Painting Estuaries & Coastal Scenes by Ray Campbell Smith

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The basics of paper, pencils, brushes, palettes and other equipment are covered first, but they only take 4 pages so not much detail is gone into.

Then comes the colour section which includes the colour wheel together with a description of secondary, tertiary and complementary colours. Colour temperature and the use of limited and extended palette are explained.

The technique section follows and describes and illustrates flat washes, graded washes, variegated washes, broken washes and working wet-in-wet with an exercise on how to paint a misty woodland.

Using masking fluid, glazing, dry brushwork and creating soft-edged reflections in water are then covered.

Then different daytime skies and clouds are explained. Sunset follows with information on how to make your water shine.

Handling different sorts of water comes next with examples from still water to crashing breakers and the handling of reflections in different circumstances.

The boat section shows boats from the humble rowing boat to the majestic sailing barge with clear examples of each.

Next Ray tackles estuaries or perhaps more accurately what you find near estuaries so trees – distant, middle distance and foregrounds are covered. Then we have mountains, farmland, industrial scenery and marshes.

Then there are two worked examples a Welsh Estuary and a Devon Estuary. Both take you step by step (over 20 steps in each, fully illustrated) from the initial sketch through to the finished painting.

Next is the turn of coastal landscapes. The sections here are beaches, rocky shorelines, cliffs, harbours, landing jetties and breakwaters, piers and using a lost horizon.

To finish the book there are two more step by step demonstrations one of Chalk Cliffs and finally a Fishing Village. These again consist of clear instructions and lots of photographs of the work in progress.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to paint scenes which include water. The illustrations and text thoughout are clear and easy to follow.

Probably not the first book for a beginner although the basics are covered.

Ruth Grinstead © 2002-2008 All rights reserved