Watercolor 101: A Beginner's Guide to Watercolor Painting

1. Welcome to Class!: Welcome to Watercolor one oh one. If you're feeling a little nervous about starting your watercolor journey, don't worry. You're in the right place. My goal with this class is to help ease you into the world of watercolor with a sense of playfulness and curiosity. We'll keep things simple and focus on having fun, exploring techniques, and building confidence so you can let go of any fear and start creating beautiful art in no time. First, let me introduce myself. My name is Priya. I've been a watercolor artist for many years now, and my journey started just like yours with a blank sheet of paper. So I totally understand just how intimidating it can be when you first start. Over the years, I've taught thousands of students both online and in person, and I've created numerous watercolor classes and tutorials, focusing on everything from loose florals to tropical plants to intermediate painting techniques, and a little bit of everything in between. So whether you're holding a brush for the first time or you just need a quick refresher, be here to guide you every step of the way. In this class, we'll get to know our supplies. We'll practice water control and mixing up different consistencies of paint. We'll explore basic techniques like wet on dry, wet on wet and dry brushing. We'll troubleshoot some common mistakes that can be really frustrating when you're first starting out. And we'll wrap it all up with two fun and approachable projects a loose floral composition to work on our expressive, wet on wet techniques, and a serene mountain range to practice our value and layering skills. As you go, feel free to pause the videos, rewatch sections as needed, and most importantly, work at your own pace. I want this class to be a space where you feel encouraged to explore, make mistakes, and grow as an artist. So let's get started and see where your creativity takes you. 2. Class Projects: I mentioned in the intro video, we're going to finish this class with two final projects so you can put your new skills to use. The first project will be a dainty, loose watercolor floral composition with some flowing leaves. This will really help you hone your brush control and get comfortable with the loose, expressive style of painting. And the second project is a clean and simple mountain range landscape, which will challenge you to practice layering and working with different paint consistencies and values. I'll walk you through each of the projects step by step, so don't worry if these look a little intimidating at this point. Just wanted to give you a little preview of what's to come at the end of class. And up next, we'll talk all about the ins and outs of watercolor supplies. 3. Watercolor Supplies: Let's chat about some of the supplies you'll need to start your watercolor journey. Supplies can get complicated and expensive, but you don't need a whole lot to get started, and there's no need to invest in the most expensive tools right away. Start simple, figure out what you like best and build from there. And just a quick note, my supply guide PDF is linked down below. If you want to check it out, that includes my top recommendations for all things watercolor. Let's start with watercolor brushes. I'm sure you already know what a paint brush looks like, but here are a few of my favorite ones. Now, the anatomy of a brush is pretty simple. You have the handle the crimp, the feral, and the bristles. And within the bristles, this is the belly of the brush that holds your water and your paint, and this is the tip of the brush. You'll probably hear me use those terms as we start painting. There are also different shapes of brushes. The most common one you'll see is a standard round brush like this. Round brushes have your typical brush shape with the belly being the thickest part. And then they come to a point like this at the end. Round brushes are super versatile. You can create thick strokes, washes and fine point strokes. So I definitely recommend starting with a round brush. There are other shapes like a Filbert brush, which is a flatter brush that has a curved edge. There are flat brushes, mop brushes, wash brushes, so many different types to be aware of. But in most cases, a round brush will do just fine. As for sizes, I'll show you what some of the most common sizes look like. It's pretty self explanatory. Smaller numbers mean smaller brushes. So this is a size two round brush versus this one here is a size 16 round brush. And then you have all of these ones in between. I personally stick around size six or eight for most of my paintings. So if you're thinking of just buying one brush, a six or eight would be great to start with. Moving on to watercolor paper, there are a lot of strong opinions about watercolor paper out there. So for now, let's just stick to the basics. Paper is usually referred to as either student grade or professional grade. Student grade paper is a lot cheaper and more accessible. It's great for when you're first starting out, but there are some downsides, like your colors might not appear as vibrant, and it doesn't absorb water as well. So sometimes it kind of just sits on top of the paper surface, and it can be a little harder to make smooth blends of color. But again, totally fine for beginners. Professional grade paper, on the other hand, is quite expensive, but it's 100% cotton. So that allows for a lot more control when you're layering and blending, and it actually feels pretty different than student grade paper. So this is really the only one of those supplies that I do recommend switching over to the nicer stuff if you can, because it takes a little bit of practice to switch from the cheaper student grade paper to the higher grade paper. So again, definitely not a necessity. But if you want to advance your skills a little bit faster and really invest in furthering your art practice, higher quality paper will make a significant difference. That being said, I personally used student grade paper for the first two years of my watercolor journey. So I just want to reiterate that you can absolutely still paint really beautiful things using student level paper. And one more thing you might hear often in the watercolor world is cold press versus hot press paper. Cold press paper has a rougher textured surface. It's my personal favorite, and hot press paper is smooth. And finally, we have our paint and paint palettes. Typically, you can either buy paint in tubes or in palettes. Let's talk about palettes first. This is an example of a pre mixed watercolor palette. This is the art philosophy, watercolor confections, Woodlands palette. Now, the pros of buying premixed palettes like these are they're very portable, so you can just take them out on the go or fold them up in your workspace nicely. They're usually pretty cost effective, too. These ones are somewhere $20-30, but they've lasted me several years. And in general, they're just easy and convenient. You can just open it up and start painting. But it offers a little less customization and control when you're color mixing. These