The Artist definitely knows what he does, the paintings are beautiful. As always, I don't really get much value of step-by-step drawings. This is counterweighted by very good practicing advice which will help new and advanced watercolor enthusiasts alike!

This book is simply beautiful. The artwork was litterally awe inspiring and I really loved the detailed instructions. The illustrations are incredibly well done. I just honestly can't say enough! This would definitely make a great gift to any artist. Truly a wonderful guide fir watercoloring.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

First up, the cover on this one is gorgeous! 🎨

This was truly a delightful book to dive into. Full of beautiful illustrations, step-by-step instructions and tips and tricks to help you up your watercolor game. This would make the perfect gift for the artist in your life. 🙌🏻

**ARC Via NetGalley**

I loved this book! You can learn a lot of tips and techniques about painting on location in a very relaxed and detailed way. The painting process is very well explained and wont leave you wondering about skipped steps like in other books, This makes it exceptionally good for beginners. It teaches by example, with step-by-step demonstrations of painting on site.

The focus is on the foundational steps to painting en plein air (for both pastoral and urban landscapes) and creating with watercolors in general. Some of the topics covered are: sketching, watercolor techniques, limited color palette, capturing light and mood, washes, perspective and painting people

I really liked the way Iain Stewart explains things and I am grateful that he shares his knowledge without holding back anything. He is a great teacher and would highly recommend this book if you want to have a smooth start in your painting journey.

4/5 stars

Thanks for providing this precious arc in regards to the publisher and author!

It was fine. I'm an intermediate artist so some were a bit redundant

Really useful guide for beginners in watercolour painting.
Simple steps and ideas to build your skill.
Found it helpful and full of steps to build on.
Recommended
4 Stars ⭐️
Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me to read this book in return for a fair review.

This is a great book regardless if you are a beginner with watercolours or not. Some of the tips the author offers are the base you need for starting with watercolours, other tips are for more advanced painters.

At times I found it hard to follow and I wish the illustrations illustrated better all the different steps and techniques the author was talking about.

"En Plein Air: Light & Color" is an art instruction book on watercolor painting. The author focused on urban landscapes and painting outside while viewing your subject. He provided useful tips on these topics (including useful tools and materials) and on watercolor painting in general. He provided several step-by-step exercises to teach various techniques, including perspective, creating good contrasts in value, and how to paint people, cars, and boats with minimal detail so that they don't distract the viewer from your focal point. He talked about choosing colors and creating a sense of light and dark to draw focus and create mood. I felt like he was able to clearly convey information and describe techniques. Overall, I'd recommend this book to watercolor painters who want to learn how to paint on location, urban landscapes.

Do you draw or paint outside?
Award-wining watercolor artist Iain Stewart presents "En Plein Air: Light & Color. Expert techniques and step-by-step projects for capturing mood and atmosphere in watercolor", one of the book from the "En plein Air" series published by Quarto Publishing Group – Walter Foster. After the introduction the book is divided into seven chapters: 1) Materials, 2) Sketchbooks, 3) Drawing on Location, 4) Painting Techniques, 5) Capturing the Details, 6) Composition, Light & Color, and 7) From Field to Studio. Stewart talks about his personal experiences with drawing outdoors and says about it: "... painting outdoors is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding aspects of my work. While these are the ideal locations for the plein air painter, finding the beauty in an alley or looking for new painting spots can be just as fulfilling. The knowledge that beauty and fulfillment are a mere stone’s throw away constantly pulls me outside to record the world around me" (p. 8).
I highly appreciated the graphic, design and examples of his work. The author also included tips which accompany the step-by-step paintings. And although Stewart works with watercolor many of his information and tips are also useful for artists who use other media. I highly recommend this book for every artist who likes to work "en plein air".
The complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley free of charge. I was under no obligation to offer a positive review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
#EnPleinAirLightColor #NetGalley

This book was excellent. Lots of tips for Plein air painters of any medium. I do not paint in watercolor, however, I did find this book very helpful to my oil Plein air painting.

