Your Year in Art: Watercolor

This is one book I will NEED to purchase for my shelf. This is one of THE MOST user friendly watercolor tutorial that I have come across. As an absolute beginner to watercolor, I like the easy to follow instructions on basic water color techniques. There are also beautiful text features with stunning visuals, step-by-step instructions, tips, and even an assignment to work on for the week. A lot of other watercolor books I have looked over are rather intimidating and I feel that an absolute beginner would not benefit from reading. THIS is definitely one to purchase for your self.

Why spend hundreds of dollars on watercolor courses, when you can just spend $19.99 and receive the same lessons?

Thank you to Kristin Van Leuven, Quarto Publishing Group, and NetGalley for this complimentary book in exchange for my honest review.

Very cute book, it has lesson for each week in a year with different themes, like getting outside and painting some flowers, or painting your to do list, a memory or favorite food. We will be implementing this book in our curriculum for sure!

This is a fun book!

A great physical distancing gift! This book breaks down water color painting skills week by week to help people become artists.

There isn't a lot of basics, but there is information on choosing paper and how to blend colors. Then you can jump into the projects week by week to improve your skills. It feels like something that an absolute beginner might have trouble diving in to just because the first few weeks feel a bit more advanced than water color 101.

Overall it's a great book with beautiful pictures! It's a clear guide for budding artists!

Your Year in Art: Watercolor is a introduction into watercolors. This book gives you a lesson a week to improve and understand how to improve your skills. The lessons are descriptive and easy to follow.

I was provided with an electronic ARC through NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of this book.

I love reading and learning from watercolor art books. This book takes beginning lessons seriously by breaking each down into components week by week. This allows the beginning or practicing watercolor artist a chance to work on and master a technique over a short period of time.

It covers all aspects from color theory to more detailed still life and landscape painting. It also gives recommendations for subject matter both indoors and outside.

The illustrations are colorful and helpful. They add much to the instructions in this book. The author/artist encourages the reader to develop their own painting style after practicing the various techniques and ideas in the book.

During this social isolation period, I try to Zoom with my nieces to give their parents a much needed rest. After helping with their educational needs, I try to find some fun arts and crafts. This watercolor book is great because of its weekly projects that are easy to follow and fun to do for people of all ages. It starts at a beginner level and then proceeds in difficulty. It also strengthens some math skills such as geometry with finding different shape objects around the house to study and then paint.
I think parents and teachers will find this book a good resource to use in a home or classroom setting.

"Your Year in Art: Watercolor" launches the reader's art abilities. Starting with basic supplies and beginner brush strokes to get to know your paints, brushes, and paper, this book continues to build techniques and abilities from those initial steps.. Although there is a new lesson each week, it doesn't mean you can accelerate your own progress or spend extra time on a technique that proves to be more challenging or more enjoyable.

AUTHOR

Find out about Kristin Van Leuven by clicking her name.

WHO IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE?

Anyone wishing to enhance their skillset in watercolor would find this work invaluable.

SYNOPSIS

Your Year In Art: Watercolor hales from the temple of art instruction from Walter Foster Publishing and follows their easy to use layout. The guide begins with explanations for the beginner. It starts with the basics and is accompanied by simple assignments for the aspiring artist. There is advice on how to control the intensity of color, color complements, mark making and an introduction to a range of brush designs. Each page has its compliment of assignments and practical examples of the method being employed. In addition, there are helpful hints and tips to further enhance the knowledge of the self-taught student. The pages have large full color, illustrations and photographs.

Kristin walks the reader through the diverse watercolor methods such as: blending, layering color, controlling saturation, how to use resists, the importance of leaving white space and the joy of monochrome painting. Also included are more challenging techniques such as: the use of negative space, the fun of playing with patterns, the use of black and white pigments, as well as examples of calligraphy.

The mid-portion of the book focuses upon the commonly known problem of “artist’s block.” Eventually every artist has a time when creativity seems like a distant dream and motivation lacks inspiration. This section contains a selection of inspiration re-starting exercises, or as she refers to it “jump-starting” creativity.

Inspiration can be found in many places. In Chapter 3, Kristin provides examples on how to wet your artistic appetite. Going outside provides a myriad of inspirational sources for any art project. Everything from botanical subjects, to animals or other creatures can provide inspiration. For landscapes, the aspiring artist could paint beautiful serene country scenes, urban scenes or any element of those scenes. Essentially, the world is your oyster.

Adding a personal touch to any work to make it more intimate is covered in the 4th Chapter.