here are professional watercolor tubes from Daniel Smith, but there are also a ton of cheaper student grade tubes from other brands. Buying your paint in tubes offers you a greater control when you're color mixing, and they're typically more suited for larger paintings when you need to be able to mix up a lot of paint. However, they can be trickier to use. They're a bit messier, and they're definitely more expensive. This one tube alone was somewhere $20-25. But again, this one is a professional brand, so there are a lot cheaper options out there. For complete beginners, I do recommend starting with a palette like this. That way, you don't have to worry about color mixing or buying a bunch of tubes. You can just open it up and start experimenting. And one last thing, if you buy tubes and you want to have a separate palette for mixing them, you can find plastic ones at an art store that'll work just fine. You can find ceramic or porcelain ones. You can even go to a thrift store or a home goods store and find a pretty ceramic dish or a serving plate that you like, and that works really well, too. Other supplies you'll need for watercolor painting are a jar or bowl of clean water to rinse off your brushes in between colors and a paper towel so you can dry your brushes as you paint. Now that we have our supplies ready, let's move on to some foundational techniques. 4. Mastering Water Control: Water control is one of the trickiest parts of watercolor, but it's also the most important skill to master. Here's a simple way to think about it. If you don't have enough water in your brush, your strokes are going to look very streaky and dry like these ones, and that's going to make it really hard to blend your colors and make things look nice and smooth, which is what we all want, right? On the other hand, if you have too much water in your brush, for instance, if water droplets are falling off the edge of your bristles, you'll end up with unpredictable blooms, harsh edges when your paint dries, and it can also cause your paper to warp pretty severely. Want to find yourself somewhere in the middle where your paint flows smoothly, and you can create clean, vibrant strokes and blend your colors seamlessly. Think of it like goldilocks. Not too much water, not too little, but just the right amount. Let's practice together with a simple exercise. Go ahead and load up your brush with some water and paint, making sure your bristles are nice and damp but not overly wet. Take a look at what mine looks like here. See how I don't have water gushing out of my brush, but you can also tell that the belly of the brush is nice and full. That's where you want to be right in that sweet spot. Now, let's create some basic strokes on your paper and see how it looks. If it's streaky, add a bit more water to your mixture. And if it's pulling up or creating puddles on top of your paper, tap some of that excess water onto your paper towel and try again. Keep playing around and making different strokes on your paper, and try to get ten consistent, even strokes in a row. That way, you'll start to feel comfortable and confident knowing what amount of water it takes to get those clean, smooth marks. Your time with this practice exercise because water control is an important foundation for everything else we'll do in the class. 5. Practice Strokes: Now that we know what our brush should feel like in terms of water control, let's practice making some different types of strokes. I'm going to demonstrate this using a standard size six round brush. Let's start with a dainty, fine line stroke using the very tip of your brush. So load it up any color you want and just delicately run the tip of your brush along your paper. Not applying very much pressure here at all. So your bristles are just barely touching your paper, and you'll create these beautiful, thin, dainty lines which are perfect for adding details to your artwork. Keep making these strokes until you're feeling comfortable with this amount of pressure. Now, let's do the opposite. Load up your brush again. But this time, when you're pressing down on the paper, push down so that the belly of your brush expands out onto the paper like this. See how thick that is. It's pretty cool to see just how versatile one brush can be. Big, heavy strokes like this are often used to create washes of color, especially in landscapes when you're painting skies, water, or the ground. Now let's put the two together. Let's paint a line across your paper, switching between light pressure, heavy pressure, and light pressure and see how your strokes differ. Go ahead and practice this a few more times until you feel comfortable with it. And this is actually a great exercise for painting leaves like we'll do in our floral project at the end of class because to create leaves, you're also going to go from light pressure to heavy pressure to light pressure again. So the more you can control your brush movement and understand how pressure affects your strokes, the better off you'll be later down the road. So don't skip out on these practice exercises. And finally, let's practice a C curve. This type of stroke is used a lot in loose floral paintings, especially for roses like this one. It's called a C curve because it's in the shape of the letter C. You start with thin pressure, apply more pressure as you create the middle part of the C, and then end with light pressure again. Go ahead and practice a few different types of s curves so you get the hang of it. Try some that are small and dainty and others that are bigger and fluffier. Now, of course, there are 1 million different ways you can use your brush as you paint, but these are just some of the most common strokes. So keep up the good work, and I will see you in the next lesson. 6. Paint Consistency & Values: Now that we've practiced some basic strokes and we've talked about water control, we can move on to paint consistency and tonal values. These concepts might sound a little technical, but don't worry, they're actually very simple once you get the hang of them. Paint consistency and values kind of go hand in hand. Consistency is as it sounds, your paint mixtures can be thick and creamy like butter, or they can be thinned out and watery like tea. And same goes for values. Think of values as the relative lightness or darkness of a color. Your dark values are more concentrated, usually thicker mixtures of color. And your lighter values are less concentrated, thinner mixtures using more water. Let's practice mixing up different consistencies and color values together. So start by mixing up a color, again, any color you choose, and just use a very small amount of water so that your mixture is pretty concentrated. See how mine looks thick and creamy. Once you're at that point, go ahead and paint some messy swatches on your paper and notice how it's thick and dark. Make as many marks as you want. Just get comfortable painting in that creamy consistency. Now, using that exact same color, add a bit more water to your mixture, so it's a milky consistency and a little bit lighter in value. Paint some morse watches right next to those ones