Leisure Painter, September 2024
From botany to mindful brushstrokes: introducing Olga Koelsch's unique watercolour flowers guide.
Artist and pattern designer Olga Koelsch unlocks the serene world of watercolour painting with her new book, How to Paint Transparent Watercolour Flowers. This guide offers a unique approach to watercolour painting, focusing on the delicate beauty of see-through flowers.
Olga combines the precision of botanical illustration with the fluidity and expressiveness of modern watercolour techniques. Readers will learn how to reveal the inner anatomy of flowers through gradually applying transparent layers of watercolour. Olga's methods are meditative, encouraging artists to slow down and adopt a mindful approach to creativity. The book is designed for beginners and seasoned artists, providing a gentle step-by-step guide through the process of painting six stunning plant projects: magnolia, eucalyptus, bellflower, rose, peony, and iris.
Beyond the brushwork, How to Paint Transparent Watercolour Flowers offers guidance on practical applications for these techniques. Olga showcases a stunning collection of her own artworks, demonstrating how painted flowers can be transformed into beautiful cards, wall art, and even fabric designs.
The Artist
Olga Koelsch, it turns out, is a YouTube and Instagram tutor and, if that makes you run for the hills, please wait while I join you. Before we depart, though, let's at least have a look around.
What we have here is a somewhat specialist, but really rather useful guide to introducing transparency into watercolour. Although the subject is flowers you could, at a push, adapt the technique to almost anything. I have added that note of caution because this is project-based and the instructions are very specific, with results that produce an ethereal effect that goes beyond just glazing. You have to want to paint in this style more than just occasionally, I think.
As I intimated, this is a useful book that should not be summarily dismissed and has an undoubted appeal. It is well presented and executed, but any purchase decision would be a highly personal one.