Last but not least, the 5th and final chapter covers the importance of basic perspective to improve your art work. It demonstrates the numerous ways to include movement to your art piece and how to depict water in your painting.

CONCLUSION

Your Year In Art: Watercolor by Kristin Van Leuven has distilled years of art experience into a highly accessible, clearly described fun and colorful format. I found myself fingering through the pages again and again to merely enjoy the illustrations and to check out the assignments. Walter Foster Publishing produces some of the very best books for artists and Your Year In Art: Watercolor is among the best of that unique stable.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank Kristin Van Leuven, NetGalley, and Walter Foster Publishing for affording me the opportunity to review Your Year In Art: Watercolor.

This book starts with the basics, such as materials and color theory, then jumps right into the good stuff of deciding what to paint and how to translate that to the page. It has lots of helpful exercises that will have you simply picking up the paint brush and playing around with different brushes, different colors and trying different techniques to help you learn how watercolor works and find out what you like. If you want to learn watercolor, this book will have you practicing in no time!

This book is wonderful and I definitely want to purchase for it for my shelf. This is one of best watercolor tutorial aids that I have found. I absolutely love week 14 black and white. I only wish each project was from start to finish. But honestly the descriptions and pictures are truly fantastic. The nature illustrations are absolutely beautiful and just looking at this book has been a joy.


I received this book form NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group - Walter Foster for an honest review.
#YourYearinArtWatercolor
#NetGalley

This is one of those books I want to get a "real" book version of because it's just so awesome! A bright and beautiful guide to getting creative with watercolors, I was left inspired to get out my paints and try the fun ideas the author shares. She makes this paint technique accessible and fun. Be ready to go back to this one again and again for inspiration and advice!

It was the lovely book cover that drew me in to read this inspiring guide to watercolour. It consists of a new project for each week of the year. Following an introduction that explains the premise of the book, and a brief guide to selecting tools and materials, it begins the first of five chapters. All of the chapters contain plenty of helpful illustrations and guidance. The first chapter concentrates on basics and these basics are the foundation for many of the remaining projects. There are lots of fun ideas and it definitely makes you want to give it a go. Thank you to Kristin Van Leuven, Net Galley and the publisher, Quarto for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this advance copy. While in quarantine, I've been looking for some art ideas for my son and me. This book have me some really great ideas. I have watercolors on their way, and we're excited to start doing some of Kristin's assignments.

The social distancing and quarantining means this was more like a weekend course of watercolor for my daughter. She loved it enough to dive in and just keep swimming her way through it though, so job well done!

This book is perfect for anyone who is slightly familiar to watercolor and would like a boost in techniques and painting inspirations. This isn't so much a step-by-step book, but more of a weekly project prompting guide to help artists increase free-flowing art. This would make a great holiday gift!

This is exactly what I needed.
I love watercolor but I never learned how to use them properly.
I like the idea of a weekly assignment for every week of the year.
Instructions are easy to follow and the illustration are really beautiful.

I had the pleasure of reviewing the first Your Year in Art book and I loved the concept so much that I had to request this watercolor edition as well.
This is perfect for beginners and hobby artists who'd like some prompts to get started.
The layout of the book is great, the accompanying illustrations are beautiful and the explanations are easy to follow and precise.

Awesome book! There's an assignment for each week and they go from basics to more advance. This book is very colorful, clear and the explanations are easy to follow. Every week you will learn something different and I'm so excited to do every task. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

I'm so in love with this book. It breaks down EVERYTHING YOU NEED to really learn watercolor from the basics up, and does it in weekly lessons so that you focus on one skill at a time. And it's easy to follow, which is not always the case in art books in general, but especially in watercolor it seems.

This is the right book for right now... and/or probably any time. But especially now when we have time to explore our creativity and live our aspirational life--with the right tools! I was curious to see if this book would inspire me or discourage me in pursuing watercolors. I'm no artist but I do wish I could create something using watercolors. I expected to be discouraged, but I love how the book is set up and it feels very do-able even for someone unskilled such as myself. I expect this will fly off the shelves as it is both attractive and useful. It would also make a lovely quarantine gift!
Thank you NetGalley for an advance copy. Now I'm going to order my own copy for keeps!