you just did and notice how much lighter that paint looks. Finally, mix up a thin, watery mixture. Use plenty of water and make sure your paint looks like the consistency of tea. So we're using a lot of water here with just a tad bit of pigment. Once you're at that consistency, go ahead and paint a few more swatches on your paper next to the ones we've done so far. Once all your swatches are done, go ahead and compare them together. Now, keep in mind, these are not different colors. They are all the exact same color, but they are different values. We have our thicker dark values, our medium values here, and our thin light values. And these all just depend on the amount of water used in your mixture. Understanding how they work and getting comfortable mixing different values like this will be essential in making your artwork come to life with highlights and shadows and depth. Look at these examples for a second. This is the same painting, but this one here didn't use different values. So you can tell it looks pretty dull and flat. Whereas this one, you can see lighter and darker values of each color, which adds depth and dimension to the painting, and it really makes that lemon come to life. Feel free to play around with the samur, and in the next lesson, we'll talk about common painting techniques. 7. Wet-on-Dry Technique: Let's dive into some of the most common techniques that watercolor artists use, starting with wet on dry. The wet on dry technique is the most straightforward, and it's actually what we've been doing so far in this class. We've been putting wet paint down onto a dry surface, whether that's dry paper or another layer of dry paint. When you apply paint onto a dry surface, there's nowhere for the paint to go other than where you place it. So it allows you to have greater control over your strokes, your lines, and your edges. Let's practice this some more by applying strokes of paint down onto your paper. You can make any type of stroke you'd like. Just take note of how much control you have over your brush and your paint. Go ahead and paint some lines, some circles, color swatches, whatever you want. The wet on dry method is perfect for adding details, and it's used a lot in the realistic illustrative style where control is essential. Now let's try wet on dry again, but this time on top of dry paint. So first, mix up a very light value of color. Remember, light value has more water and go ahead and paint a large swatch of color onto your paper. Once you have your swatch, let it dry completely. That's super important. We want this layer to be super dry before we add the next one. Once it's dry, paint some more strokes on top using a darker value, so a more concentrated mixture. And notice how it's just like painting on top of blank paper. You have complete control of where your paint goes. So even though we're painting on top of paint, it's still wet on dry because that first layer is dry, just like paper. This technique will come in handy for our final project at the end of class where we'll need to layer wet on dry for our mountain range landscape. Keep practicing your wet on dry strokes before we move on to the next technique. 8. Wet-on-Wet Technique: Let's move on to the wet on wet technique, which is exactly how it sounds. You're applying wet paint onto another layer of either wet paint or water. And this is truly one of the most fun techniques because it allows the paint to just bleed and bloom on the surface of your paper, and it creates unexpected but really beautiful outcomes. Let's practice this one by painting a thin layer of clear water down onto your paper. Then load some color onto your brush and gently start tapping it on top of that layer. See how it blooms. Try it again by painting another clear swatch this time in the shape of a circle. Then load up your brush again and line the outer edge of that circle. This is a super fun exercise to let go of control and just watch your paint do its own thing. You can also use this technique on top of another layer of color that's still wet. For example, try painting a random shape with a light color. I'm going to use yellow for my example. Then take another color that's darker. I'm going to use this dark pink and drop some of that color on top and just watch those colors play together. I really want you to just experiment here, play around with your shapes and your colors, and please don't feel like you're wasting paper when you do this. This is all really great for getting to know your supplies, getting a feel for the wet on wet technique, and building up your muscle memory. Now, the most important thing when you're using this wet on wet technique is to make sure that that first layer of paint or water is thin and even. If there's too much water where it's pooling up on the page, you'll end up with really harsh edges when it all dries. And oftentimes your paint will just bubble up instead of blooming. On the other hand, if the first layer doesn't have enough water, there won't be enough liquid there on the surface for your paint to expand. And you'll end up with streaky strokes just like we talked about earlier. So try your best to create a thin, even layer of water or paint before going in with your second layer. Keep on practicing and we will move on to dry brushing up next. 9. Dry Brushing Technique: Next up is the dry brushing technique, which is used to create really beautiful texture. Now, I will say, after learning about water control, the dry brushing method may feel counterintuitive and awkward because we're going to be purposefully not using enough water so that we can create those streaky strokes. So instead of keeping that perfect balance of water in your bristles, you're going to get color onto your brush, but make sure your bristles aren't too wet, and then try applying it straight onto your paper. You can paint streaky lines, dot your brush onto the paper for a spotted texture, play around and see what types of marks you can make. Again, this one might feel a little uncomfortable because you're purposefully making it too dry. But this dry brushing technique is used most commonly for adding texture to your paintings as a final touch. I've personally seen it used most often in landscape paintings for adding clouds to the sky, adding a wavy texture to seascapes or for adding that wooden texture for tree trunks and branches. Keep practicing your dry brushing technique, but when you're done, make sure you rinse off your brush. And use your fingers to gently form the bristles back into shape because the dry brushing technique can be a little harsh on your brush. So you always want to remember to return it to its original shape when you're done to help protect the longevity of your supplies. 