Chinese Painting Techniques for Exquisite Watercolors (ISBN 1581800002)

A beautiful presentation, but:
It wasn't much help beyond some technicalities of brush work and some reproductions of the artist's work. Okay for a pretty intro. and some history. If your goal is to reproduce someone else's paintings, this book does that; but I want to create my own so Chinese Brush Painting: A Beginner's Guide by Pauline Cherrett, actually gives directions: on how to care for your tools, how to compose your own paintings, how to make your paintings vibrant with energy and spirit, with enough "what not to do's" to be truly a useful beginners guide. I don't understand the 5 star ratings on this book. As to technical brush work; Chinese Calligraphy Made Easy: A Structured Course In Creating Beautiful Brush Lettering by Rebecca Yue; gives wonderful step by step directions for brush work that transfers to painting everything else.

A Unique and Exciting Watercolor Book:
I really love this book. One of the reasons I like it is that it is so unique. It is not really a book for a beginner watercolorist, but I am somewhat at the beginner level, tried some of the exercises, and had a lot of fun even if they didn't turn out exactly as I had hoped. I also have Zhen's DVD of Painting Animals in Watercolor. His cheerful and unique mannerisms on the DVD helped me enjoy his books even more. One of the exercises I tried in this book involved actually POURING the watercolor paint onto the paper and letting it mix. It didn't turn out exactly perfect, and when I started doing it, I didn't feel like I knew what I was doing, but in the end, I had a beautiful effect and felt that I had a lot of fun that was different from other watercolor books I've learned from. Zhen has a lot to teach in this book. Some paintings are done on rice paper and some of regular cold press. I really love this beautiful book. The DVD is fabulous also.

Great Concepts:
The book itself is beautifully done. Pictures and stages of the art work are clear. Colors are visually accurate but paint names might depend on your location and vendors. There's no substitute for attending an actual workshop. If an artist had never learned any Asian painting techniques, this book might be too challenging. On the other hand, anyone who has learned similar watercolor or ink methods would easily follow the instructions. I had attended one of Lian's workshops so I use the book whenever I want to work on a new project.

Pure Energy:
Lian Zehn's work is pure energy and he explains his process very well in this book. It is full of color and animation, though the presentations are still photographs. The artist will want to get some spray bottles and get out and splash color on paper.

Chinese PaintingTechniques...and Love is in the Earth: Laying of stones...:
I want to know where is my two (2) books that I bought last month, in 01/07/2008: 1 - Chinese PaintingTechniques for exquesite watercolors 2 - Love is in the Earth: Laying of stones (Crystals and New Age)