No Excuses Watercolor Animals: A Field Guide to Painting

I already know how to use watercolors, but was looking for inspiration. This book has certainly provided it! The pictures and examples are lovely and bright. The author presents several sketches of each subject to consider. I’m pleased that she spends time on the eyes for each animal types, as I always paint those first and consider them very important. This book is helping me get back to painting the animals I love!

I’m in the process of painting portraits of each of our animals (past and present) to line the walls of our pet room and this was a great place to start. Animals with hair have always challenged me, no matter what medium I worked with and I needed something to give me that push. Starting with subjects with whom I had no emotional connection was key in taking “that voice” out of my head and just painting what I saw. I was then able to gradually introduce familiar subjects and see them for what they were and not my dearest friends but shapes, colors, light, etc, just like everything else in the world. After getting the basics down, I could then go back in and add the elements that made the subjects so dear to my heart. Thanks for a great base to practice with and get me out of my own dang head!

It shows one painting per animal. It's okay

I was out of town but my deliveries were put in our condo and I never received this. I am reordering now.

The book it's absolutely an amazing approach to watercoloring, enough details to improve your performance, and beautiful pictures to adapt very quickly to this trade. I'm delighted with it same like my 11 year old daughter. %100 recommend it.

i didn't like some of the materials she uses and most of the animals are heads... not whole bodies. the techniques are not as classic as I like and for loose they are more sloppy. I do not care to scribble a lot with white for texture or hair.

I am pretty crazy about this book. There is some detailed instruction particularly regarding painting the eyes. The rest is a little broad but I personally don't mind this. It's a beautiful and inspiring book for me.

Great illustrations and instructions. Love the book.

There was nothing that I disliked about this book. So helpful. I keep it standing on the end of bookshelf so I may see that front cover picture! Thanks.

Just what I wanted. Plenty of exercises to paint a variety of animals in a loose and creative way

This surprised me by the exuberance of her paintings. Very nice to see a different style in a world of extreme photo-realism. Her realism is good but she manages texture as well that makes the animals come alive. I don't care for her style of including writing with the main subject but it's another aspect to painting that people might enjoy.There are 5 or 6 pages of tools and techniques and then she goes into her tutorials. Thank goodness she didn't waste half the book citing materials with pretty photographs of paints and brushes. There are a few photos but the substance of the book is there rather than wasting time and pages on montages of endless materials.She mentions her 85-well palette wheel and it is filled with individual colours of Daniel Smith watercolours. You don't need that many colours, I prefer a palette of 24 colours of Winsor & Newton or Van Gogh watercolours that I chose myself rather than getting a set. It is plenty to mix with but still have a few colours (notably greens) that I don't have to mix. You can get by with 6 colours too, whatever suits you as she explains further on. I was a bit worried beginners might feel they need this extensive 85-colour palette as she uses such specific colours from it in her tutorials. I think people need to learn to mix watercolour rather than have endless tubes of too many colours. This is why I only gave the book 4 stars.Another thing I really like are the sidebars of interesting facts about each animal which are good if you want to explore an animal further before painting it. She pays particular attention to eyes which is good because the eye is what makes the animal look true to life. She has included poetry and quotations about each animal for further inspiration.All in all a great little book that is not just a repeat of what is already out there.

I enjoyed the large colorful instructions. Easy to take with me. I hope Gina does more animal books.

I bought the book for learning some painting skills, but not get too much.