10. Troubleshooting Common Mistakes: Watercolor painting can and should be relaxing and joyful. Let's face it. It can also be extremely frustrating, especially when you're just starting out and you're just trying to get the hang of everything. So let's talk about some of the common mistakes that beginners make and how you can overcome them with ease. The first common mistake is over using water. Talked briefly about this earlier in class, but it's a biggie, so we're talking about it again. Beginners often oversaturate their brush with water, leading to uncontrollable puddles, pooling, buckling, or warping of the paper, and harsh edges when everything dries. So what's the solution, Mastering your water control. If this is still tricky for you, go back to our water control exercise earlier in class and keep practicing. More you get a feel for how much water is too much and how little water is too little, it'll start to feel like second nature, loading up your brush with just the right amount. And also, if you're in the middle of painting and you end up with too much water, you can always fix it by drying off your brush and letting your bristles soak up any excess water on the paper. That's an easy way to mitigate water control issues on the go. Next issue is dealing with muddy or dull colors. And this usually happens when you're mixing too many colors. You're not cleaning your brushes properly, or you're not switching out your water jar enough. And when this happens, your brush never really gets fully clean when you rinse it out, which leads to those muted, messy colors. And we want to avoid that, right? We want to work with those bright, vibrant, beautiful colors. So to fix this, first and foremost, try starting with very simple color palettes. Even now, I usually stick to minimalistic color palettes in my paintings, but especially in the beginning, this is helpful to keep your artwork clean and simple and avoid over mixing your colors. And, of course, make sure you're swapping out your water jar when it starts to get too dirty. Up next is overworking your paintings, which is super, super common, even for intermediate and advanced artists. Constantly going back and forth over an area of your painting can damage the paper causing it to pill or tear. And it often leads to messy, overly busy paintings. Now, of course, this does depend on the style you're going for, but oftentimes the earlier version of our artwork looks more beautiful and clean than those later versions when we just couldn't help but add more and more to a painting, ultimately just adding too much. Top recommendation, take a step back every now and then when you're painting. This can help you make sure you're not overworking a piece or adding too many details to an already busy painting. Look at your piece with fresh eyes and ask yourself if it really needs another layer. And if it does, that's fine. Just make sure you're using gentle brush strokes to avoid any damage to your paper. Another common mistake is not utilizing a range of tonal values. Remember the lemon paintings I showed you earlier? It's common for beginners to create paintings that look more like this one, because they start painting with bold dark values right off the bat without leaving any areas of lighter values. And I totally get it. It can be really tricky to get the hang of tonal values when you're first starting out. But when your first few strokes of a painting are already in that mid to dark range, your pieces often end up looking dull and muddy because there's no room for the highlights. So what's the solution? Always start lighter than you think you need and then build up your layers darker from there. Understanding color values was the number one thing I wish I learned and practiced earlier on in my art journey because it truly makes such a big difference in your artwork. Try painting something with only one color, but bring out the highlights and the low lights using your range of values. This can be a great exercise to get the hang of values before you get into more complex color palettes. We have a couple more common problems to tackle. The next is a lack of planning. Lot of times, you want to jump straight into a painting when inspiration strikes, especially when you're excited about a new idea. But so many times what you see in your head doesn't pan out on paper. Maybe the colors aren't right, your composition or proportions are wonky, and you end up really frustrated or down on yourself. Trust me, I've been there, and I still do this from time to time. Oh, I want to be clear. I'm not saying you need to plan and sketch and test out all your colors every time before you sit down to paint. That's definitely not the case. You can learn a lot and advance your skills through experimentation and expressive play. But for those ideas of paintings you're really excited about or for those paintings where you want to create a final piece or a new greeting card design, for example, you'll want to take some time to plan. Swatch out a few potential colors and make sure they work nicely together. Sketch out a few thumbnails to figure out composition before you jump into the final piece. This can save you from a lot of headache and disappointment, and it will give you a better chance of things going right when it's time to sit down and paint your masterpiece. And finally, we have the fear of making mistakes. Many beginners are so afraid of messing up or wasting a blank sheet of paper that they never end up creating anything. Look, exploring a new medium, learning your supplies, figuring out your style, and growing as an artist. It'll include a lot of ugly, messy pages, filled with scratchy brush marks, muddy color palettes, unfinished sketches and probably some torn up paper. I've definitely been there before. So try your best to be gentle with yourself. Use cheap paper in the beginning, so you don't feel bad wasting it, even though you're never really wasting it. And remember that for every masterpiece you end up creating, there's bound to be a whole folder of paintings that didn't quite make the cut. It's completely normal, even for experienced artists. Some people even buy a dedicated sketchbook that is just for making ugly work. There's no expectation or pressure in the you can just scribble and practice, and no one else needs to see it but you. In the next video, we're starting our first class project, which is our watercolor floral composition. So I'll see you over there. 