Watercolor Success in Four Steps

This book is very accessible—clear, user friendly format. A beginner will need to read the first chapter/instructions. Someone who understands the basics already (like the difference between wet on wet or wet on dry, and has a grasp of colors/palette) can dive right into painting. It’s great for sketchbook practice—when you just want to get some color on paper and practice technique but actually end up with a satisfying result. It’s going to be my best friend for filling my sketchbook with juicy little paintings of fruit, flowers, plants, everyday objects. I was getting hung up and avoiding watercolor practice because I was always trying to paint in a realist style. I really admire Louise DeMasi (a realist painter) as a teacher, but her tutorials require planning, preparation and time. Not good for quick daily practice—but wonderful as a longer term project. Or for someone who has plenty of free time. So now I can just open my Watercolor Success and paint a cactus, or a slice of watermelon, or bunch of flowers. She has simple, clear instructions for which colors to use and which techniques. Love it!

Watercolor Success in Four Steps: 150 Skill-Building Projects to Paint by Marina Bakasova I haven't messed with my paints in a bit so I wanted to get back into them. I have been reading all my books and checking out library books to see which was best. I saw this one and bought it. It has to be the best beginner watercolor book I've read! It takes the reader on a four step journey from blank page to nice watercolor picture! Just four simple steps! There are 150 projects in here too! They all are marked as easy, medium, or high in difficulty. I'm not going to list the 150 projects but the categories are fruit, vegetables, food, drinks,flowers, plants, natural world, insects, animals, birds, sea life, objects, travel, and celebrations. It you think you can't draw, don't worry. The subjects are all super simple or you can trace them. I didn't get the Kindle, I prefer solid books for art. I figure if I do one a day that will get me back in the game! Spur me on to do more! I bought a small spiral watercolor paper book to paint in just for these pictures. Excellent book for beginners or those that want to refresh! Now, off I go to get my brushes!

This book has been helpful to me. I normally just wing it and use acrylics so this was a new chapter in my painting path. I like the direction and the suggestions....I didn't realize how often you reapply when doing watercolors. The whole "apply on wet paper" and "waiting for it to dry" and then reapply, sometimes 2-4 times. Definitely a good book for someone willing to read the intro pages, read each step and has patience while things dry.

I’m currently working through the fruit section of this book, and it’s been such a fun and confidence-boosting experience. The step-by-step format makes watercolor feel approachable, even as a beginner. Each fruit is broken down into simple layers that are easy to follow, and I’ve already noticed my painting improving. I haven’t explored the rest of the book yet, but so far, it’s been exactly what I needed to build my skills in a relaxing, structured way.

Great book...very organized.

I cannot say enough wonderful things about this book! I had not used watercolor paint since elementary school, but I decided I wanted to try some watercolor painting. I wasn't sure where to start, but I fortunately found this book. I liked that it had high ratings and also that it claimed each painting had 4 steps. I didn't know how it would go, but by the time I'd painted my 3rd picture and learned a bit about how the paint flowed and mixed on my watercolor paper, my pictures started to turn out better than I'd hoped. The book has many sections: fruits & vegetables, desserts, flowers, plants, animals, landscapes, every day objects, probably some that I am missing. I haven't gotten nearly through the book, but some examples of my paintings from the book are posted below.

Pros: *great small exercises to do for a short session once a day * bills skills in easy to understand quick exercises *doesn't over do the basic info in the front of the book. *I love the picture index in the front so much! *great for warm-up exercises before starting a bigger piece of artwork *the 4 steps seem easy and enough steps to explain what to do *very bright and colorful Cons: *price OK but I wouldn't call it a great value *my book arrived bent. Looks to be a storage issue at Amazon not a shipping issue. *I wish there were a few completed art pieces to do at the end of the book, even if more steps than 4 were needed. Would be nice to have something completed after working through the book. *there are a few things I don't care to paint but that's just my tastes.