I received this galley from NetGalley.

En Plein Air Light & Color is a watercolor masterclass by Iain Stewart. Due out 13th April 2021 from Quarto on their Walter Foster imprint, it's 128 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.

This is a technique and tutorial manual in a similar format to the classic (and beloved) Walter Foster instruction books familiar to everyone. I used to love to spend time looking at the spin racks at my favorite arts supply store in town and generally came away from shopping with one or two tucked into my supplies.

The introductory chapters cover very basic tools, materials, and techniques. Mr. Stewart does a very good job of imparting really valuable tips and tricks scattered throughout the text. He talks about attitude to working outdoors, organization, light (and predicting what it's going to do and how it will affect the work process), warming up, sketching, and lots more. I was impressed with the amount of detail and information in the two short introductory chapters. The artist is meticulous and studious. I can imagine that he's a very gifted instructor and envy anyone who has the chance to take a class or workshop from his studio. (Hint to groups, he apparently does do group workshops, so it's something to keep in mind after the plague is behind us).

The bulk of the book is taken up with the tutorials. There are step by step guided tutorials to be recreated. There are also several technique chapters which are less step-by-step and more generally technical. Throughout the book, the author imparts *many* tips. Apart from the gorgeous and colorful art and illustrations, I think I'm most impressed over the density of accessible and usable information he manages to convey.

Well worth seeking out. I would highly recommend this one for the artist's home studio, maker's groups, painting groups, or as a gift perhaps bundled with some of the author's recommended tools/supplies (he doesn't tout particular brands, just sizes, colors, and qualities of pigment). The information contained here is not only applicable to outdoor location painting and sketching. This is a good technical guide for watercolor and sketching in general.

Five stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

This a very good book on watercolor. The author emphasizes the need to lol at shapes and to eliminate unnecessary elements that create clutter. This book is good for someone with some watercolor experience. This isn’t a step by step introduction to watercolor because many skills are assumed. As an experienced watercolor painter I found many things I had learned but needed a see fro a different perspective, which the author provides. The examples are beautiful and the author emphasizes the importance of design in placement of shapes and composition. Very good book to give the intermediate to advanced artist plenty to learn from and to review the basics of good design.

A mesmerizing work by Lain Stewart. It aims to teach artists about water colours.
It is systematic insight into work of the artist and sneak peak into his tricks. He has painted wonderful paintings in this book. He wants you to capture interplay of light and shadows as well as mood of a scene.
A real work of exceptional art.

“Photographs lie......they can never replicate the human eye.” I think every painter knows these words to be true.

En Plein Air essentially means painting outside. This book encourages you to explore the great outdoors and helps you learn how to really “see” what you’re looking at, through the eyes of an artist. If that’s something you are interested in, you will probably love En Plein Air: Light & Color.

I think artists of every level can learn something from this book, although those with some watercolor experience will have an easier time following along. The author uses some terms like “variegated washes” that are explained later on but not in their initial context. There is a list of useful tools including specific paint colors, and tips on how to put them all together in a portable kit. Advice is given on how to choose a good painting location and how to set up your little mobile outdoor art studio. Now on to painting!

The author gives a very detailed explanation of his method, with step-by-step guides from initial rough sketch through finished painting. You are led through layering your paint washes, preserving the light source, blocking out big shapes, shadows and contrast, and finally adding a few details. How to design your composition and improve your technique is also delved into. You are given color swatches of paint mixes, and even told the specific brush used to achieve certain strokes (number 8 pointed round brush). This book includes a lot of pictures of the author’s beautiful artwork and the processes the artwork went through.

I found this book to be informative ( I’ve been using watercolors off and on for over a decade), inspirational, and written in a style that’s a joy to read. So much encouragement is given to the reader throughout the book, and I really appreciate when the author shares their mistakes so the reader can hopefully avoid making them. Highly recommended.