11. Watercolor Florals: Rose: Starting project number one with a simple loose floral piece. We're going to paint a few beautiful flowers, including a rose where we can practice those sea curves that we did earlier. And we'll also include some leaves and flower buds. This will be painted in a loose style, so get ready for some wet on wet brush strokes. The colors I'm using in this painting are a medium pink, a warm, yellowy orange, a darker pink, and various values of sap green, some light and some darker. But feel free to use any colors you have at home. I want you to focus more so on the painting process and the techniques more than worrying about choosing the perfect colors. So I have trimmed down my watercolor paper to a five by seven. It's usually a little bit easier to paint smaller when you're first starting out. So you're more than welcome to use any size you like, but five by seven is generally a nice size to still be able to add what you want, but a little bit smaller scale, so it's a little less intimidating. Now, we're going to paint three different flowers like you saw. So I'm going to actually start with the rose, and the rose will be in the middle left. So find that middle left portion of your paper. And we'll get started. For my rose, I'm going to be using this deep reddish pink. Again, you can use any color you want, but I want the center of my rose to be a dark value. Remember, darker value means there's less water in my mixture, so I'm pulling straight from my watercolor pan here and just getting that deep dark red right on the tip of my brush. And for the center of the rose, we're going to be doing the C curves or the C strokes like we practiced earlier in class. So remember, that's the strokes that are in the shape of the letter C. Now, when you paint roses, another thing I want to mention is the center of the rose is darker and we get lighter as we approach the outer petals. We also will be smaller in the center and bigger as we reach those outer petals. So we want these first strokes to be very dainty. So I'm just using the very tip of my brush. I'm barely going to push down. And I make that tiny little sea curve. And we're going to do a few of these to create the center of the roast, kind of overlapping. You want to leave some white space. But just go ahead and add some dainty little sea curves. Remember, you're going light pressure, heavy pressure, light pressure, and kind of swooping or curving your brush as you go. So see how these strokes are getting slightly bigger as I approach the outer edge of the roast. But I'm maintaining some white space there. That's super important. Now I'm going to rinse off my brush a little bit so I have a lighter value. Lighter value means it's less concentrated, and I'm going to push down. I'm still adding s curves, but you can see they're getting bigger, and they're slightly lighter because I watered down my mixture a little bit more. Always maintain that white space as you paint roses because if I don't have any white space, it just turns into a blob of color, which no one wants. So the white space really helps to define these petals. I'm adding a little bit more water into my brush and really pushing down to get these thicker strokes. So remember when we practice our strokes earlier in class, when you push down and the belly of your brush expands like this, you can see the bristles expanding. You get those larger strokes. Now I'm rinsing off my brush even more, so I have a super light value now, and I'm going to finish out these powder petals. I don't want my rose to be too big, but these petals are nice and light and fluffy. Now, one of the best parts of doing wet on wet loose style florals is you can go back in. I have a dark value on my brush again. And because these petals are still damp, when I go back and tap in a darker value like this, wet on wet. Remember, I'm adding wet paint on top of wet paint. You can see that color gently bloom and bleed out into the petals. See that? You have a gentle bleed of color. So I'm just going back in. You don't have to do this part if you don't want to, but I like to really deepen the center of my roses and just add a little bit more definition. So I'm going to let this dry and then we'll move on to the next flower. And if you're struggling with this rose, remember, take your time, try not to get too frustrated, and always be sure to leave that white space. That's one of the most important things when you're painting roses like this. Like I said, if you don't have white space, it just turns into a blob of pink, and you don't really get any definition in the petals. So let this dry and we'll do the next flower. 12. Watercolor Florals: Additional Flowers: Next flower is going to be up and to the right from the rose we just painted. So I don't want it to be too far to the right, but just a little bit overlapping and above that rose we just did. And I'm going to use a slightly different pink color you can see this one's a little bit lighter than this one I just did. And again, my first few strokes for this are going to be very dark value. So I'm pulling straight from this pan here and make sure you have a good amount in your bristles here. So I have a good amount of water and pigment. Now, for this flower, this is a basic, loose, five or six petal flower. I'm going to start by just painting some little tiny dots down on my paper. But you can see they look like little puddles almost because I have so much pigment and water loaded up in my brush. Now, this is the important part. I'm rinsing off my brush completely, so I just have clean water. And we're going to pull this color from the center to create our petals. So you can see I'm pulling that pink from the center, barely applying any pressure, and then pushing down and lifting back up, and you can see that pigment follows where the water is. And I create that big, beautiful flower petal. Now, if your center dots start to dry, you can always go back in with more color and just re wet them because we want to make sure we have plenty of color in that center spot to pull out into the petals. Rinse off my brush again, so it's nice and clean, and we'll do the same thing. Pull out some of that color using the tip of your brush and then push down, lift back up. You can see the belly of my brush is expanding and creating a beautiful petal. This is why I said those practice exercises are so important because you're really utilizing your brush in a lot of different ways for this project. We're using the tip of the brush to pull out the color, and then you're pushing down and lifting back up to create the flower petals. Now, as you go, if you see any spots like this, I have a little too much water there, so I can just use damp bristles to kind of smooth that out. I don't want any harsh lines. I'm just creating these nice loose petals. And I can already tell these center strokes are starting to dry. So again, you can always rewet them. Just tap some more pigment in there. But remember to rinse off your brush when you come to do this part. You're pulling out the color and pushing down to create the petals. I'll turn my paper so I can pull these petals up, pulling out the color and pushing down. To create my petal. Let's do one more there. This one will have to be a little bit smaller because I didn't leave myself a whole lot of room. But I'm going to just paint one final petal there. So now we have our rose and we have this beautiful flower. Again, I can see that I'm not gonna like that edge there. It's a little bit too stark of a contrast between the dark and light. So I'm just going to use my damp brush and smooth it out a bit. That's one of the best parts of watercolors. It's very forgiving. While it's still wet, you can really rework it however you want. Now, again, using the wet on wet technique, I know that the center of my flower is still wet, so I'm going to go back into my dark pink, pull it straight from the palette, and gently tap some of that dark color back into the center. I want the center of my flower to be the darkest part. And because we pulled out so much pigment into the petals, it lost a little bit of its vibrancy in the middle. So you can go back in and tap some of