Big Brush Watercolor

by Ron Ranson

Make effective use of the versatile Japanese hake brush to capture the essence of a scene, whether on location or from a photograph. Each area of a landscape, including skies, water, trees, and foregrounds is explored in detail. 128 pages, 171 color illus., 12 b/w illus., 7 3/4 x 11.

Genres: Art

130 pages, Paperback

First published January 3, 1989

Reviews

[Christopher Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ron Ranson's watercolor techniques, utilizing hake brushes, are quick and powerful. However, this book is less about style and technique and more about selling the hake brush created in partnership with Pro Arte. At the time this book was originally published, in the late 1980s, the Pro Arte Ron Ranson hake had a metal ferrule. The Ron Ranson hake available today, is a much lighter brush, and completely lacks a metal ferrule. Although I cannot necessarily recommend this book to students of hake watercolor techniques, there is a rather on-going discussion, throughout the book, on tonality and tonal paintings, utilizing a single color; in this case burnt umber. The 2003 Reprint, printed in Hong Kong by Wing King Tong Co Ltd, for David & Charles, is an unfortunate edition. If you can find the original, or this edition, at a used book price, then I would suggest purchasing that instead. I would further suggest purchasing any of Ron Ranson's other books on the subject of big brush watercolor techniques. This is his third book, and feels very light on substance. Is it a bad book? No, it is an interesting book, but in comparison to his other works, it can only be recommended as an addition and not a necessity.