watercolor for beginners

This is going to be tricky! Some of you might not like me very much after you try this watercolor practice exercise… I can see people pulling their hair out in frustration already. This tutorial will allow you to practice all of the different…

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to paint koi fish in watercolor by building up transparent layers of paint using a glazing technique. One of the amazing characteristics of watercolor is its transparency. When you paint transparent washes of color on…

Daffodils… They’re springing up all over the place! And just about every artist I know is painting these things at the moment. So I thought I’d add my own contribution and show you the step by step process I used to paint these watercolor…

Looking for some simple inspiration ? Below you’ll find some watercolor painting ideas which use very simple wet techniques. What do I mean by “wet techniques” ? In watercolors, the colored pigments are held in suspension by the water you use to dilute the…

It’s that time of year again. (For those of you who’ve forgotten, I’m talking about Valentines day!) And I know what a bunch of romantic folks you are, so in this step by step tutorial I’m going to show you how to paint a…

This painting started out as a sketch, but after a while I began to think it would make a good example for talking about how to paint realistically with watercolor. In this tutorial I’ll show you the process behind the creation of this watercolor…

Brrr… it’s cold outside !  The coldest season of the year stirs up different emotions for all of us. There are lots of things that I associate with winter, all of which make great subjects for painting. So in this tutorial I’m going to…

Did you put up the Christmas tree yet ? Are you ready to mail out those cards ? I think sending hand-painted watercolor cards for Christmas is perhaps one of the best ways to show people your affection for them. It adds a personal…

The thing about pine cones is they have a very complicated appearance. For this reason they seem like very tricky subjects to paint. In this article I’ll show you how to simplify the process of painting pine cones in watercolor. These prickly little things…

I recently painted this watercolor sketch as a way to explain the concept of lost and found edges in watercolors. This is mostly a fancy name for “hard and soft edges”. But in art, “lost edges” are a special type of soft edge where…