This is a colorful, fun book that gives you a year of watercolor prompts and inspiration. The author starts with a bit of basics about watercolor painting and then provides an assignment a week for 52 weeks. You start small with things like color mixing and using shapes and move on to tasks like painting in black and white, using resists, painting your to do list, painting the sky, etc. Tips and pointers are provided throughout, and there are lots of the author's paintings for illustrations.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

I’m a beginner at watercolor and find that this book slowly builds one’s confidence by focusing on different techniques and then projects.. Early on, that week might focus on brushstrokes, another on white space, another on the types of paper and how they affect appearance.

Later exercises provide suggestions on different projects: try your least favorite color, create your portrait, and paint a part of your room. The text provides lovely illustrations and examples, rather than give explicit directions for projects (like most YouTube videos). After reading through most of the text, I’m excited to carry out its directions and explore my own abilities and creativity!

This book really makes watercolour fun and invites anyone to chill out and have a go. The vibrant colourful pages are so inspiring and having a different project and technique for the week really encourages you to focus. The instructions are just enough to get your paint brush to the paper. It is the perfect book for a beginner wanting to try out different techniques and just have a go. Just browsing through the pages will have you reaching for your art supplies. I think this book will also appeal to none artists who journal or scrapbook and just want to add a bit of colour and design to their pages. I love this book.

This is a beautiful, comprehensive and thorough guide to painting different things in watercolours. I would recommend this for anyone who is wanting to use watercolours. This is an excellent art guide with lots of detail and it made me want to paint straight away!

Just like most art books it starts with an introduction listing the basic materials you'll need, then it moves into weekly exercises. From color theory to negative space the artist learns how to use watercolors. Once through the basics, the exercises turn to focusing on creativity and how to find inspiration and try new ideas. This is a great book for beginners, or artists who need a little push to get back into the creative habit. #netgalley #youryearinart

This is such a beautiful book - it would be a great gift!
As a beginner, I felt like it started off really helpfully on basic techniques, but then it jumped more to projects that while inspirational, I didn't feel like I had the skills to implement.
It's beautiful, and would be great to have a hard copy to flick through for reference.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing a digital review copy.

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This is a beautiful art watercolour project book to give you many types of inspiration and ideas.

The book consists of 52 projects to try (one for each week of the year) and starts off with easy stuff such as mixing paints, layering, textures etc and builds up to more advanced projects over-the-counter weeks.

This book is a great project book for all art stages of watercolour painting, from newby ( like me) to more advanced and would make a beautiful present for watercolour lovers.

I have never been much of a watercolor painter, I never really got the right ratio of water to color and things would end up a runny mess.  I have seen some beautiful water colors though and I am always very jealous of those who can do it.  I was happy to read Your Year In Art: Watercolor which gives you all sorts of basics and techniques to get your started and then a project for each week of the year, getting more and more difficult as your skills advance!  I don't have any of the art supplies needed for these but there were quite a few weekly projects that caught my eye (you know one was that panda on the front cover!) so I may have to remedy this and give water color another try with the help of this book.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.

Your Year in Art: Watercolor by Kristin Van Leuven. I was excited to read this book as I have always been looking for a watercolor instructional book that would inspire me to finally pick up a brush and try watercoloring. The premise of the book is that there are 52 tasks, one for each week. In week one you learn a task. Week two builds on week one and adds more. Therefore you are building on your lessons. The author continually encourages the reader not to be too hard or critical of themselves and just go with the process.

The colors and projects in the book are awesome. Just paging through it made me happy. There is a lot of inspiration and excitement to be had when reading this book. There are tips and tricks to refer to in each week. I was pleased with the easy to follow step by step directions on basic watercolor techniques. Many other watercolor books seem intimidating and this one does not. I feel that a beginner, as well as, someone striving to improve their painting would benefit from this book. I would definitely recommend this book. Well done!

I would like to thank Quarto Group, the author and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have recently got back into drawing and have been using watercolor to bring the pictures alive. I saw this book on NetGalley and I wanted it more to refresh my skills.'s a great little book with tons of hints and tips. I even forgot about using masking fluid. I haven't used that since college.



It also gives loads of assignments and most of all it helps when stuck in a rut. I highly recommend this book and it will be one for my bookshelf when it's out

Thank you for NetGalley for the free article.

I am not a painter but I would love to be able to paint with the watercolor technique. I tried to look at different books but they didn't capture my attention and after browsing some of them I thought I would never to be able to do some watercolor paints. This one changed my mind. The instruction are clear, easy to follow and I think it would be the perfect book for a beginner like me. I think I am going to buy a copy of it and start doing the "weekly assignments'!
thanks to Quarto Publishing Group, and NetGalley for this ARC in change of an honest review.

