Twelve storybook subjects — a princess, a castle, a dragon, a mermaid, a fairy, a unicorn with a candy-pink mane — pre-outlined with a palette and a worked example for each. 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. A birthday present that survives the party: give it with the brush set and a paint palette and it becomes the whole gift. Children finish a painting in about half an hour, which is exactly as long as their attention holds. Paint sold separately.