Watercolor Botanicals

After about a year of learning, I'm probably an advanced beginner at watercolor thanks to Let's Make Art.

As a supplement, I thought it would be nice to find books that contain simple exercises to use as warmups to more involved projects or subjects for watercolor cards I've been sending to friends and family.

I checked this book out from the library based on a quick flip through.

The intro is super thorough on topics like setting up a painting space, how to hold a watercolor brush, color theory, etc. there are lots of useful pictures and illustrations throughout this section. Pp. 28-29, for example, includes a nice reference of common paint names mapped to a general color description, and color dot accompanied by a short list of common color mixes. There's no need to know anything about paint pigments to use this book.

The book proceeds with a progression of simple to more complex projects and is aimed at beginners to slightly more advanced watercolorists.

Each project includes references to painting techniques used the project (I.e. lifting paint, wet on wet, wet on dry, etc). from the intro. The project call-out box also includes a list of the paints used with an example of what those colors look like as there can be a lot of variation in paints like veridian green or cadmium red. Each step provides detailed instructions about which colors and technique are being used along with helpful tips including ways to correct potential mistakes. The written steps also explain what colors to mix and even how much water to use to achieve the desired effect. The written step has also a reference to an accompanying picture of that step.

At the end of each larger section (leaves, florals, tropical plants, and desert plants) Ms. Sun includes a capstone project that includes a suggested layout. At the end of the leaf section, there's a leaf pattern project including the 8 individual leaf projects earlier in the book.

I highly recommend getting this book if you are looking for a comprehensive reference to watercolor common flowers and plants for practice.