I am a big fan of doing something regularly and creating a routine and habit around it. The hardest part of doing something daily/weekly is generating ideas. Coming up with a list of 52 things to do so you can keep learning, expanding and exploring takes time and energy that could otherwise be going into creating.

This book can help with exactly that. The colorful, beautiful, and inspiring drawings in this book come with a different focus/challenge each week, keeping you learning and exploring. Each week is fun in its own way and the variety and depth here is sure to keep you going. The ideas are simple but the art can apply to everyone from a beginner to an advanced artist.

with gratitude to netgalley and Walter Foster Publishing for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

As a new watercolor artist I have looked at a lot of books. I love this one for the clear inspirations and easy to understand tips. The prompts have enough variety to encourage skill growth and keep my interest. The example images are not to hard for a beginner like me but do get more challenging as the book progresses. I am looking forward to working my way through the book.

A nice book for watercolor beginners. It is nicely illustrated with clear instructions. I appreciated the different techniques presented and all the different ideas. I didn't exactly follow the weekly ideas, I picked and chose what appealed to me but the different activities offered a good basis for inspiration.
I would have liked maybe a little bit more details on materials and the very first steps of starting.

Such a great beginners guide for watercolor. The week by week suggestions and techniques are easy to follow and great for expanding technique. I would highly recommend this for anyone interested in watercolor.

This book is a delight! I've been wanting to try my hand at watercolors for awhile, and this gives me a solid framework for learning it on my own. I like how it starts with basics and then you build your skills each week throughout the span of a year. I'd recommend this to anyone starting out with watercolors and plan on giving it as gifts to my creative friends.

This book is so beautiful and so easy to follow. It is a very user friendly book that allows us to be creative while also giving us a place to start. I can’t wait to see all my final products!

Your Year in Art: Watercolor is absolutely perfect if you’re completely new to watercolors or painting in general. Each week presents a new lesson along with tips and suggestions. From the beginning, you are encouraged to take it slow without getting too overwhelmed or intimidated. The graphics and photos are so beautiful and makes me want to dig out my watercolors.
Watercolor painting can be very intimidating, especially for any beginner. It is a less forgiving medium than acrylics, for instance. Your Year in Art: Watercolor presents the ins and outs of watercolor painting very thoroughly while giving the novice artist time to explore, create and learn on their own. All the projects seem so fun! I am very excited to try out the projects, especially watercolor cacti!

This is such a very helpful guide for those who are a beginner in this specific art medium as well as those who have never dabbled with water color at all. This guide goes week by week with so much information to help you progress as an artist. The different between what you'd likely product at week one versus 52 is astronomical. I think this is a good book for anyone who wants to experiment with water colors.

What a wonderful book as soon as I opened the download I loved the vibrancy of the colours and immediately flipped through it all, just mesmerised. Since then I've gone through it slowly twice and I just love it more each time. The author is an artist who loves what she does and has a wonderful way of teaching. Her approach is accessible, really easy to follow (and no that isn't always the same as accessible), the tone is encouraging and supportive. The exercises are easy to follow and the presentation just makes you want to get started straight away. Obviously the idea is do undertake this over a year and for reviewing purposes I've only just started but I can't wait to see what I've produced a year from now.

If during lockdown you've been wanting to get more creative or you just want to explore a new medium, I really recommend this book, suitable for 5 years upwards, its both simple and inspirational. I would also recommend getting hold of the print version as the digital issue was a bit glitchy but that may get sorted out for proper digital release, but its such a beautiful book you're gonna want it in print!

With thanks to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

A simplistic look at getting started with watercolors. I think this would be great for the beginner.

I am new to watercolors and Your Year in Art Watercolor is the perfect book to introduce and nurture my new artistic adventure. It also is a particularly welcome book in the age of Covid-19 and social isolation. This book tells you all about the paper and paint you need and then it’s off to a weekly assignment. I appreciate that the projects are varied both in content and location, such as outside. As the book progresses, the projects become more challenging and as a result, I believe it will hold my interest for the year as I work through it. Your Year in Art Watercolor is filled with eye candy and inspiration. The techniques are explained well and tips are given throughout the book. You won’t want for ideas with this book in hand.

Thank you to Quarto Publishing Group - Walter Foster and NetGalley for an advanced ready copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is a fabulously inspiring watercolor book which expertly guides you through a whole year's worth of activities to play, to create and to watercolor!
A must-have for anyone interested in creativity, making, painting, color and design!