For fans of watercolor on the go, here’s a half-hour video that offers bite-size inspiration that you can take with you anywhere on your portable media player, or watch at home in high definition 1080p video. It’s completely different content from main feature “Watercolor in the Wild,” but it has the same theme: watercolor painting outdoors in sketchbooks.

What in this package?

The 28-minute video contains ten short episodes of me, James Gurney, painting outdoors on location. Each episode is four minutes or less and brings out a different point. There’s a new introduction showing ultra-compact watercolor setups, plus a sequence of painting a dinosaur skeleton in a museum that is exclusive to this video.

The video continues with nine of my most popular YouTube watercolor episodes, remastered for HD, with new voiceover commentary added on several of them. Learn a variety of valuable painting methods, shown with closeups that put you in the driver's seat. The video ends with examples of taking watercolors to exotic destinations as well capturing the commonplace subjects around home.

Additional bonus

Four PDFs of my magazine articles on animal and portrait drawing in water media, loaded with practical information, plus a comprehensive materials list and buyer's guide.

Review

"The ideas in the video promise a return to the roots of why I started painting in the field–to absorb the beauty of nature, record its fleeting effects, and use the sketch to enhance my studio paintings. If you're looking for a way to revitalize your plein-air efforts or need a bridge between your drawing skills and your ability to paint out-of-doors you might want to try this method." —Brad Teare, 'Thick Paint' blog. Why I made this video

Long before I came up with the books Dinotopia and Color and Light, I always loved sketching, and I wrote my first book on the subject, called The Artist's Guide to Sketching in 1982. This is the stuff I wish they had taught in the art school I went to. It's information I've picked up by reading, experimentation, experience, and from my art colleagues.

Timing

00:00 Ultra compact watercolor sets

02:18 Colored brushpens and refills

03:16 Rooftops — ghost wash

04:09 Dinosaur skeleton — “drawing” with watercolor

08:07 Diner — area by area

09:51 Chapel Garden — big area and subdivide

13:05 Fernando — portrait technique

15:27 Turkey at the county fair

16:25 Watercolor Warriors — reality TV spoof

19:39 Urban Sketching in Newburgh, NY

21:54 Sketching in Shanghai, China

24:20 North Africa: Morocco, Tunisia, and Malta