Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a lovely book with many unintimidating project-based watercolor lessons. It is truly a beginner's book, which is often not the case with books with that label. I did not give it 5 stars for two reasons. Firstly, the color mixing instruction is extremely confusing for a beginner. While I appreciate the author's choice to be paint brand agnostic, at least use traditional pigment names consistently and include those names in the lesson. I have no idea what "tint of green" means, and mixing instructions consisting of unlabeled colored dots on the page are zero help. A beginner needs more specific direction than this. Secondly, the author doesn't help the reader diagnose what went wrong when their painting doesn't turn out like the example in the book. I've been a watercolor beginner for about a year now and I struggled with the very first lesson, throwing away at least six failures before I managed to get the right amount of water on my paper, paint in my brush and effective technique. If I hadn't known what I already knew of watercolor, I would have become discouraged and quit before I managed to figure it out. I include a photo of my eventual success, but also a few of the fails as well, to demonstrate what I mean. Our society of the "curated life" often hides the work it takes to become good at something, which can discourage the beginner. It's a pretty book, with a lot of projects I look forward to trying and I hope Anna continues to create this kind of book!