Hazel Soan is one of the foremost exponents of loose watercolour working today & it's the quality of light that suffuses her work, as much as anything else that has contributed to her immense popularity. She's every inch a painter's painter. In this, her latest book, she looks at a wide & varied range of techniques from when to choose transparent or opaque colours, using a limited palette, layering, wet-in-wet & using brushwork to shape your subject & lay washes. The thing is, though, that at no point does this feel like a technical manual. There are no step-by-step demonstrations &, as ever, Hazel teaches by example: "explore this, try that, here's what I mean", so that the result is a constant stream of inspiring paintings that can't help but get you hurrying off to pick up your brushes. You'll think you're looking at a book of wonderful pictures, but you're learning every time you turn the page. Batsford. Hardback. 128 pages. Colour throughout Author: Hazel Soan ISBN: 9781906388737