlled still life
•How to cut masks from wax paper and use stencils to create patterns
•Free spattering - another way to layer or glaze color
•Creating "clean color" glazes
•Two approaches to painting a still life wet-into-wet

Workbook 4: Watercolor Brushwork   
16 pages, full color, $9
This workbook focuses on brushwork in watercolor painting - drawing and mark making with a brush
Contents:
•How brushwork differs from washes
•Brush drawing is unique to each artist
•Using a clean damp brush to lift paint
•Brushwork to imitate texture
•Types of brushwork

Workbook 5: Color Mixing   
20 pages, full color, $9
This workbook focuses on color mixing including how to choose and test the characteristics of watercolor pigments
Contents:
•Choosing tube watercolor paints
•Testing pigments
•How we use color in painting
•Various approaches to color mixing, both physical and optical