Watercolor workbooks

A watercolor workbook is a lesson you paint.

Not outlines to fill in. Every exercise gives you the finished painting to work towards, the same painting broken into its washes in order, and a printed base to paint straight over — so you end up able to paint the subject without the book.

Start with the beginner set See all eleven

Wet-on-wet watercolor exercise with colour bleeding on damp paper

N° The difference

Not a coloring book. A different thing entirely.

A coloring book

Gives you an outline and asks you to fill it in. The drawing is the product, and what you make is a coloured-in version of somebody else’s line art. Relaxing, and genuinely good for it — that is what our watercolor coloring books are for.

A workbook

Teaches a technique. You get the finished painting, the washes that built it in order, and a base to work over — so the point is not the page you finish, it is that you can paint the next one on blank paper.

N° The workbooks

Eleven subjects, one method.

Watercolor technique swatches — a flat wash, a graded wash and a wet-on-wet bloom, with brush and water jar

Watercolor workbook for beginners

Start here if you have never painted

Flat wash, graded wash, wet-on-wet, dry brush — the six techniques everything else is built from, one per exercise, in the order they should be learned.

From $9.99See workbook

Watercolor still life of pears and a ceramic jug in a restrained three-colour palette

Watercolor workbooks for adults

For the evening, not the classroom

Longer exercises with real subject matter and no cartoon shortcuts — built for an adult who wants an hour of quiet and something worth framing at the end.

From $9.99See workbook

Loose watercolor study of roses and wildflowers painted wet into wet

Flowers watercolor workbook

Petals, stems and full bouquets

Single blooms to arranged bouquets, in the medium flowers were made for — soft edges, colour bleeding into colour, white paper left for the light.

From $9.99See workbook

Watercolor study of a songbird with a soft breast and sharp wing feathers

Birds watercolor workbook

Feather, beak and posture

Songbirds, waders and raptors — painted the way feather actually behaves in water, soft at the breast and sharp at the wing.

From $9.99See workbook

Watercolor shoreline study with breaking surf and white paper reserved for the foam

Seaside watercolor workbook

Water, horizon and wet sand

Shorelines, harbours, shells and tropical water — the subject where leaving the paper alone matters more than anything you put on it.

From $9.99See workbook

Watercolor study of a fox with a soft coat and a broken dry-brush edge

Animals watercolor workbook

Fur, and the edge it makes

Foxes, hares, deer, hedgehogs and domestic animals — where the whole problem is one soft edge against one sharp one.

From $9.99See workbook

Watercolor study of a planted border in many mixed greens with a terracotta pot

Garden watercolor workbook

Beds, pots, greenhouses and bees

The cultivated version of botanical painting — mixed borders, terracotta, glass, and the problem of painting fifty greens that are all different.

From $9.99See workbook

Watercolor forest floor study with ferns, toadstools and dappled light

Woodland watercolor workbook

Trees, ferns, mushrooms and light

Forest interiors, undergrowth and campsite scenes — the set where the real subject is light coming through leaves.

From $9.99See workbook

Watercolor study of turning leaves with warm pigments bleeding on wet paper

Autumn watercolor workbook

The one season watercolor was built for

Turning leaves, orchards and low light — warm pigments bleeding into each other on wet paper, which is exactly what autumn looks like anyway.

From $9.99See workbook

Watercolor snow study with bare branches and long blue-violet shadows

Winter watercolor workbook

Snow is not white

Cold light, bare branches and snow — a set about painting shadow colour, because snow is only convincing once the blue in it is right.

From $9.99See workbook

Watercolor study of a scored country loaf and a cut cake on a floured board

Baking watercolor workbook

Bread, cake and warm crust

Loaves, pastries and a laid table — the set where everything is brown, and the whole exercise is making brown look delicious.

From $9.99See workbook

N° In every workbook

Built to be painted on, not looked at.

The same six things are in every set, whichever subject you start with.

A painting to aim at

Every exercise opens with the finished piece printed at full size. You can match value, edge and colour as you go instead of guessing what it is supposed to become.

The washes, in order

The same painting broken into its layers — first wash, second wash, detail. You paint one, let it dry, and turn the page. No step is left to infer.

A base to paint on

A pale printed guide on the facing page, light enough to disappear under a wash. Paint straight onto it, or use it as a drawing reference on your own block.

Single-sided, always

Water buckles paper. Nothing is printed on the back of an exercise, so a wet page never ruins the next one.

Mixes named, not guessed

Each workbook carries a colour-mixing chart for the palette it uses, so you can rebuild it from whatever pans you already own.

300 DPI, A4 and US Letter

Both page sizes in one file, at a resolution that survives a home printer. Print on 200gsm+ cold-press and it behaves like a proper block.

N° Who it's for

One method, four kinds of painter.

Absolute beginners

Six core techniques in the order they depend on each other, starting from a single flat wash.

Adult returners

Hour-long exercises with real subject matter, paced so an evening produces something finished.

Teachers & groups

Staged washes make a workbook easy to run as a class — everyone at the same layer at the same time.

KDP & Etsy sellers

The Complete pack carries a commercial licence, so paintings made from it can be sold.

Start your book

Want a workbook we haven't made yet?

We build these end to end — exercises, reference paintings, mixing charts and print-ready files. Tell us the subject and we'll come back with a plan.

Get in touch See the process