it back in. Now, for our final primary flower in this piece, we're going to do a very similar one to this, but just down below. Now, for this one, of course, as I said, feel free to use any colors you want, but I'm going to be using this warm, yellowy orange. So once again, I'm going to pull directly from my palate. And this time, instead of doing the circle of dots like we did here, I'm going to do a little bit more of an oval shape. Using the tip of my brush. I'm just dotting down some pigment. But it's in more of an oval shape, and that'll allow us to create a little bit of a different perspective of flour. But again, you want to have plenty of pigment and water there in the center. So I'm going to add a few more Make sure it's really nice and juicy in there. And we'll do the same thing. So we're getting lots of great practice. Rinse off your brush and start pulling out these petals. I'm going to start on the right side because I want the left side to be a little bit shorter. Pull out the color and push down. Now, I usually end up doing two strokes for each of my petals. And remember, you can re wet this center area if you want. But if you want skinnier petals, you can just do one stroke. I like the size of doing two, so I pull it out, push down, and do the same thing right next to it. Pull it out and push down. This color is a little bit harder to see on camera, so apologies for that, but it's the same technique we did on the other one. Let's add another petal here, pulling out the pigment, pushing down to create my petal. Let's do a couple more on either side. Pull out the pigment, push down. And again, the center areas slightly drying up, so I'll add a little bit more and then rinse off my brush and continue with these petals. So these types of flowers are really great way to master your brush control even more. And it's kind of a delicate blend between being loose and expressive and making sure all your petals don't look the exact same. You want it to look natural and organic. But you also need to have a little bit of control. Like I said, we don't want these flowers to turn into blobs. And if you lose control, you're working too quickly and you don't leave white space, that's when you can get into some frustrating situations where you don't really see petals, you just see blooms of color. So you kind of have to balance being quick and loose with also practicing brush control. And if you want, something I like to do is I'm going to take my pink color again. And I can see that the center of this is still slightly wet. So I'm going to just gently, gently tap some of that pink into the middle for the center of this flower. And you can see the gentle bleed between the pink and the yellow. I don't want to add too much because I don't want my pink color to go wohing out into the petals. I want this flower to primarily be yellow. But that helps add a nice contrast, and it ties both those colors in together. So let's let these three flowers dry and then we'll add some leaves and filler flowers. 13. Watercolor Florals: Leaves & Foliage: Okay, so these have had some time to dry, and now you can kind of see where those main flowers are placed. So next, I'm going to add our first layer of leaves. As I mentioned earlier in the class, you can always go from lighter colors to darker colors. So this first layer of leaves is going to be very light value. So we'll be using a lot of water in our paint mixture. And then as we add more fillers and the second layer, we'll start to build up that depth a bit more. So for this first layer, go ahead and mix up a light value of green. I'm using sap green, but any color you like is fine. And you can see I have a lot of water in my mixture here, so I'm working with a very light value. Also moved up to a size eight brush. I want this first layer of leaves to be nice and big, and then we can add darker daintier leaves on top. So I'm going to take my brush and paint a giant leaf coming out in between these two flowers. So what I'm going to do to paint my leaf is I start with light pressure. I apply heavy pressure. You can see the bristles expanding, and then I lift back up, and I'll do the same thing right next to it to make this leaf even wider, pushing down and lifting back up. So that is generally the cadence or the technique that you'll use to paint leaves like this. You're going light pressure, heavy pressure, light pressure. I'm going to load up some more color, and we're going to add a few more. This time, I'm going to have some leaf stems curving off to the side. So I'm going to start with a light dainty line, and then we'll add some more leaves. So light pressure, heavy pressure, light pressure. Make it a little bit wider. And let's add a couple more coming off of the stem. Push down, lift back up. And how about one more coming off this side? So light pressure to create the dainty stem, and then I'm pushing down and lifting back up. Push down, lift back up. Okay. Now, as I said, we will be adding more layers on top of this. So we want to make sure that this first layer is nice and light so that we can go back over on top with a darker green. Let's add another big leaf coming out here, starting with the dainty little stroke, pushing down, lifting back up. Let's do the same thing right next to it, make it a little bit bigger. And you can see, as I add each of these leaves, I'm not adding a leaf that's going straight up or straight out to the side. I want a little bit of movement because leaves in real life or stems or foliage, they always have a bit of movement to it. They're never perfectly straight. So make sure you're keeping your wrist nice and loose. Now, for this center area, since there's not enough room to put an actual leaf there, I just want to imply that there's foliage or greenery in between. So I'm just going to kind of plop some color down. In between these flowers. Again, it's a light color, and these aren't leaf shapes by any means, but you can see that it kind of indicates that there's some greenery there, but we can't necessarily see each individual leaf. So if you have some white space in between your flowers, you can just pop in some color, and we'll continue adding these leaves. Loading up my brush with a little bit more. And I'm going to add a couple coming off of this right side. So again, dainty line and then pushing down, lifting back up, and I'm making sure to curve it. Kind of coming up around that flower. And let's add another one coming down. Pushing down, lifting back up. And I've mentioned muscle memory before, but it's super important in watercolor. So I know it's a lot of repetitive motion when you're doing flowers to do each of these huddles the same way. And when you're doing leaves, it's a lot of the same movements, but that's how you're really going to start to build up your muscle memory. So that later down the road, when you get more practice under your belt, you don't even have to think about it. You can just start painting and it just flows from your brush. So let's load up some more color, see how light my mixture is. And we'll add a few more leaves for this first layer. Let's do some coming