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The Joy of Watercolor: 40 Happy Lessons for Painting the World Around You
Enjoy the meditative art of watercolor with simple supplies, forty colorful illustrated lessons, and easy step-by-step instructions!
For a soothing boost of creativity and whimsy, try your hand at watercolor. With a few simple steps, anyone can discover their artistic side and achieve moments of peace and tranquility. Forty straightforward lessons promise fun and colorful results -- no pressure and no skill required. This simple painting medium produces colorful, modern paintings to adorn invitations, gifts, and walls.
The forty lessons cover useful topics
The supplies are a basic palette of watercolors, a selection of brushes, and nice thick paper will do the job. Your bright, whimsical art is guaranteed to bring color to any gray day. It's never too late to pick up a new hobby -- start painting your own beautiful cards and artwork today!
For a soothing boost of creativity and whimsy, try your hand at watercolor. With a few simple steps, anyone can discover their artistic side and achieve moments of peace and tranquility. Forty straightforward lessons promise fun and colorful results -- no pressure and no skill required. This simple painting medium produces colorful, modern paintings to adorn invitations, gifts, and walls.
The forty lessons cover useful topics
The supplies are a basic palette of watercolors, a selection of brushes, and nice thick paper will do the job. Your bright, whimsical art is guaranteed to bring color to any gray day. It's never too late to pick up a new hobby -- start painting your own beautiful cards and artwork today!
176 pages, Hardcover
Published August 7, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
February 11, 2020
I've been following Emma's page for a while and I'm so glad I bought her book. It's so beautiful and very easy to get into, it's beautiful and peaceful just like her. I can't wait for her gouache book. I've worked my way through the whole book. It's always in my work tote!
May 26, 2021
I'm not doing every exercise in this book, but I did read it from beginning to end, definitely marked certain parts and already started trying out some neat tips and tricks in my work as a beginner. Refreshing to see modern and uplifting designs in a tutorial book, and I'll definitely keep it at my desk to refer back to as I keep working on my watercolors.
June 17, 2026
Watercolor Is Gentle Until It Touches Paper.
Emma Block’s ‘The Joy of Watercolor’ Knows That the Real Beginner’s Lesson Is How to Survive the First Irreversible Mark.
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | June 17th, 2026
A solitary worktable, a returning brush, and a page already changed by water: this emblematic watercolor for Emma Block’s “The Joy of Watercolor” holds the book’s quiet lesson that painting begins not in control, but in the decision to continue after the first mark misbehaves.
Delicacy is not the same as paper brittleness, though watercolor has spent much of its inherited reputation being mistaken for the polite cousin at the painting table: translucent, pretty, too well brought up to spill. Emma Block’s “The Joy of Watercolor” knows better. Watercolor is gentle only until it touches paper. Then it runs, pools, blooms, stains, dries too fast, dries too slowly, and remembers every hesitation. The new hand’s first problem is not merely learning to mix green or paint a cupcake cherry. It is learning how to keep moving after the page has done something irreversible.
Emma Block builds her guide around that small crisis staged on a white rectangle. “The Joy of Watercolor: 40 Happy Lessons for Painting the World Around You” is, on its surface, a first-brush course with a low voice and sturdy rails: materials, color theory, basic techniques, then subject-led lessons arranged around flowers, fruit, plants, objects, food, people, animals, and painting on location. It is a book of hydrangeas, pineapples, potted plants, brogues, birds, brownstones, beaches, and markets. No one enters expecting ordeal. Yet Block’s intelligence lies in understanding that art instruction also teaches what to do after water runs past the pencil line.
Many beginner guides promise confidence while smuggling anxiety back into the studio by another door. They fetishize the correct supply, the correct wash, the correct failure to fail. Block resists that scolding little lexicon – ugly, ruined, disaster – and treats accidents not as miniature humiliations but as part of the medium’s grammar of bloom, tide line, dried edge, stain, and transparent overlap. Her premise is not that every mark will be good. It is that a mark need not be good to be usable. That distinction matters. It is the difference between encouragement as frosting and encouragement as method.
Early in the introduction, Block places watercolor inside a long history, from ancient pigments to illuminated manuscripts to Turner’s speed and economy. She does not linger in museum posture. Her real interest is what water does now: pigment suspended, moving, darkening, thinning, setting before the brush can appeal its first decision. Watercolor, in her account, asks for both decision and surrender. The painter must act quickly, but not bossily; guide the color, but not bully it; lay the wash, then stop worrying it. That is both a clear description of the medium and the guide’s rule of the wet surface: act while the paper is still alive.
This is a book meant to lie open beside the water jar. Formally, “The Joy of Watercolor” stays at the well-lit craft table, where the clear steps, safe subjects, and limited weather are all in view. Block begins with paint-box grammar: paints, brushes, paper, sketchbooks, pencils, masking fluid, workspace, color undertones, washes, wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, layering, drying time, and the blank page’s little despotism. The lessons proceed by subject rather than by a stern technical staircase. Flowers come first, which makes sense: they forgive looseness, invite color, and do not look offended if one petal wanders off-script. Later sections ask more of the hand – faces, animals, buildings, markets – without letting the paper pretend it is grading anyone.
