Under the Sea Magic Painting: 1 (Magic Painting Books)

This type of "magic" painting with water is suitable for everyone. I have found it to be therapeutic and fun and very addictive. It is so relaxing to colour the pages, I have had a lot of fun with this book. There is a lot of colour and the images are easy and clear to define.I am really happy with this and can't believe how simple it is to use. It comes with a paintbrush in blister packaging on the cover of the book and all you need is a container with water to wet the brush.I also must mention that it is really easy to do and in my opinion it is a handy book to help teach children (or adults) to paint within the lines. It seems so strange to wet your brush and then paint with water over an area and by doing this, you pick up the paint from the black inked areas on the picture.Children would see this as being magical. I tried staying within the lines and for the most part I did okay, the trick is not to put too much water on your brush but also put enough for it to work. I also found that once the area I coloured in had dried, you can go back with a wet brush and it lifts the colour again and makes it more vibrant. When the area you coloured in is still wet and you try going over it again it doesn't pick up any more colour so best to let it dry and then try again.I think this is an unbelievable handy book to have for teaching water colour painting to anyone really. It is fun and I can imagine this could be the next big trend and very similar to the current colouring book trend but with a twist.The glass of water that I used for dipping my brush in never discoloured which was also quite weird. I thought it would be all murky and discoloured but the water was clear after I had finished dipping my brush and painting the entire picture.The pages are perforated which makes it easy for removing the pages without tearing them.I have three books in total now of this kind of book. The other two are:- Fairy Palaces and Under the Sea, they are similar and all are equally as good as the other.

As an adult, I really enjoyed doing this. Painting with water is a very relaxing activity. Plus, I got genuine satisfaction from discovering the colours as I used the water. I even tried to mix and use different amounts of water to create different paint effects. Overall, the illustrations were fun, intricate and beautiful. It is just a fun, well-made and good-value product.

Bought for my friends’ children and we managed to have a WHOLE conversation with no interruptions. I’ve had the dinosaur one before. Love them. Thick paper so you don’t get the horrible scratchy/rolly paper effect and you have an extra bit of card in the cover to protect the page behind. Lovely designs and colours. Children were between 3-7 (boys and girls)

Great little mess-free colouring book to use with water brush pens (or the brushes provided, of course!).

My granddaughter loves this book. It has so much detail. I've bought most of the magic painting books in this series . Bit pricey but worth it! We often paint together and I love it as much as I did when I was a child, although they were never as lovely as these.

These are great for painting when you don’t want to risk too much mess and they look great when done (quite therapeutic for adults to join in on top!)

These books are really beautiful pictures, however I find that it would need a very delicate hand to paint the individual sections without blurring the colours into each other - which is far beyond my 2 year old. She loves painting with water and it makes it easy to get out for short activities, but the detail is too complex. The brush is not really suitable for little ones, it's quite pointed at the end.

My grandaughter loves these Magic Painting books. Yes, they are quite pricey but they are beautifully detailed and good quality as you woukd expect from Usborne.