Painting Birds : Book by Sarah Stokes

Painting Birds: Expressive Watercolor Techniques by Sarah Stokes is a beautifully illustrated guide to capturing the beauty and character of birds using modern, expressive watercolor techniques. This book shows how to paint in a loose, flowing style, while offering the practical skills needed to achieve a sense of freedom and lightness of touch. Birds, with their vibrant colors and varied textures – from the iridescent plumage of a hummingbird to the vivid turquoise of a kingfisher – provide an ideal subject for exploring expressive watercolor.

Through clear instructional photos and guidance, Sarah Stokes encourages artists to let go of excessive detail, while providing all the techniques required to create lively, characterful portraits of birds. The book includes 10 step-by-step projects suitable for both beginners and more experienced painters, teaching the importance of shape, tone, and form in developing compelling compositions.

Readers will also discover how watercolor behaves through experimentation and play, explore a variety of color palettes, composition techniques, and background basics, and learn to tackle challenging areas such as feathers, feet, wingspans, faces, texture, shadows, and translucency.

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Paperback: 160 pages
• Dimensions: 280 x 216mm
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9781789941333