Book Review: The Figure in Watercolor: Simple, Fast, and Focused

I really like the style of Mel Stabin. His choice of colours in this book seems to be the pastel tones. They are vibrant and lively, great for the figures he draws. The colour compositions are fantastic.

It's best to think of this as an art book rather than an instructional one. There are only a few step-by-step demonstrations, and even those are quite short. To understand how he achieves a certain look, like gradation, you'll have to learn that from other books.

While the guided instructions are few, this is still an inspiring book. It's loaded with beautiful paintings, and each has short tips and descriptions on how they are created. The tips are quite useful. There are colour suggestions, composition ideas, and lots of insight on creating visual interest.

It's really hard to mimic the examples unless you've some prior watercolour knowledge. So this book is more for the intermediate artists and above. But it's an inspiring book for all levels though.

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