I'm new to watercolor and also to art in general, but absolutely just horrid at watercolor. (I lack the patience and the water control.. I even got a heat gun to help make up for one of those things, lmao) This book is beautifully composed in a painting style that I find really pretty and am happy to learn to emulate. I hope she comes out with more because the price is so affordable and provides multiple hours of entertainment, but also improves your skills! :)

Superb!! I'm an amateur artist. I have been an artist for over 50 years. My above average talent is with acrylics, pastels. However watercolor is my biggest challenge even as an above average artist. I have many really good watercolor instruction books. They all have their plusses and I'm still glad I have them. This book is superb especially for beginners or artist like me trying to conquer the world of watercolor painting. Highly recommend. It provides much smaller approaches to practise watercolor techniques, easy exercises without getting frustrated. And I would use a watercolor sketch book for these exercises to practice. And not waste big pieces of watercolor paper. A 4x6" watercolor sketchbook would be perfect for these watercolor painting exercises. VERY PLEASED I took a chance on this book

Easy to follow instructions. I am enjoying the workbook.

Está increíble el libro, viene el paso a paso, las capas de colores que hay que pintar en acuarela y vienen tips interesantes a los que estamos empezando a pintar

Pros: I’m a beginner at watercolor and Ms Bakasova’s art just has that oomph that makes you want to read her deconstructed annotated 4 steps to watercolor success diagrams for each exercise over and over. The 150 skill building exercises cover Food, Vegetables, Drinks, Flowers, Plants, Natural World, Insects, Animals, Birds, Sea Life, Objects, Travels and Celebrations. I liked the desserts in her food category. The exercises are rated by skill level: easy, medium, hard. The exercises I attempted were in the medium category but that doesn’t mean that I the exercises categorized as easy will be easy for me: I find that most artist-authors make the assumption that loose washes are easier for the beginner whereas I find that those are the most difficult to master. I find it easier to do smaller areas of detailed work because brush load is easier to manage as is eveness in application. Cons: The diagrams are pretty tiny. I enjoyed them but if you wanted to enlarge them it would be a pain because they don’t appear all together in a section. You would have to scan or copy them from their exercise page (see picture, one diagram per exercise per page). Overall: The diagrams are pretty simple so I guess you could just copy them. For me, my drawing tends to be a little distorted so I preferred to trace them all on tracing paper then use a light box to transfer them to watercolor paper. I could have transferred the left facing page diagrams directly using the light box but the right facing page diagrams were too close to the spine so I decided to trace all the diagrams I wanted to try. I contacted Ms Marina Bakasova by DM on Instagram to ask her if she had the .pdf of all the diagrams but she didn’t have them. I thought it was too much of a hassle to contact the publisher so I traced the diagrams myself. It’s a small book; I have placed a sharpie pen in my picture to give a sense of scale. Spiral binding would have been nice. Other books: Even better would have been a Dana Fox (of Watercolor With Me series) style of instructions on one page and pre printed watercolor paper diagrams on the facing page for you do try. Watercolor the Easy Way by the brilliantly talented Sara Berreson also has a similar format as Dana Fox’s book abeit with color swatches but not names of recommended colors. Sara Berrenson is coming out with a new book on flowers in Oct 2021 and I have pre-ordered and am looking forward to it. I do like Ms Bakasova’s exercises enough to go to the trouble of tracing them our myself though. If not having the .pdf diagrams are a deal breaker for you, then maybe Watercolor Snacks by Volta Voloshin-Smith is for you. The author has a download link to the .pdf diagrams to the exercises in her book. The .pdfs in that book have one diagram per page but you could squeeze two exercises into one A4 page. Initially, I found the exercises a little big but was glad to practice my washes with them. My interest is in flowers, food and dessert watercolors so it seems that besides Skillshare and books another option I have is to get Korean Watercolor books. These come pre-printed with diagrams on watercolor paper to paint.

Great things for starters