For those who can't draw - or even for those who can, but might not always want to do the drawing before getting friendly with the paint, Trace & Paint Watercolour is an excellent choice. You get eighteen BIG sketches to trace and detailed, illustrated, step-by-step instructions for painting 14 projects; so yes, the artists who composed the original paintings on which this book is based are giving you a few bonus sketches to play with. You also get large and wonderful full page and, in many cases, two-page views of the artists' original paintings.

I recommend using watercolour paper that is no less than 12 X 18 inches in size, to provide plenty of room for the basic sketch and any details you might want to add to make these beautiful landscape scenes your own. Those of you who are skilled enough with pen or pencil, could re-create the scenes in a smaller size, but as for me, I'll stick with direct tracings for awhile yet. If I tried drawing the scenes free-hand, it would take me all day just to recreate the sketches in the provided size, let alone trying to reduce them.

While this book is not my first instruction in watercolour painting, it very well could be a first instruction book for others. I've been working on the blue dooorway scene. Painting from the instructions in this book is sheer pleasure. The instructions are very clear and easy to understand and complete.

Note that the tracings are bound in the center of the book and, though perforated, do not separate from the binding easily. The paper does not always tear on the perforations either, so one must devote some time to remove the tracings. To save myself the time and frustration later, I devoted part of an evening to removing all tracings from the book and stored them in a folder meant for children's school work, which is readily available in many stores.

There are many books which are similar to this one, so if you are interested in obtaining other books with different painting projects, you have but to look around. You should be aware though, that the publisher has collected the contents of three separate books in this one. Buying this omnibus edition is a much better value than purchasing the three others, which I have listed below so you will know which books not to buy.

Watercolour Landscapes (Ready to Paint) By Terry Harrison
Watercolour Trees & Woodlands (Ready to Paint) By Geoff Kersey
Watercolour Hills & Mountains (Ready to Paint) By Arnold Lowrey ( )