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Everyday Watercolor Flowers: A Modern Guide to Painting Blooms, Leaves, and Stems Step by Step
Author of
Everyday Watercolor
and Instagram darling Jenna Rainey presents a beautiful step-by-step guide to painting botanicals from lilies to daffodils in a wide variety of styles.
Artist Jenna Rainey shares easy-to-follow ways to paint a wide range of botanicals, all in her fresh, modern style that appeals to the next generation of watercolor artists and creatives, from beginners to hobbyists. With gorgeously illustrated instructions for both loose and realistic watercolor depictions of more than 25 flowers, leaves, and plants, organized by form and shape, Everyday Watercolor Flowers is every nature-lover's answer to capturing that beauty on paper.
Artist Jenna Rainey shares easy-to-follow ways to paint a wide range of botanicals, all in her fresh, modern style that appeals to the next generation of watercolor artists and creatives, from beginners to hobbyists. With gorgeously illustrated instructions for both loose and realistic watercolor depictions of more than 25 flowers, leaves, and plants, organized by form and shape, Everyday Watercolor Flowers is every nature-lover's answer to capturing that beauty on paper.
- GenresArtNonfictionCrafts
187 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 11, 2019
187 people are currently reading
192 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 25, 2019
i think it’s incredibly important to find things in life that you love & that help you de-stress & relax. a few months ago i wanted to try painting so i bought 4 watercolour books along with supplies to ease myself into the art & i finally finished reading the first one!!
i liked how the author had a solid structure where every chapter focused on a different type of flower. some tutorials seem a bit more advanced than others, but i do appreciate the painting guides by the author, they’re absolutely beautiful & they really help if you’re a beginner like me.
i’m really happy i tried reading something new this year because i’ve never really read something like this, but i enjoyed it.
i liked how the author had a solid structure where every chapter focused on a different type of flower. some tutorials seem a bit more advanced than others, but i do appreciate the painting guides by the author, they’re absolutely beautiful & they really help if you’re a beginner like me.
i’m really happy i tried reading something new this year because i’ve never really read something like this, but i enjoyed it.
February 3, 2021
ummmm not really a step by step guide??? :') but it was nice to browse to and get little inspiration. unfortunately, felt like it would be hard for beginner painters like me to follow through.
June 13, 2021
Rainey’s illustrations are lovely and I look forward to painting each one of them. There are a mix of loose and realistic flower paintings to practice. The author did miss the mark on providing detailed info on mixing paints in each sample and any watercolor book worth its salt will show the cover painting. However, I still found much to appreciate and encourage me, hence the five stars, but the other reviewers criticisms are spot on and should not be dismissed easily. Beginners will be frustrated by lack of detail.
December 7, 2021
Watercolor
This is a great book to introduce you to watercoloring flowers. Jenna shows you the basics of each flower. I like her free style, I painted one each morning, great way to start the day.
This is a great book to introduce you to watercoloring flowers. Jenna shows you the basics of each flower. I like her free style, I painted one each morning, great way to start the day.
November 29, 2020
Nice step by step tutorials, good variety of flowers explained
September 5, 2020
After about a year of learning, I’m 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 how pretty the flowers were. The first week I had the book, I read most of the introduction, which was well laid out and good for beginners and more advanced painters. Like many watercolor books, this book included intros to color theory, suggested materials, basic techniques, etc. The book seemed aimed at beginners to slightly more advanced watercolorists, so I thought I was in for a treat.
When I got to the “step-by-step” sections that group , I was extremely disappointed. What drew me in to begin with was the large, beautiful flowers. Those continued being really pretty.
However, Ms. Rainey neglected to include a list of the colors used in each tutorial. If you read through the three-four step project, the author only mentions about 2 of the 4-6 colors being used. She doesn’t explain, for example, whether she’s using warm and/or cool reds in a project and just instructs the reader to throw in some reds. Depending on the paints the user has, there can be a dizzying array of each primary and secondary color. The projects rarely talk much about approaching color mixing to achieve the end result, either. On the Hellebore project, there is no explanation of arriving at the soft peach on the example.
The instructions gloss over or ignore steps that I see happened in the progressive pictures include a lot of information that I could based on each picture. Given the level this book seems to be aimed at, there should be more explicit instructions.
