Twelve cheerful animals — a bunny mid-hop, a robin on a branch, a dog, a fox, a whale, a frog — each with a finished example, a printed colour palette and a light sketch to paint over. It is a colouring book for grown-ups and children alike, except you finish with watercolour instead of crayon, and the result is good enough to tear out and frame.

Every spread pairs a finished painting with numbered step-by-step instructions and a lightly printed sketch you paint straight onto, so you are never staring at a blank page. Printed on custom 120 lb cold-press watercolour paper from one of the last remaining paper mills in the United States, with lay-flat spiral binding and clean tear-out pages, at a travel-ready 6.5 x 9 in. Original artwork by Emily Lex, designed and printed in the USA. It is the one that gets handed to a child and quietly finished by the adult. Buy it for a rainy half-term, a long flight, or the grandmother who wants something to do with the grandkids that is not a screen. Paint sold separately.