off of the bottom left. I really pushing down to create nice big juicy leaves. Just like that. I might add a little stem here. But I want to make sure I'm not adding too much at this stage because I am going to do a second layer of leaves. So if I add too many now, I won't really have room to add more as we go. And like we talked about in the troubleshooting lesson, overworking paintings can definitely be an issue. So it's always best to keep it nice and simple and then add more to it if you want. But if I go too hard now and add a bunch of leaves, I'm going to not have enough room to add all the details. So let's add one fin a little bit coming off of here. I want this piece to be nice and balanced. So let's do another stem kind of curving like that, using the tip of my brush, and then pushing down to create these little leaves coming off of it. So thin and thick thin and thick. Always making sure that I'm adding movement to each element in this piece. So here's where we're going to start, and we need to let this dry completely because I want to layer stuff on top of it. If I were to layer additional leaves right now, these are still really wet, so they wouldn't really be defined. It would just kind of bleed and bloom, which is fine if you're going for a very expressive look. But for my second layer of leaves, I want them to be a little more crisp. So go ahead and let this dry. And in the meantime, you can start mixing up a slightly darker value of green. So now I've added a little bit of deep sap green to my mixture, and you can see it's quite a bit darker. I have less water. And I'm pulling a lot more pigment straight from my palette here. So make sure this mixture is darker than your first layer. And now we can start adding our second layer of foliage. So this is when I really like to be a little bit more expressive. I do a lot more dainty leaves at this stage. So the bottom layer is really to build up the fullness of the composition, and then these darker layers are the more dainty little stems and filler flowers. So I'm going to be using the tip of my brush quite a bit. So starting on the left side only because I'm right handed, so I always work from left to right, so that my hand doesn't accidentally smudge any paint. But I'm going to start by just using the tip of my brush, and I'm just going to gently add some wispy little stems here. It's nothing crazy. Just adding a bit of foliage there, and then I'm going to overlap these two leaves. So for this, I'm going to take the tip of my brush. Again, keeping it nice and dainty. And then pushing down to create some leaves. And you can see, because the second layer is darker than the first, it lays over it nicely. If this first layer of leaves was too dark, and then I tried going in with a lighter color, it wouldn't be able to show up over the darker color. So you always have to work from light to dark. And I'm going to leave this be for now. I am going to be adding more later on, but that's when I add some more filler flowers. Using the pink and yellow that we've done for the primary flowers. So again, I don't want to go overboard here. I'm just sort of adding in the second layer of leaves. And a lot of these, like I said, are going to be pretty light. So using the tip of my brush and then pushing down tip of my brush, pushing down. And now we have this kind of awkward space in between. So again, I'm going to make sure this has some movement to it. So creating a curve and then just pushing down to create some more leaves. Again, this area doesn't have to be perfectly defined. That looks good to me. Let's move down. Again, using the tip of my brush, just kind of creating these wispy little strokes. And you can play around here with how much pressure you add. So you can see these strokes were really wispy, barely put any pressure down, and then some of them are a little bit thicker. Now, I know for sure I want to add some filler flowers here, so again, I don't want to go overboard. But I can just start adding a little bit of dainty foliage. And you can see the second layer really brings the bouquet to life because now you can see layers of leaves and it doesn't look so flat. So watercolor is definitely kind of a trust the process type of medium. It doesn't always look great in the beginning. But as you add onto it and you kind of build out your layers, your piece will really start to come to life. So again, just adding some wispy little marks here, using the tip of my brush, and this is really where you can infuse your own style. So especially in the beginning, it's totally fine if you want to copy every single step that I'm doing. But especially in compositions like this, it's really fun to just try to experiment, add some leaves where I'm not adding them. Maybe you have some areas that are a little more bare. You can add more leaves there, or if you want to have them going in a different direction, that is totally up to you as the artist. So I'm just going to finish adding a couple little leaves. And then we can go in for the filler flowers, which is my personal favorite. 14. Watercolor Florals: Flower Buds: Okay, so here is how our composition is looking so far. I think it looks great. It looks pretty balanced. We have some good movement, but I want to add some more color, and that's where you can add filler flowers. Now, I'm going to be doing my filler flowers in the same colors that we've already used so that we can keep it nice and consistent and simplistic. And as I do this, I'm going to start with the yellow ones. And when I decide where I want to place these flowers, I want my yellow ones to be up more towards the top of the piece because my main yellow flower is down here, and I want to create a sense of balance within the piece. So we already have a lot of pink up at the top, so my pink fillers will be at the bottom. And we already have yellow here at the bottom, so the yellow fillers will be up at the top. So those are just some things you want to think of as you work on pieces like this is creating a sense of balance. I will say, if you're enjoying painting florals like this, I do have a whole class that is a 15 day challenge all about watercolor florals and how to arrange your compositions. So if you're enjoying this, I would definitely recommend that one. But, yeah, that's just something to keep in mind is a sense of balance. So that's why I'm going to start by adding my yellow fillers up at the top. So I've loaded up this same warm yellow tone, and I'm going to just kind of push my brush down and create a little egg shape. And that's going to be my first filler. I'll do another one down here, right next to it. It's a little bit lighter. And let's have one coming off to the side as well. Now, for now, there's going to be some fillers that are kind of floating off in space, but we will go through and connect them all in the next step. But for now, just kind of plopping it down. Again, I don't want any of my elements to be lined up directly next to each other or right on top of each other because when I add in the stems that connect them, I again, want to keep that curved movement in mind. So these are all