This is a lovely book and I appreciated the author's step-by-step illustrations. It ended up being beyond my scope as an artist and not really in my style, but it looks like a book that will be quite helpful for many.

En Plein Air: Light & Color is a comprehensive tutorial book for learning how to paint watercolour on location. It is aimed at beginners to intermediate but does require some drawing skills before putting paint to paper. The author provides extensive information about his method and takes the reader through a number of tutorial projects where these skills are used. It is very well structured full of stages and good demonstrations. The projects include cities, landscape, nature and vehicles. Tricks, tips, and materials are also included, as well as lots of confidence building and encouragement to give it a go. Overall an excellent book.

En Plein Air: Light & Color
Expert techniques and step-by-step projects for capturing mood and atmosphere in watercolor
by Iain Stewart
Back of the Book: “Take your watercolor painting beyond the studio—learn how to effectively use color and light to capture mood, create atmosphere, and convey emotion on location.
Geared for beginning artists, En Plein Air: Light & Color introduces a variety of techniques for on-location watercolor painting. Following a brief introduction to the basics of painting en plein air and an overview of the necessary tools and materials, you will learn how to choose a subject and paint a compelling outdoor composition using the subtleties of watercolor to create beautifully expressive subjects and themes.
Other important topics include perspective, rendering the background and foreground, capturing both urban and pastoral landscapes, mastering color to convey weather and time of day, and much more. From choosing just the right subject to awaiting the perfect time of day, let En Plein Air: Light & Color guide you in your artistic travels as you explore this daring and expressive medium.
Painting outdoors is a rewarding, peaceful experience full of joy, adventure, and persistence. Let the En Plein Air Series guide you in your artistic travels as you explore this daring and expressive method of painting, wherever you may be.”
Impressions: This book gave me the courage to try something new. Overall, it was a useful book to learn and grow from.
Liked: I appreciated the technical advice throughout the book. Taking a black and white picture of my palette was something I had not thought to do but was helpful in understanding the value of the color in the painting. Working from light to dark seems simple but I tend to focus on the quickest way and end up losing my light along the way. Layering takes patience. I’ve had to slow down my process to accomplish what the author describes. I also appreciated the author's suggestion not to remove pages from your sketchbook. Thinking of your sketchbook is where you experiment, try new things, and let loose is freeing.
Disliked: The author gave specific brands in the materials section. This is generally helpful unless you are unable to get said brands. It would be helpful to describe what to look for in supplies as well as give brand examples to be most helpful.
I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review shared here.

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read this book in return for an honest review.

This book has filled me with inspiration! Not only with paints as the medium but for my photography as well! It gave me more perspective on composition, lights and colour. The art in the book is beautiful and hopefully, I will be able to paint like this by using the techniques and tips from the book.

Rating: 5⭐
Would I Read It Again? Yes
Would I Recommend it? Yes

ARC provided via Netgalley & the Publisher for Honest Review

This is honestly one of the better plein air/urban sketching books I have come across for two reasons:
1.) this is an instruction book which actually instructs, taking you through each pass of the watercolor step by step and,
2.) Iain Stewart breaks down the purpose and methods of thumbnailing sketches both for composition and for color. You're shown not just what a thumbnail is, but how to use them for improving your final paintings, for testing color mixes, and so on.

Stewart also has a great sense of how to not only show how to achieve detailed paintings, but also how to let yourself balance your painting by not overly controlling it. Especially with watercolors, playing with light, pigment, color, and so on can be an ongoing experiment which requires flexibility in painting.

Wow! What a fabulous book for both beginner and more advanced watercolour artists. Full of wonderful illustrations of Iain Stewart’s paintings, combined with a full explanation of his tips and techniques to help improve the budding watercolour artist’s work. He certainly knows how to explain the use of colour, composition and light. Very impressed and an absolute delight to learn from a master painter.