Celebrate the Ever-Changing Night Sky with Celestial Watercolor

I have always loved the night sky and its changing constellations, the Milky Way, auroras, shooting stars, planets, and moon phases. I also love watercolor paintings, and several are hanging in my home, although I have not yet taken up a brush myself. If anything can move me to become a watercolorist, it’s the lovely new book called Celestial Watercolor: Learn to Paint the Zodiac Constellations and Seasonal Night Skies by Elise Mahan with D.R. McElroy (Rock Point, April 2019).

* Complimentary book received for review. This post contains affiliate links.

This charming hardcover book is an interesting read, aside from the lessons and discussions about painting. In particular, I enjoyed the chapter detailing Native American and other traditions surrounding each month’s full moon, as well as the section about the Zodiac, including the constellations and attributes associated with each astrological sign. That’s the sort of information I’ll be turning to regularly, to keep me in touch with what’s happening in the night sky and how it relates to the changing world beneath it as the seasons pass.

But of course, watercolor painting is the real focus of Celestial Watercolor, and in that regard, it’s truly inspirational. The authors begin with an extensive tutorial on the tools and techniques used in watercolor painting, emphasizing experimentation so you can discover what works best for you, with the end goal of fostering your own creativity and style. To that end, the tools portion includes a range of suggestions for several brands of papers, paints, brushes, and other materials, with an accompanying description of the differences between them and what might work best to achieve a certain result. As a complete newbie to watercolor painting, I learned a lot from the authors’ discussions of why they use certain tools or techniques for specific reasons and effects.

As you progress through Celestial Watercolor, you learn about the subjects being painted accompanied by step-by-step projects with variations to help you create your own watercolor paintings. When considering the night sky, you might expect the paintings to be dark, but the color palette is full of soft blues, greens, pinks, and purples. The paintings are beautiful, with an ethereal quality that evokes the sky in all its moods and seasons.

I’m definitely going to keep this book in mind when I need a gift for anyone interested in astronomy, astrology, or painting. It’s delightful on its own, and it just might provide a creative recipient with the incentive to break out their watercolor supplies and get painting the night sky.

Celestial Watercolor is published by Rock Point, an imprint of The Quarto Group. Rock Point Gift & Stationery specializes in encouraging creativity through products such as books and kits on arts and crafts, journals, and calendars. And visit Quarto on Facebook for up-to-date information on book releases, authors, and more.

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Giveaway: One lucky winner is going to win their own copy of the Celestial Watercolor Book from Quarto. Good luck!

Giveaway Details: This giveaway is open to residents of the US ONLY age 18 and over. Please read our Terms of Service & Disclaimer Policy before entering. This giveaway will close on April 29th, 2019 at 11:59 pm EST time. No purchase necessary to enter or win.

Disclaimer: A. Bailey received a complimentary product for review purposes & feature on The Classy Chics blog. No monetary compensation was received. A. Bailey’s thoughts, opinions and words are 100% her own. Your thoughts may differ. Please read the blog’s terms of service policy before entering any giveaways. The Classy Chics are NOT responsible for prize fulfillment or shipping of any items won from this blog. This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through an affiliate link, we may or may not make a small commission which helps to support this website. Thank you!!!