Cara OlsenBotanical Watercolor Painting for Beginners: A Step-by-Step Guide to Create Beautiful Floral Artwork

Let me say first that I am a newbie to watercolor painting. I am almost set up to begin my adventure, so have not yet tried to paint anything as I await a few basic brushes. I am thrilled to give watercolor painting a go, just really excited.I love flowers and also abstract loose paintings. I read carefully the Amazon books available, and chose this one unsure if it was worth purchasing. I opened it and immediately loved the thorough directions for so many various flowers.Well written, perfectly illustrated with step-by-step instructions, just top notch! I am thrilled to own this book and cannot wait to try my hand at watercolor painting! SSSSOOOO worth the price, I am certain you will enjoy it as much as I already have just opening the book for the first time.I cannot stress enough that this is a great book for a beginner - an absolute must to have on hand. This style flower painting is what I enjoy looking at and hopefully creating, simple and so pretty! I know I will learn so much from her instruction. My money was well spent!!!! Do not hesitate to purchase and best wishes on your creative journey!

As excited as I am to get deep into this book and try all of the beautiful individual flowers Cara has included, I might be even more excited to learn from the 1st pages of the book and the practice excercises and stroke guides she has therein! It seems that most of the books I have expect that I know already how to use my brushes and coax this shape or that from the brush and just launch into a step by step painting right after a list of supplies. I typically don't have the brush skills to make the shapes and get the effects shown though, and Cara's book actually has what I need to be able to learn to wield the magic that is the brush...along with color mixing, stroke guides, ect. Some time spent in the 1st quarter of her book playing with all of the fundamentals and finally figuring out how the magic happens and then practicing all of that with all the flowers she has in the next 3/4 or so of the book I can see will set me up for creating my own beautiful wreath and other floral compositions in this incredibly lovely loose floral style that has previously eluded me...though if she came out with a second book teaching composition and more advanced techniques, I can already tell you I would have that in my cart preordered to reach my hands in a half a heart beat!

Easy to follow directions an photosHelp you to create on your own!

Just got this book yesterday and was already started following Cara Olsen's tutorials. They are very step by step down to the color mixing. I would say this is a good beginner or intermediate book. Her instructions are simple and straightforward. Her color choices are a bit softer or more muted than what I like so I've adjusted the colors to my preference. This book is loose watercolor painting. My only disappointment is there are no examples of flower arrangements in this book. I would have loved to have seen a bouquet of all the flowers that were taught in her book.

One of the favorites in my collection of watercolor books. Beautiful flowers, great instruction. I did get the spiral bound, worth the extra money making my book lie flat while I am water coloring. I like everything about this book! I am a beginner, appreciate all the hard work and effort.

Learning to paint with watercolors. Best book on the subject I have bought!

I’ve had this book about a year now. If you are looking for Botanical instruction this is not it. I would recommend Billy Showell. If you want to paint flowers in a looser style this MIGHT work for you. I mostly use Windsor Newton professional watercolors. They are easy to get where I am. I didn’t bother with her paint list, I used what I had and mixed my own colors where needed. The lessons themselves have plenty of text, but if you’re a TRUE beginner, she doesn’t really explain her strokes very well. I knew what she meant but my son, who had never picked up a brush before , couldn’t follow the book without my instruction. He’s a digital artist and this book really didn’t help him. For myself, her description of the paint/water ratios were interesting. Not bad, but interesting. That created confusion on my part because I had to keep looking up what she meant by them. Sorry, I don’t use horseradish so had no idea what she was talking about. This book would have been better if she had used known nomenclature or just the ratios instead of making up a new system. The lessons themselves had great tips but again, her pictures had no real explanation of how she got from one to another. I knew, but again a true beginner wouldn’t. I’m not unhappy to have the book on my shelf as a loose reference but the lessons just didn’t really help either of us. Her illustration, while not very explanatory, are beautiful. I wouldn’t have purchased it for just the illustration, there are better ones out there.

This book explains how to get started and how to get different effects and values with your paints. It makes it seem doable but I haven’t tried it yet.