Repetition is the book’s metronome, not its malfunction. Again and again, the reader sketches lightly, chooses colors, lays a wash, waits for dryness, layers detail, softens an edge, deepens a shadow, adds pencil or small marks, and moves on. Read straight through, the rhythm can feel clockwork. Worked through with a wet brush nearby, it becomes trust in the wrist. The ritual says: try again, only this time with a bird; try again, only this time with a street; try again, only this time with a glossy cherry that looks as though it might slide off the cheesecake and lodge a polite complaint.
In prose, Block is clear, plain, and steady. Her sentences tend toward the medium length of a teacher beside the table: name the problem, show the tool, offer a reason, give permission to adapt. She is not a stylist in the sharpened, quotable sense. Few sentences demand to be underlined for danger. Their virtue is a rinsed-clean steadiness: the language stays close to the hand – brush, paper, wash, pool, pigment, palette, texture, pencil, masking fluid. Technical terms enter without uniforms. The diction is practical enough to survive a kitchen table, full of desks, jars, flowers, tea, sketchbooks, and supplies one might actually buy without taking out a small, resentful loan.
Plainness, here, is not a defect so much as an ethic. A more glittering prose style might have made the guide more quotable, but also less hospitable. Block is not trying to dazzle anyone into reverence; she is trying to keep the hand from quitting. Her materials advice is especially shrewd. Cheap supplies can frustrate learning; exquisite paper can frighten the brush into paralysis. The sweet spot, for Block, is neither deprivation nor preciousness but use. A paint box is not a shrine. It is a tool that should be opened.
As visual instruction, the book chooses subjects with handles: petals, pineapples, shoes, pets, bowls, little houses. The prettiness looks simple until one notices the lesson design. These recognizable forms let the novice practice shape, color, shadow, negative space, texture, and composition without being marched through the academy’s marble hall. The wish for more abrasion is fair: more weather, more awkwardness, more failed beauty, more subjects that refuse to be charming. Still, abrasion is not what this little studio sells. Its pleasures can be painted from the kitchen table, and that is part of the point.
Project by project, the most persuasive lessons are those in which technique and temperament become the same thing. “Blue Hydrangeas” works because wet-on-wet blending is not merely explained; it is made necessary by the subject. A hydrangea’s mottled blue-violet-green shifts let spreading pigment appear not as loss of control but as botanical luck. “White Cosmos” teaches that painting white often means painting everything around white. “Flower Stall” and “Marrakech Market” gather earlier skills into crowded little ecosystems, asking the hand to build density one bloom, pot, shadow, rug, or figure at a time. These lessons do not reinvent instruction; they aim resistance well.
A loose hydrangea study in wet-on-wet blues, greens, and muted violets, where spreading pigment becomes not failure but the book’s happiest form of permission.
A restrained cosmos study inspired by Emma Block’s “The Joy of Watercolor,” letting unpainted paper, pale shadows, and negative space carry the lesson that absence can become form.
A muted market scene built through layered rugs, pots, figures, shadows, and half-finished patterns, echoing the book’s belief that a difficult image becomes possible one transparent decision at a time.
Across the sequence, Block teaches by recurrence. The reader does not leap from inspiration to mastery; the reader moves from simple flowers to fruit, plants, objects, food, faces, animals, houses, streets, and markets. Difficulty is raised one saucer at a time. By the location-painting section, color mixing, layering, pattern, shadow, and small details have returned often enough that a street scene looks less like an examination and more like a gathering of familiar problems. Early techniques come back under harder conditions.
Digital culture touches the rinse water but does not cloud it. Block recognizes watercolor’s renewed appeal in a feed-trained age, where the handmade carries a charge precisely because it refuses perfect replication. She is also quietly alert to the trap of saving images while forgetting to look. Instagram and Pinterest may make watercolor look fresh rather than fusty, but the final section urges readers toward travel, museums, people-watching, vintage shops, everyday objects, and their own photographs. A style built only from saved images rather than seen objects will begin to resemble a folder of tasteful echoes.
In the closing pages, Block turns from painting along to painting without her. She discusses inspiration, copying, copyright, scanning, reproducing work, printing cards, and finding a style. That turn keeps the forty lessons from becoming a decorative corridor with no door out. They are meant to train attention and habit, after which the painter must look outward. Style, in Block’s account, is not an accessory thrown over uncertainty. It is what keeps returning after the hand has chosen many times.
Measured against the shelf of art books that treat permission as part of the kit, “The Joy of Watercolor” sits comfortably beside Terry Runyan’s “Painting Happiness,” Jenna Rainey’s “Everyday Watercolor,” and Danny Gregory’s “The Creative License.” Runyan leans more openly into play and therapeutic whimsy; Rainey is more explicitly curriculum-like; Gregory is broader and more sketchbook-philosophical. Block’s contribution is softer and more domestic: a subject-led watercolor course in which unclenching is embedded in the supply list, the lesson sequence, and the tolerant little pauses between wet layers.
Its main limitation is the price of its kindness. Block’s world is lovely, but lovely with the corners padded. The reader spends a great deal of time among florals, fruit, treats, pets, houseplants, charming buildings, and travel views. The aesthetic avoids greeting-card torpor, but rarely paints anything charm cannot tidy. Nor does the book dwell on muddy color, overworked washes, or compositions that fail for reasons no pep talk can rinse away. Readers hoping for abstraction, severity, sustained portrait difficulty, urban grit, ugly weather, material experiment, or a fuller art-historical argument may find the guide too cushioned. Its charm opens the door; it also decides which rooms may be entered.
The cost of joy, in this case, is the padded surface of cheer. Difficulty is acknowledged, but rarely allowed to become dark, stubborn, or technically ugly. Block knows that watercolor can go wrong, but her answer is almost always to reframe, continue, and enjoy the process. A beginner may need exactly this. A more advanced painter may feel offered a soft brush when asking for sandpaper. The refusal of harshness is admirable; the avoidance of friction is more limiting. Both truths can sit on the same damp page without bleeding into mud.
Readers will part company along that line. Novices, hobbyists, anxious returners, and sketchbook dabblers may feel genuinely seen by the book’s quiet authority. Traditionalists and technique-hungry painters may want more rigor, more correction, more troubleshooting, more willingness to say that some blooms, tide lines, and misjudged shadows simply do not work. Block is not indifferent to skill, but she privileges continuation over verdict. That welcome is generous; it also keeps the work inside a protected room.
One measure of Block’s gift is scale. She makes failure small enough to handle: a bloom, a crooked petal, a shadow to glaze. The reader is told to work small, use workable supplies, accept substitutions, test color, wait for layers to dry, and try again. Even the prettiness assists this project. It is easier to begin with a pineapple, a leaf, a shoe, a dog, a blue mountain, a little house. The subjects are not grand because grandeur is not what frightened beginners need. They need a door that opens without creaking.
Pressed for a rating, “The Joy of Watercolor” earns 80/100, or 4/5 whole stars. That score fits a narrow promise kept with care and little overreach: the guide is highly useful, but not especially expansive. It is too intelligently sequenced, humane, and visually inviting to be dismissed as a handsome hobby manual. It is too safe, familiar, and sheltered from harsher weather to be called a major art-instruction text. Its excellence is emotional-practical: hesitation becomes supply advice, a first wash, and a next step.
Often, “doable” can sound faint until one remembers how many people stop making art because the first act feels impossible. Block is particularly attuned to the peculiar self-consciousness of adult beginning: the invoice brain, the comparison habit, the private suspicion that every page is secretly an exam. Children paint with enviable liberty; adults apologize to paper. The book’s relaxed cheer is not naïve about that hesitation. It simply refuses to kneel before it. The brush is picked up. The color is mixed. The white rectangle loses its jurisdiction.
Underneath the forty lessons is a book about consequence with soft edges. Watercolor’s lesson is that one cannot endlessly revise the moment before acting. Water spreads; pigment dries; the paper keeps a record. Block does not turn this into thunderous wisdom, which is a mercy. She keeps it at the scale of a wash, a petal, a shadow under a bowl. But the implication is durable: making begins when one accepts that control will be partial. The paint box becomes a small school for living with the line that cannot be unpainted, and the curriculum is prettier than most.
Looked at as teaching, the book’s great virtue is its refusal to confuse seriousness with severity. Block’s prose can be repetitive, but the repetition steadies. Her subjects can be sweet, but sweetness lowers the threshold. Her tone can be soft, but softness here is not flimsiness. It is a chosen pressure, light enough not to bruise the novice hand and persistent enough to move it. The book will not satisfy every painter, nor should it. Its best reader is someone standing at the edge of the page, already half-apologizing to the paper.
On that edge, “The Joy of Watercolor” has practical mercy. It does not promise transformation with trumpets. It offers paper, water, color, examples, and a voice saying that the unexpected mark is not necessarily the end of the picture. The promise fits in a paint box; the hunger behind it – to begin without shame, and then begin again – does not. Many manuals teach the wrist while leaving the flinch intact. Block’s better lessons loosen the flinch a little, the way pigment loosens in clean water: not all at once, not without residue, but enough for the color to move.
So the final image the book leaves is not mastery, and not even confidence exactly. It is smaller and more persuasive: a brush returning to the page after the first wash has dried wrong, or differently, or beautifully against plan. The hand has not conquered water. It has learned to continue with it.
A warm literary watercolor portrait inspired by “The Joy of Watercolor” by Emma Block, placing the author among paper, brushes, palette, and soft studio evidence of the handmade world her book invites readers to enter.
Small graphite rectangles test the table, window, hand, border, and breathing room before the final image settles into its quiet studio stillness.
The first full drawing leaves the scene provisional and exposed, with the worktable, window, brush hand, water jar, and central sheet still held in graphite rather than certainty.
The cover-derived palette is tested in muted washes of blush, ochre, sage, teal, navy, charcoal, and burgundy, turning color choice into part of the book’s discipline of restraint.
The first washes cross the graphite lines and begin to bloom, making visible the exact moment when intention gives way to water and the painting has to be answered rather than controlled.
A close study of the returning hand and brush keeps the gesture anatomically grounded, restrained, and human: not a flourish, but a careful decision to touch the page again.
The plate border is tested as process rather than ornament, with paper margins, crop marks, swatches, and the long “demetri” signature line folding into the image’s handmade scaffolding.
A four-stage process strip moves from drawing to first wash, deepened tone, and held light, showing how the finished image learned its structure one transparent layer at a time.
All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.
Watercolors are done on 140lb vellum and then scanned into the computer using an Epson scanner. From there, they are finalized in Procreate. All art and opinions are my own.
Emma Block’s ‘The Joy of Watercolor’ Knows That the Real Beginner’s Lesson Is How to Survive the First Irreversible Mark.
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | June 17th, 2026
A solitary worktable, a returning brush, and a page already changed by water: this emblematic watercolor for Emma Block’s “The Joy of Watercolor” holds the book’s quiet lesson that painting begins not in control, but in the decision to continue after the first mark misbehaves.
Delicacy is not the same as paper brittleness, though watercolor has spent much of its inherited reputation being mistaken for the polite cousin at the painting table: translucent, pretty, too well brought up to spill. Emma Block’s “The Joy of Watercolor” knows better. Watercolor is gentle only until it touches paper. Then it runs, pools, blooms, stains, dries too fast, dries too slowly, and remembers every hesitation. The new hand’s first problem is not merely learning to mix green or paint a cupcake cherry. It is learning how to keep moving after the page has done something irreversible.
Emma Block builds her guide around that small crisis staged on a white rectangle. “The Joy of Watercolor: 40 Happy Lessons for Painting the World Around You” is, on its surface, a first-brush course with a low voice and sturdy rails: materials, color theory, basic techniques, then subject-led lessons arranged around flowers, fruit, plants, objects, food, people, animals, and painting on location. It is a book of hydrangeas, pineapples, potted plants, brogues, birds, brownstones, beaches, and markets. No one enters expecting ordeal. Yet Block’s intelligence lies in understanding that art instruction also teaches what to do after water runs past the pencil line.
Many beginner guides promise confidence while smuggling anxiety back into the studio by another door. They fetishize the correct supply, the correct wash, the correct failure to fail. Block resists that scolding little lexicon – ugly, ruined, disaster – and treats accidents not as miniature humiliations but as part of the medium’s grammar of bloom, tide line, dried edge, stain, and transparent overlap. Her premise is not that every mark will be good. It is that a mark need not be good to be usable. That distinction matters. It is the difference between encouragement as frosting and encouragement as method.
Early in the introduction, Block places watercolor inside a long history, from ancient pigments to illuminated manuscripts to Turner’s speed and economy. She does not linger in museum posture. Her real interest is what water does now: pigment suspended, moving, darkening, thinning, setting before the brush can appeal its first decision. Watercolor, in her account, asks for both decision and surrender. The painter must act quickly, but not bossily; guide the color, but not bully it; lay the wash, then stop worrying it. That is both a clear description of the medium and the guide’s rule of the wet surface: act while the paper is still alive.
This is a book meant to lie open beside the water jar. Formally, “The Joy of Watercolor” stays at the well-lit craft table, where the clear steps, safe subjects, and limited weather are all in view. Block begins with paint-box grammar: paints, brushes, paper, sketchbooks, pencils, masking fluid, workspace, color undertones, washes, wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, layering, drying time, and the blank page’s little despotism. The lessons proceed by subject rather than by a stern technical staircase. Flowers come first, which makes sense: they forgive looseness, invite color, and do not look offended if one petal wanders off-script. Later sections ask more of the hand – faces, animals, buildings, markets – without letting the paper pretend it is grading anyone.
Repetition is the book’s metronome, not its malfunction. Again and again, the reader sketches lightly, chooses colors, lays a wash, waits for dryness, layers detail, softens an edge, deepens a shadow, adds pencil or small marks, and moves on. Read straight through, the rhythm can feel clockwork. Worked through with a wet brush nearby, it becomes trust in the wrist. The ritual says: try again, only this time with a bird; try again, only this time with a street; try again, only this time with a glossy cherry that looks as though it might slide off the cheesecake and lodge a polite complaint.
In prose, Block is clear, plain, and steady. Her sentences tend toward the medium length of a teacher beside the table: name the problem, show the tool, offer a reason, give permission to adapt. She is not a stylist in the sharpened, quotable sense. Few sentences demand to be underlined for danger. Their virtue is a rinsed-clean steadiness: the language stays close to the hand – brush, paper, wash, pool, pigment, palette, texture, pencil, masking fluid. Technical terms enter without uniforms. The diction is practical enough to survive a kitchen table, full of desks, jars, flowers, tea, sketchbooks, and supplies one might actually buy without taking out a small, resentful loan.
Plainness, here, is not a defect so much as an ethic. A more glittering prose style might have made the guide more quotable, but also less hospitable. Block is not trying to dazzle anyone into reverence; she is trying to keep the hand from quitting. Her materials advice is especially shrewd. Cheap supplies can frustrate learning; exquisite paper can frighten the brush into paralysis. The sweet spot, for Block, is neither deprivation nor preciousness but use. A paint box is not a shrine. It is a tool that should be opened.
As visual instruction, the book chooses subjects with handles: petals, pineapples, shoes, pets, bowls, little houses. The prettiness looks simple until one notices the lesson design. These recognizable forms let the novice practice shape, color, shadow, negative space, texture, and composition without being marched through the academy’s marble hall. The wish for more abrasion is fair: more weather, more awkwardness, more failed beauty, more subjects that refuse to be charming. Still, abrasion is not what this little studio sells. Its pleasures can be painted from the kitchen table, and that is part of the point.
Project by project, the most persuasive lessons are those in which technique and temperament become the same thing. “Blue Hydrangeas” works because wet-on-wet blending is not merely explained; it is made necessary by the subject. A hydrangea’s mottled blue-violet-green shifts let spreading pigment appear not as loss of control but as botanical luck. “White Cosmos” teaches that painting white often means painting everything around white. “Flower Stall” and “Marrakech Market” gather earlier skills into crowded little ecosystems, asking the hand to build density one bloom, pot, shadow, rug, or figure at a time. These lessons do not reinvent instruction; they aim resistance well.
A loose hydrangea study in wet-on-wet blues, greens, and muted violets, where spreading pigment becomes not failure but the book’s happiest form of permission.
A restrained cosmos study inspired by Emma Block’s “The Joy of Watercolor,” letting unpainted paper, pale shadows, and negative space carry the lesson that absence can become form.
A muted market scene built through layered rugs, pots, figures, shadows, and half-finished patterns, echoing the book’s belief that a difficult image becomes possible one transparent decision at a time.
Across the sequence, Block teaches by recurrence. The reader does not leap from inspiration to mastery; the reader moves from simple flowers to fruit, plants, objects, food, faces, animals, houses, streets, and markets. Difficulty is raised one saucer at a time. By the location-painting section, color mixing, layering, pattern, shadow, and small details have returned often enough that a street scene looks less like an examination and more like a gathering of familiar problems. Early techniques come back under harder conditions.
Digital culture touches the rinse water but does not cloud it. Block recognizes watercolor’s renewed appeal in a feed-trained age, where the handmade carries a charge precisely because it refuses perfect replication. She is also quietly alert to the trap of saving images while forgetting to look. Instagram and Pinterest may make watercolor look fresh rather than fusty, but the final section urges readers toward travel, museums, people-watching, vintage shops, everyday objects, and their own photographs. A style built only from saved images rather than seen objects will begin to resemble a folder of tasteful echoes.
In the closing pages, Block turns from painting along to painting without her. She discusses inspiration, copying, copyright, scanning, reproducing work, printing cards, and finding a style. That turn keeps the forty lessons from becoming a decorative corridor with no door out. They are meant to train attention and habit, after which the painter must look outward. Style, in Block’s account, is not an accessory thrown over uncertainty. It is what keeps returning after the hand has chosen many times.
Measured against the shelf of art books that treat permission as part of the kit, “The Joy of Watercolor” sits comfortably beside Terry Runyan’s “Painting Happiness,” Jenna Rainey’s “Everyday Watercolor,” and Danny Gregory’s “The Creative License.” Runyan leans more openly into play and therapeutic whimsy; Rainey is more explicitly curriculum-like; Gregory is broader and more sketchbook-philosophical. Block’s contribution is softer and more domestic: a subject-led watercolor course in which unclenching is embedded in the supply list, the lesson sequence, and the tolerant little pauses between wet layers.
Its main limitation is the price of its kindness. Block’s world is lovely, but lovely with the corners padded. The reader spends a great deal of time among florals, fruit, treats, pets, houseplants, charming buildings, and travel views. The aesthetic avoids greeting-card torpor, but rarely paints anything charm cannot tidy. Nor does the book dwell on muddy color, overworked washes, or compositions that fail for reasons no pep talk can rinse away. Readers hoping for abstraction, severity, sustained portrait difficulty, urban grit, ugly weather, material experiment, or a fuller art-historical argument may find the guide too cushioned. Its charm opens the door; it also decides which rooms may be entered.
The cost of joy, in this case, is the padded surface of cheer. Difficulty is acknowledged, but rarely allowed to become dark, stubborn, or technically ugly. Block knows that watercolor can go wrong, but her answer is almost always to reframe, continue, and enjoy the process. A beginner may need exactly this. A more advanced painter may feel offered a soft brush when asking for sandpaper. The refusal of harshness is admirable; the avoidance of friction is more limiting. Both truths can sit on the same damp page without bleeding into mud.
Readers will part company along that line. Novices, hobbyists, anxious returners, and sketchbook dabblers may feel genuinely seen by the book’s quiet authority. Traditionalists and technique-hungry painters may want more rigor, more correction, more troubleshooting, more willingness to say that some blooms, tide lines, and misjudged shadows simply do not work. Block is not indifferent to skill, but she privileges continuation over verdict. That welcome is generous; it also keeps the work inside a protected room.
One measure of Block’s gift is scale. She makes failure small enough to handle: a bloom, a crooked petal, a shadow to glaze. The reader is told to work small, use workable supplies, accept substitutions, test color, wait for layers to dry, and try again. Even the prettiness assists this project. It is easier to begin with a pineapple, a leaf, a shoe, a dog, a blue mountain, a little house. The subjects are not grand because grandeur is not what frightened beginners need. They need a door that opens without creaking.
Pressed for a rating, “The Joy of Watercolor” earns 80/100, or 4/5 whole stars. That score fits a narrow promise kept with care and little overreach: the guide is highly useful, but not especially expansive. It is too intelligently sequenced, humane, and visually inviting to be dismissed as a handsome hobby manual. It is too safe, familiar, and sheltered from harsher weather to be called a major art-instruction text. Its excellence is emotional-practical: hesitation becomes supply advice, a first wash, and a next step.
Often, “doable” can sound faint until one remembers how many people stop making art because the first act feels impossible. Block is particularly attuned to the peculiar self-consciousness of adult beginning: the invoice brain, the comparison habit, the private suspicion that every page is secretly an exam. Children paint with enviable liberty; adults apologize to paper. The book’s relaxed cheer is not naïve about that hesitation. It simply refuses to kneel before it. The brush is picked up. The color is mixed. The white rectangle loses its jurisdiction.
Underneath the forty lessons is a book about consequence with soft edges. Watercolor’s lesson is that one cannot endlessly revise the moment before acting. Water spreads; pigment dries; the paper keeps a record. Block does not turn this into thunderous wisdom, which is a mercy. She keeps it at the scale of a wash, a petal, a shadow under a bowl. But the implication is durable: making begins when one accepts that control will be partial. The paint box becomes a small school for living with the line that cannot be unpainted, and the curriculum is prettier than most.
Looked at as teaching, the book’s great virtue is its refusal to confuse seriousness with severity. Block’s prose can be repetitive, but the repetition steadies. Her subjects can be sweet, but sweetness lowers the threshold. Her tone can be soft, but softness here is not flimsiness. It is a chosen pressure, light enough not to bruise the novice hand and persistent enough to move it. The book will not satisfy every painter, nor should it. Its best reader is someone standing at the edge of the page, already half-apologizing to the paper.
On that edge, “The Joy of Watercolor” has practical mercy. It does not promise transformation with trumpets. It offers paper, water, color, examples, and a voice saying that the unexpected mark is not necessarily the end of the picture. The promise fits in a paint box; the hunger behind it – to begin without shame, and then begin again – does not. Many manuals teach the wrist while leaving the flinch intact. Block’s better lessons loosen the flinch a little, the way pigment loosens in clean water: not all at once, not without residue, but enough for the color to move.
So the final image the book leaves is not mastery, and not even confidence exactly. It is smaller and more persuasive: a brush returning to the page after the first wash has dried wrong, or differently, or beautifully against plan. The hand has not conquered water. It has learned to continue with it.
A warm literary watercolor portrait inspired by “The Joy of Watercolor” by Emma Block, placing the author among paper, brushes, palette, and soft studio evidence of the handmade world her book invites readers to enter.
Small graphite rectangles test the table, window, hand, border, and breathing room before the final image settles into its quiet studio stillness.
The first full drawing leaves the scene provisional and exposed, with the worktable, window, brush hand, water jar, and central sheet still held in graphite rather than certainty.
The cover-derived palette is tested in muted washes of blush, ochre, sage, teal, navy, charcoal, and burgundy, turning color choice into part of the book’s discipline of restraint.
The first washes cross the graphite lines and begin to bloom, making visible the exact moment when intention gives way to water and the painting has to be answered rather than controlled.
A close study of the returning hand and brush keeps the gesture anatomically grounded, restrained, and human: not a flourish, but a careful decision to touch the page again.
The plate border is tested as process rather than ornament, with paper margins, crop marks, swatches, and the long “demetri” signature line folding into the image’s handmade scaffolding.
A four-stage process strip moves from drawing to first wash, deepened tone, and held light, showing how the finished image learned its structure one transparent layer at a time.
All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.
Watercolors are done on 140lb vellum and then scanned into the computer using an Epson scanner. From there, they are finalized in Procreate. All art and opinions are my own.
February 13, 2021
Dar vienos piešimo akvarele pratybos (pirmosios buvo DIY Watercolor Jungle: Easy Watercolor Painting Techniques for Tropical Foliage and Flowers), kuriose lankę dailioškę ar šiaip iš kažkur mokantys elgtis su akvarele neras nieko sau ypatinga, tačiau tokiems patiems mėgėjams kaip aš gali būti ir naudinga, ir smagu.
April 28, 2019
A "How To" book I am actually doing! I just did the first two flower exercises, and I'm super happy. I've flipped through the whole book and I decided that while I take a fairly serious watercolor class at an art school, I'm also going to do the small, light and fun projects in this book to keep me going and give me more color guidance while I"m at home.
Super happy I bought this at Barnes and Noble last week.
Super happy I bought this at Barnes and Noble last week.
February 1, 2019
Great book
This book is so facilitating. For those who can be easily intimidated this book is so ingeniously simple I love it!
This book is so facilitating. For those who can be easily intimidated this book is so ingeniously simple I love it!
January 8, 2019
My favorite watercolor guide!
I'm a beginner water color artist and I've done most of it self taught via videos and books art the library. Nothing has made me feel as confident in my next to nothing experience as this book here. I'm having such a wonderful time with the different chapter lessons, my understanding of how this medium works is improving each time I pick a brush or pencil up, and I consider this book to be a big part of this process.
I'm a beginner water color artist and I've done most of it self taught via videos and books art the library. Nothing has made me feel as confident in my next to nothing experience as this book here. I'm having such a wonderful time with the different chapter lessons, my understanding of how this medium works is improving each time I pick a brush or pencil up, and I consider this book to be a big part of this process.
July 20, 2020
Makes watercoloring easy peasy to this newbie!
November 15, 2021
This introduction to watercolor brought so much joy! I did each of the projects Emma Block created and started by completing all of the beginning exercises, then intermediate exercises, and finally the advanced exercises. The instruction was detailed in terms of what colors to mix and in what quantities. Block teaches techniques in a gentle way that encourages creativity and that builds on previous projects/exercises. I would gladly return to these exercises for inspiration.
August 10, 2018
This book was a good refresher on watercolor techniques. I mainly purchased it for the illustrations because I enjoy Emma’s whimsical style. It includes 40 step by step paintings as well which will be fun for practicing. I definitely recommend this book if you are interested in learning more about painting watercolors.
April 20, 2020
This book is a delight. Happy lessons and so fun to be inspired to pick up a brush and splash around again. I imagine this will sit out on my drawing table for a long while as I refer to it time and again.
November 22, 2021
I m glad I picked this up..its fun, cool and stimulated me to pick up my watercolors n paint freely, confidently...mind you its really for very beginners...so if you don't expect any traditional and technical way to use watercolor but just want to have fun recreating simple excercies, you ll surely be amused by the book.
October 29, 2018
Every bit as joyful as the cover suggests, this book is a delight! I love Emma's colors and style, and her teaching is equally cheerful. She has you splash right in, adroitly building skills like color mixing, layering, and perspective into step-by-step paintings.
This hands-on approach, paired with illustrations I'm excited to paint, has me smiling and pulling out my palette. And for me, this is the point: to step away from my everyday overthinking and enjoy some creative fun and loveliness.
I'm crossing my fingers for a follow-up — perhaps gouache, Emma?
PS While the 20 colors used throughout are named (those missing on page 26 are cerulean blue, Chinese white, and lemon yellow), you'd manage nicely with a smaller palette; Windsor & Newton Cotman pocket and compact sets pop up frequently in the artist's Instagram feed.
This hands-on approach, paired with illustrations I'm excited to paint, has me smiling and pulling out my palette. And for me, this is the point: to step away from my everyday overthinking and enjoy some creative fun and loveliness.
I'm crossing my fingers for a follow-up — perhaps gouache, Emma?
PS While the 20 colors used throughout are named (those missing on page 26 are cerulean blue, Chinese white, and lemon yellow), you'd manage nicely with a smaller palette; Windsor & Newton Cotman pocket and compact sets pop up frequently in the artist's Instagram feed.
July 4, 2019
Charming little book! Cute and quirky art and easy to follow lessons with very clear step by step instructions.
The book is aimed at beginners, and would certainly be suitable for them. But I have been doing art for a while and I still got a lot from this book, because I wanted to learn about modern illustration styles. And I think she does this very well.
The book is aimed at beginners, and would certainly be suitable for them. But I have been doing art for a while and I still got a lot from this book, because I wanted to learn about modern illustration styles. And I think she does this very well.
September 2, 2019
Really Lovely and Informative Book
It is simple to follow and really makes you feel successful. I am a rank beginner but my first flowers were pretty good.
It is simple to follow and really makes you feel successful. I am a rank beginner but my first flowers were pretty good.
July 12, 2020
Not what I expected.
I was thinking more realistic painting ,not cartoons. This book is definitely geared to the more simplistic painter. I would not recommend this book if you are looking to advance in your painting.
I was thinking more realistic painting ,not cartoons. This book is definitely geared to the more simplistic painter. I would not recommend this book if you are looking to advance in your painting.
February 7, 2019
A great guide for beginners. I'd say more advanced than a general intro. You would probably wave to pick this up after having a basic knowledge.
May 9, 2019
Inspiring and fun!
July 20, 2020
My review is based solely on the Kindle version. It's one of those can't zoom in to read the text books. This format should be clear!y labelled, but it isn't.
December 4, 2020
Very nice!
I bought this book because I wanted to up my watercolor game, but while there are some beginner exercises, it has exercises for every level. It's divided into themes instead of levels of difficulty, which isn't great if you want to do all the beginner exercises first, but that was the only thing I didn't like about the book. It teaches you the basics of color theory, then it goes through the different themes, such as: flowers, objects, food, people, and places.
I love that it gives you step-by-step instructions for each painting. I already recommended it to somebody else who asked me how I learned to paint with watercolors, because it's a really good book for beginners. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about watercolors!
I bought this book because I wanted to up my watercolor game, but while there are some beginner exercises, it has exercises for every level. It's divided into themes instead of levels of difficulty, which isn't great if you want to do all the beginner exercises first, but that was the only thing I didn't like about the book. It teaches you the basics of color theory, then it goes through the different themes, such as: flowers, objects, food, people, and places.
I love that it gives you step-by-step instructions for each painting. I already recommended it to somebody else who asked me how I learned to paint with watercolors, because it's a really good book for beginners. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about watercolors!
September 1, 2021
I love this book.
As someone new to watercolor, the beginning information about supplies was helpful without being overwhelming.
The chapters are neatly arranged by topic and then by skill level. The sketches and walk throughs were great. I read the instructions but then seeing her step by step was helpful.
I also love the style of these paintings. Simple, cute, more doodling than precise. She explains mixing colors and gives good guidelines on what colors she's using where.
I definitely feel like my watercolor game has stepped up and I feel more confident in several techniques. Highly recommend for all levels, especially beginners. And I plan to get her book on gouache painting as well.
As someone new to watercolor, the beginning information about supplies was helpful without being overwhelming.
The chapters are neatly arranged by topic and then by skill level. The sketches and walk throughs were great. I read the instructions but then seeing her step by step was helpful.
I also love the style of these paintings. Simple, cute, more doodling than precise. She explains mixing colors and gives good guidelines on what colors she's using where.
I definitely feel like my watercolor game has stepped up and I feel more confident in several techniques. Highly recommend for all levels, especially beginners. And I plan to get her book on gouache painting as well.
September 8, 2022
This book is SO much fun! I've completed all but two of the projects in this book and people are calling me talented! That just shows how easy and fun she makes it with her step by step instructions and super cute projects (and how lovely my friends and family are :-))! Each chapter begins with a couple of beginner projects, then intermediate, and finally an advanced project or two putting all that practice to use in a larger project. It's a fun way to test out all the different kinds of paper, paints, and brushes one starts to encounter when first starting out with watercolor. I loved it and would recommend it to anyone who thinks the projects are a style they would like to paint. If you're looking for more realistic stuff, this probably isn't the book for you.
January 4, 2020
I love this book so much! I haven’t painted properly in a few years and this joyous book was the perfect reintroduction. The images are beautiful so that it’s entertaining just to read for the art! The instructions are really well written and it leaves plenty of room to make your paintings your own. I was really impressed with the range of images and the quality of this book. 100% recommend!!
May 31, 2020
I read this book and did watercolor for the very first time in my life. I’m not that kind of person who can sketch but this book instructs me with every step of the process. The results are not perfect, obviously, but I am so happy and started to practice more. Learning a new skill is cool especially when you have a lot of time thanks to covid-19 😅
March 25, 2021
This is a fun book to start watercolor with step-by-step exercises. I felt it was lacking in some critical intro information like how much water should be on your brush, so I ended up reaching out for other resources and then stuck with them. The artwork exercises are more illustration-style which is cool just not really my preference.
March 28, 2021
I know I marked this as “read,” but when you are working through an art instruction book, it’s not the same as other books. I have not read every page yet, but I’m definitely enjoying this accessible, charming book of projects. The appealing style and laid-back approach encourages me to keep coming back to try something more. Delightful.
June 9, 2024
I've been a fan of the work of Emma Block for a while, and this year I'm determined to explore new artistic mediums. I've never really worked with watercolors before, and this seemed like a good way to explore it.
This book is informative without being too technical or overwhelming, and the exercises look good and fun to work on. A nice beginner work to the art of watercolor.
This book is informative without being too technical or overwhelming, and the exercises look good and fun to work on. A nice beginner work to the art of watercolor.
March 21, 2020
Loved this book so much. Not only it is beautifully illustrated (of course), but it is really interesting and has a lot of exercises to help you with your watercolors.
<3
To see the tutorials I've tried : https://www.instagram.com/p/B942Y5znGxT/
<3
To see the tutorials I've tried : https://www.instagram.com/p/B942Y5znGxT/
April 28, 2021
I painted some flowers and a set of fruit from this book; the fruit turned out great with lots of different colors and wash qualities. I also learned some things about combining colors and how to use varying amounts of water. I would recommend this book to beginning watercolor painters!
March 1, 2022
This is such a great way to learn how to use watercolour! The projects are fun and easy to follow and with beginner to advanced there is quite a variety to introduce you to techniques. Thank you so much Emma Block for making it so easy to learn!
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