Book Description

The Splash series has earned a reputation as a premier showcase of contemporary watercolor. Year after year, artists and art enthusiasts look forward to its big, beautiful images, innovative approaches and insightful commentary. Continuing the tradition, this 12th edition celebrates artistic vision—delivering a stunning diversity of ideas, inspiration, and breathtaking art—in short, everything fans of this series have come to expect, including the wonderfully unexpected. Explore how artists seize upon moments of beauty and wonder, inject emotional content and personal interpretation, and translate it all into brilliant standout paintings. Impossibly red tomatoes picked fresh from the garden...A chance pose by an impatient child model...The simple view through a weathered door... These are just a few of the "sparks" behind the more than 120 striking paintings on these pages. Captions offer insight from the artists themselves who share the approaches they use to bring their visions into focus. The late Henry Fukuhara painted the scene on page 90 when he was 96 years old, completely blind and bedridden, a profound testament to the power of an artist's vision. His advice: "Don't be a reporter; be an entertainer." Page after page, Splash 12 offers up this kind of hard-earned wisdom, personal epiphanies and artist-to-artist advice for making others stop, look, and enjoy the view. Dive in, and see where 100 of today's brightest watercolor visionaries have taken this celebrated medium.