Paint Watercolor Flowers: A Beginner's Step-by-Step Guide

This book has so much information about watercolor painting! Birgit o Connor provides the student with valuable tips for mixing colors, using brushes, pallets, paper. She provides encouragement and confidence and makes painting flowers easy. Not only for the beginner. I love this book. A must have!

I LOVE her paintings, but I'm rating the book, not her art.These are large-scale paintings, requiring large sheets of expensive paper, which I own. However, the large brushes needed are very expensive to purchase. She sells the full brush set for $275 on her website; even the #30 brush, the one size I don't have, is $110.Then, there are the paint colors. I have a lot of different colors, but, of course, I don't have all the paints needed for her projects. I tried figuring out which of my paint colors are good substitutes and that requires a lot of testing.So--if you can invest in the materials needed, and you want to paint full-sheet flowers, you'll probably love this book. If you're painting on a budget, you'll be dismayed by the investment to try these projects.

Lots of excellent information for the beginner, like using a Mr. Clean sponge to lift paint and remove color. I’ve used a regular sea sponge, but I’m giving Mr. Clean a try next time. Also, while I know watercolor always dries lighter, this was the first time I saw that it’s 10% lighter when applied to dry paper and 25% lighter when applied as a wash. For some reason this seems like important info I missed in earlier books. O’Connor also recommends punching holes through a gray scale to hold over your painting…while this is a small change from the simple advice to use a gray scale when evaluating your painting, that small hole punch makes evaluation a lot easier and more accurate, at least for me.My only comment is that I wish there were more demonstrations included, but this is a very worthwhile purchase, especially for those of us interested in painting flowers.

I have a lot of books regarding watercolor--mostly about Botanical Painting--but this is the absolute best I have seen for any beginner. She clearly answers questions for rank beginners and the explanations are clear, concise and useful. I say this despite the fact that I have read only the first half of the book. I have, however, skimmed the rest and am very pleased that I bought it. Good for anyone just starting and for more advanced people, like me, who cannot ever get enough. The only downside is that it is paperback--would be easier to use if hardback--but worth the investment anyway.

While the book is nice is isn't what I expected. Front cover says step by step guide, and I'm wanting help with white flowers. There are guides BUT Not really step by step to make a painting.

very informative easy to follow instructions. Made me want to paint flowers.

Great book for all levels of watercolorist.

Great illustrations and clear directions

Livro excelente ! A pintora explica em passo-a-passo a sua técnica parecida com a de Georgia O' Keeffe, a arte de flores grandes em detalhes, só que utilizando a Aquarela/ Watercolor para sua expressão.

Her expertise is always spot on.Jan

Pictures are nice. Give inspirations.

Excellent -

Excellent info from basics to composition.