The most recommended watercolor painting books

What drew me first to this book were Cindy Derby's spectacular and unusual illustrations that are truly a celebration of wild nature. When I started reading, I was also drawn to the magic of Deborah Underwood's words and the perfect combination between words and pictures.

I identified with the feeling in the book that even when I'm inside, I can feel the outside. The outside in the book is constantly peeking in, when the main character of the story is inside–inside the house, inside school, inside the car. When I finished reading the book I couldn't wait to go outside, to the adventures that await me out there.

These days, children’s lives are busier than ever! I love that this book helps all kids slow down and use their imaginations as they pretend their way through the pages.

The author’s joyful message is front and center: “You can be anything!” Are you the wind, “touching flowers with fingertips?” Are you the rain, “born of clouds, sister to thunder and lightning?” Or maybe today you are a river, slowly drifting to the sea.

Each page brought me closer to calmness with the peace of poetry and nature. Anna Emilia Laitinen’s soft watercolor illustrations are gorgeous! I first checked this book out of the library but had to buy a copy for our home library so we could turn to it again and again. 

I highly recommend this true tale of deep-sea exploration!

The suspense is intense, compelling readers to keep turning pages. In 1930, two intrepid explorers climbed into a 5,000-pound hollow metal sphere and descended 800 feet into the ocean—farther than any human had ever dared to venture. They were amazed to find animals aglow in the ocean’s cold, dark depths.

Young readers (and older readers, too!) will be inspired by Otis and Will’s desire to know more, their persistent problem solving, and this remarkable feat of science and engineering. Over 90% of the ocean is still unexplored! Well-researched pencil, ink, and watercolor illustrations suit the story perfectly.

Growing up, I was enchanted by Jill Barklem’s detailed watercolour illustrations of this miniature world of mice. The cosy, fire-lit interiors—crammed with furniture, food and flora—are so intricately drawn as to give you the feeling you could walk through them.

Barklem also makes liberal use of one of my favourite devices for visual exploration: the cutaway. It’s used to excellent effect here as the mice carve out even more real estate under the snow, namely an Ice Hall for their winter ball.

These illustrations instilled in me a love of detailed artwork, and faithful rendering of a three-dimensional environment, that persists to this day in my own style.

This gentle rhyming book is the perfect book for your child and their best stuffy friend to read just before they drift off to sleep. The imaginative watercolor pictures will stick with you, and children will love finding how each child’s BFFs find their way into dreamland. Bonus? The book is short enough for a quick bedtime story, but has enough of a story for you to read it over and over without making you feel tired, too!

Ithell Colquhoun was a surrealist artist, writer, and an initiate of several magical orders. Her unique novel (first published in 1961) has a haunting and visionary quality in the way it blends surrealist imagery and occult symbolism. The hermetic plot symbolizes alchemical processes and transformations and reading it feels like being guided through an oneiric landscape, evoking myths tangled with bodily sensations and fragments of memories.

Not a novel in the usual sense of the word, but a philosophical and poetic meditation on dreams, desires, and the journey through life. This is a lovely edition, illustrated with a selection of Colquhoun’s watercolours which beautifully complement the text.

More than anything I love a picture book where a princess is also a librarian. In this story, the knight and dragon learn everything from books—like tail swishing and building armor, all of which lead to a big, pointless fight that leaves them bruised, burned, and battered. The librarian shows up in a book-mobile and hands the dragon and knight BBQ cookbooks. In the last illustration spread, they are shown with a hopping K& D BAR-B-Q joint. I especially enjoy how the armor and fire-breath that were previously used for fighting each other, are now used successfully for their restaurant venture. De Paola’s simple and colorful watercolors bring the story to life, and show that we can all get along really well! 

Marvelous Mattie is the true story of the woman who invented a machine to make flat-bottomed paper shopping bags, the same kind we still use in supermarkets. But her story is so much more than that. I quickly warmed to this talented and determined girl whose homemade kites and sleds were the envy of all the boys. When she was only twelve, she had to leave school and go to work in the mills, where an accident led to her first major invention, a lifesaving guard to keep pieces from flying off machines. I love McCully’s illustration style—it reminds me of The Borrowers—and her account of Mattie’s patent battle against a man who stole her work had me holding my breath until the very satisfying happy ending.

One of the challenges of running an online teaching business is starting on the path of the unknown. I’ve had to face many fears on my journey, some of them are so well-masked that it took years to understand what they are. These fears have held me back. That’s why I appreciate reading Meera’s reflections on fear, how to befriend it and see it as an indication for growth. Beautifully written and illustrated, this book is a delight to hold in your hands, and I believe its message will gently guide you towards a life of overcoming your fears so you can journey into a new land of entrepreneurship with more curiosity and confidence.

This is a lovely coloring book for girls and tweens! Each page is an affirmation or scripture verse from the Bible that the reader can color in. The illustrations are detailed with thick and precise linework. A really neat addition to this book is that the coloring pages can be ripped out! I personally love this element of the book because it gives the reader a sense of ownership to their own completed page. Simply hanging up a finished page can give a girl feelings of pride and self-love! This is a great coloring book to help a girl build her self-esteem and be reminded of truth found inspired by the Bible. I recommend the book to be done with your closest girlfriends!