Jenna Rainey is a relatively well-known YouTube watercolorist. After checking out this book and being disappointed, I thought I’d see if any of her videos corresponded to the book’s projects. Her recorded tutorials do fill in some of the holes in the book, but there’s no series related to the book, which I think would have been smart.
So, if you want to see some pretty pictures, check out this book, but don’t expect to learn how to paint them. If you are looking for a more useful guide on painting flowers, see “Watercolor Botanicals” by Eunice Sun.
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 how pretty the flowers were. The first week I had the book, I read most of the introduction, which was well laid out and good for beginners and more advanced painters. Like many watercolor books, this book included intros to color theory, suggested materials, basic techniques, etc. The book seemed aimed at beginners to slightly more advanced watercolorists, so I thought I was in for a treat.
When I got to the “step-by-step” sections that group , I was extremely disappointed. What drew me in to begin with was the large, beautiful flowers. Those continued being really pretty.
However, Ms. Rainey neglected to include a list of the colors used in each tutorial. If you read through the three-four step project, the author only mentions about 2 of the 4-6 colors being used. She doesn’t explain, for example, whether she’s using warm and/or cool reds in a project and just instructs the reader to throw in some reds. Depending on the paints the user has, there can be a dizzying array of each primary and secondary color. The projects rarely talk much about approaching color mixing to achieve the end result, either. On the Hellebore project, there is no explanation of arriving at the soft peach on the example.
The instructions gloss over or ignore steps that I see happened in the progressive pictures include a lot of information that I could based on each picture. Given the level this book seems to be aimed at, there should be more explicit instructions.
Jenna Rainey is a relatively well-known YouTube watercolorist. After checking out this book and being disappointed, I thought I’d see if any of her videos corresponded to the book’s projects. Her recorded tutorials do fill in some of the holes in the book, but there’s no series related to the book, which I think would have been smart.
So, if you want to see some pretty pictures, check out this book, but don’t expect to learn how to paint them. If you are looking for a more useful guide on painting flowers, see “Watercolor Botanicals” by Eunice Sun.
December 17, 2019
2.5/5 stars
This book breaks down the mystery of watercolouring flowers. The author starts by breaking down flowers into a few basic shapes: Star, Circle, Bell, Bowl, and Trumpet. The last section is a combination of shapes. There are approximately 4 different flowers per section. Each flower is done in a loose or realistic style. Here is where I had a problem. I wish that I could have seen each flower done in both styles rather than either/or (even if the step-by-step details would have been only loose or realistic).
There is a lot or really good information in this book. It will be useful to a beginner and through more advanced skill sets.
This book breaks down the mystery of watercolouring flowers. The author starts by breaking down flowers into a few basic shapes: Star, Circle, Bell, Bowl, and Trumpet. The last section is a combination of shapes. There are approximately 4 different flowers per section. Each flower is done in a loose or realistic style. Here is where I had a problem. I wish that I could have seen each flower done in both styles rather than either/or (even if the step-by-step details would have been only loose or realistic).
There is a lot or really good information in this book. It will be useful to a beginner and through more advanced skill sets.
May 11, 2020
I used to follow this artist on IG, but stopped when her account became more about promoting her book than bringing inspiration. I have grown as a watercolorist since then and maybe that’s the reason I found this artist’s loose watercolor style not inspiring enough.
The loose watercolor samples on the book did not make me want to copy them as the other artists’ works do. They were too simple and blended together, more abstract than loose. I do, however, love her more realistic style and her floral drawings are beautiful. I’d love to read a book by her about those two things.
The loose watercolor samples on the book did not make me want to copy them as the other artists’ works do. They were too simple and blended together, more abstract than loose. I do, however, love her more realistic style and her floral drawings are beautiful. I’d love to read a book by her about those two things.
March 20, 2024
A moderately helpful guide to painting flowers. I wish there had been more instruction about brush strokes. The book illustrated one single stroke to use on each petal shape, while the written instructions described something different each time. I would not be confident in my ability to paint freehand flowers after reading this book alone.
October 23, 2022
Beautiful step by step instructions to paint flowers with water colors.
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October 28, 2024A mix of loose and realistic projects. I really liked the loose ones.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews