Watercolor Your Way
Sarah Cray
I’ve decided to attempt my hand at watercolor. I knew I needed guidance, so I turned to Sarah Cray. This is a beautiful book. Author Sarah Cray focuses on techniques and supplies. She doesn’t overload you with information instead offering it in bite size pieces. She has included in FAQ, tips, projects, information about paints, mixing color and techniques all at once.

I've always wanted to watercolor...and this book was a great tutorial! Starting with easy strokes, work your way up from leaves, to flowers, to hills, to tigers and more...this book will tell you what you need along the way. Loved the easy instructions and pictures that went along with the steps. It even has outlines and templates in the back of the book to help guide you. Beautiful book!

I love Sarah Cray's art. I love the way this book is organized so it can meet you where you are, at any skill level and it gives you light and easy exercises and slowly ramps up to more and more complicated ones. I love that the supplies also ramp up with your level of experience. I've never seen a book structured this way and I really loved it. It's a book you can come back to again and again as you learn more and want to keep challenging yourself and want to keep growing and having fun.

with gratitude to netgalley and Quarto Publishing Group for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

I enjoyed this watercolor book very much.
The drawings in the book were amazing and the way the art is being taught is very easy to follow and includes great techniques. Its will be a great book for people wanting to learn more of the art of watercolor

There are plenty of “how-to” watercolor books out there, and in my opinion, most of them share the same problem: it is nearly impossible to learn a skill like watercolor without a live teacher to demonstrate techniques, answer questions and give hints on how to correct mistakes. Sarah Cray’s book certainly shares this problem (it’s unavoidable) - but Cray adds QR codes throughout the book which link to video tutorials. I mention this right up front because I think it’s an important addition I’ve not seen before (although I admit it may be more prevalent than I’ve seen).

Cray has organized the book so that it offers something to beginners and those with more experience. I doubt that experienced painters would find value in a book where they had to start with the last 2 chapters, but I could see it being useful for someone who has been away from painting for awhile and wants to brush up (so to speak) on the basics before continuing. The projects are primarily technique based - most consist of a single subject without background, which I like because it focuses on a limited number of skills and reduces the pressure to create a full painting.

There is one issue I have with the book, and that is that she recommends different paints and other tools for every chapter. I understand the desire to expose the student to various kinds of paint and papers, but it’s impractical to think that a beginning student would want to purchase all of them. It might have been better to have a chapter on different brands of paint, the characteristics of each, and how their color names compare (how does this brand’s Norway Blue compare to the other brand’s Pthalo Blue or another’s Ultramarine?)

Ultimately, this book is a nice one to use alongside other materials to help develop confidence and style, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a single book to learn watercolor.

Thanks to Quarto and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

As a lifelong artist and having dabbled with watercolours in the past, this comes recommended for beginners to watercolour and art in general. The exercises are fairly basic and the author holds your hand through the painting process with detailed step-by-step instructions and lists of pigments to use, as well as stencils to trace for the base sketch of each exercise, so even artists with no drawing experience shouldn't be deterred from giving these a try. The author herself is very encouraging and always advocates for the reader to take their time.

However, the design of the book itself is a standout; fresh and minimalist, with the art taking center stage - and that art is lovely. I very much enjoyed seeing each piece come together, from the happy accidents caused by free-flowing paint to refinement.

Thank you to Quarry Books and Netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book provided great tutorials and was super easy to follow. I would recommend this to any artist or anyone who is a beginner!

I love Sarah Cray and her ability to teach anyone how to paint. I have loved her video tutorials for years with Let's Make Art! This book is another great addition to her teaching collection. Thank you!

This is a great book for those of all levels who want to try watercoloring. The author provides the color she uses and explains how to paint what she shows with detail instructions. From this book, it makes me want to get a paint brush and start and this is coming from someone who is not artistic.

I love how Cray focuses on the shapes-- as a person who never took an art class, that part of watercolor is one of the more confounding ones! And I love the conversational tone she takes. However, this book too quickly goes from beginner to advance. I would have liked to see additional projects that covered the early techniques/steps to better reinforce them.

Lovely. I love attempting art and this is an excellent guide book. She has color palettes, how to accomplish what she shows on the page, and step by step instructions that give me the confidence to grab a paint brush.

I received a copy of this from NetGalley.

I really liked this one! It gives progressively harder projects to create, from loose flowers to detailed subjects, like animals. The author also included other information about why she chose particular supplies and general tips about where to go from there. I found the parts about the paints and paint types interesting. Step by step instructions included pictures of the steps being done, which is really helpful. Plus, the artwork was really pretty, which I find to not always be the case when the book is focused on just teaching a certain technique in a lesson. But why would I want to learn to paint just to do something unattractive? No thanks. I think this is a good book for beginning to intermediate level watercolorists. (I'd consider myself intermediate, if that matters. )

Often when you see intro books (and I love intro books) they try to throw everything at the reader right away and then the projects ramp up over the course of the book. This one takes a very different, and very lovely approach. It starts you off with "hey, let's mix primary colors" and has a whole first chapter with only those three paints and a simple brush. So great for the genuine beginner to get started. Each chapter then introduces one more fundamental thing (value, tone) and progressively more complex projects. There are even traceable outlines for the more complex projects, so that new students don't have to worry about drawing a tiger, and can instead focus just on the paint. This book holds your hands in the best way.

Another wonderful watercolor book by Sarah Cray. Her instructions and projects are always inspiring! These are approachable for anyone to try, even beginners. You can use what you have and don't need special supplies to try these out, and the best part is the outlines are included in the back! But you can always challenge yourself and try to sketch it out first. Don't miss out on this if you are needing inspiration or just want to up your watercolor game.

Watercolor Your Way is an exceptional how-to guide for all levels. The book provides basic guidance for beginners and challenges more advanced painters. Highly recommended for individual artists--but especially for library and school collections.

Thank you, Quarry, for the advance reading copy.

The book is a very detailed yet basic guide on how to use watercolours mainly for drawing flowers (when it comes to this guidebook) with a few basic guidelines on how to draw wildlife.

I find the techniques rather useful than any of the guide available anywhere else.

The book also answers some of the most asked and important questions regarding watercolours and their effects on how we apply them.

I really appreciate the templates provided towards the end of the book.

I believe you will get the most helpful and useful information from this book if you are learning about watercolour art and painting.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC of Watercolor Your Way! This is such a great guide to watercolor. I'm speaking as someone who has minimal experience with this craft, but I want to make it clear how encouraging I found this book to be, especially while still being incredibly informative and helpful.

I think Watercolor Your Way is the perfect gift for anyone who wants to try watercolor. Or please just get this for yourself if you find this is something you're interested in. Beginners will adore this book, as its everything you need to feel comfortable trying something new. It will help with the basic foundations and each chapter will help you progress! I think that because there are those more advanced techniques included as well, this book is also perfect if you have worked with watercolors before and want to improve!

I think Sarah Cray did such a wonderful job all around making a beautiful and inspiring guide to watercolor! You absolutely want her to be your teacher as you explore this craft and I can't recommend her book enough!

Beautifully illustrated. This book is a lovely addition to any bookshelf. It was full of great tips, and beautiful pictures.

As a part-time watercolour artist, I love picking up watercolour books. This is another fantastic, and detailed, resource book.

The images are high-quality and clear. The information easy to absorb, if at times basic. You can never have enough of the basics down.

I've enjoyed reading this, and can see it being a fantastic gift for budding watercolour artists.

NetGalley Review App

This was such a cute delightful book. I’ve been getting back into watercolor after years of taking a break. This brought back so many lightbulbs and techniques I lost over time or just was brain fogged about. The layout was simple that it didn’t confuse me as a dyslexic reader, and the author was clear with their delivery of information.