just things to keep in mind as you add your elements and really start to build out this composition. So that's looking good for now. I'll go back into my pink color that I used for the flowers up at the top. And we'll do the same thing down here. So I'm just plopping my brush down. I'm not worrying about creating a perfect flower petal or anything like that. I'm just pushing it down. You can see my bristles expand and lift back up. I'm also adding them in different values, so you can see that little bud was a lot lighter than this one. And that helps make sure your painting is nice and interesting and you have contrast. So let's add a couple more here. So dainty little guys, and might as well add one or two on this bottom right side as well. Now, the final step is reloading my brush with the dark value. This is our last layer, so it needs to be nice and dark. And then we're just going to simply attach all of these little flower buds that we just added. So using the tip of my brush, you can see this layer is a little bit darker. And I'm just using the very tip of my brush to create these dainty little stems. So first, we want to make sure they're all connected, and then if you want, you can add some more little leaves coming off. It's up to you. Just have fun with the creative process. Now we can attach these ones. I'm going to start the stem here, but then the stems going to be going underneath that petal and then coming out again to attach to these buds. Now we can move down here and do the same thing. Again, because this color is so deep and dark, it goes really nicely on top of the first layers we already did. So we have the very light green. We have a medium green value, and then this one is our darkest green. And that allows us to really build up these layers and create a sense of depth. So just making sure all these little buds are attached and adding in any final details. I'll say it again. You definitely don't want to go overboard. And during these steps, that's usually when I find myself going overboard. It's just adding too many little stems here and there. So I'm going to call it Good as is, and that will be our project. I encourage you to try painting a few more flowers to start building up your muscle memory, which is super important. And when you're ready, I'll see you in the next lesson for project number two. 15. Mountain Landscape: Sky: Project number two is our beautiful mountain range landscape. This project will allow us to practice using different tonal values and we'll also practice layering colors using the wet on dry process we talked through earlier in class. Since we'll be painting a few different layers of sky, mountains, and trees, we're going to have to be patient and we have to let things dry in between. But that's all part of the watercolor process. The colors I'm using for this piece are a light sky blue. And various shades of sap green for the mountains. But as I always say, you can use any color you want. We're focusing on technique. We're not worrying about color mixing or using complex color palettes. Now, just like in the first project, I'm also going to be using a five by seven sheet of paper. And since we're going to be using a lot of water in this and I want to have a clean border, I'm actually going to use masking tape and tape down my paper to this old little piece of cardboard. So I'm going to be using this artist tape. It's from Holbein, and it's soft artist tape. You can also use masking tape. Or if you don't want to tape down your paper at all, that's totally fine, too. I just like having a crisp white border, and sometimes your paper can start to warp a little bit, and having it taped down prior to painting can help with that. So I'm going to be starting with my light blue to block in the sky. Now, I want this to be nice and watery and I'm also using a size ten brush so I can really cover a lot of area. And we're going to start by laying down a wash of light blue or whatever color you choose for your sky, and we're just going to do about two thirds of the paper. The rest is going to be our mountains. So we want to make sure that when our mountains attach with the sky, it's nice and light. So we're going to start by applying some of that blue down on the paper. So you can see I'm using the belly of my brush, and I'm really creating these thick strokes. So remember, when we practice this earlier in class, the thicker strokes is when the belly of our brush really expands down onto the paper, and I'm just working side to side, reloading my brush often and just creating a very smooth wash of color. And like I said, when we reach the bottom of our wash, we want it to be lighter because that's where it's going to meet with the mountains. So I'm going over the top part to make it a little bit darker. Just working side to side, creating our sky. So this is about as far down as I want to go. I want to have plenty of room to add our mountains. So that's going to be our sky. You can leave it as is, or one of my favorite tricks to create some clouds is to take a crumpled up piece of paper towel and I just kind of tap it on the page, and you can see it creates this kind of sky cloud texture. So I'm not pushing down too hard and I'm not doing too many, but you can already see those kind of clouds start to form. And that's just a simple little trick that I like to do when I'm painting skies like this. So it's very subtle, but it does add a little something to the painting. And while it's still wet, I only want to do one layer in total of the sky. So while it's still wet, I'm going to go back in and just tap in a little bit of a darker value of my blue. It's just dark in some areas. Again, not going overboard, but just kind of bringing back some of that vibrancy and building out our sky a little bit. So I'm going to call that good, and we want to let this dry completely. And we used a lot of water for this wash, so it might take some time to dry, but we really want to make sure that when we go in and add our mountain layers, we're not getting any bleeding of color. 16. Mountain Landscape: Mountains: Now that this is nice and dry, we can start with our lightest value of green for the mountains. Of course, you can use any colors you want. If you want to do blue mountains or gray mountains, that's fine. Just make sure whatever color you use is very light. So see how I have a lot of water in my mixture here. We're going to build our mountain layers from light as they're further away and then darker as they get closer. So starting with light, I have a size eight brush, and I'm just going to paint a really light, delicate little mountain layer. So it's coming down slightly overlapping with the blue. And I'm going to bring it down to a lighter value, not all the way down to the bottom of the page, but just a little bit. So I'm using quick little strokes here, and you can see, I created a tip here for the top of the mountain, and then I'm just kind of creating a jaggedy edge. It doesn't have to be exactly like mine. Just fill it in. Until about here. Now, we don't have to paint the rest of the page because we're going to be adding darker mountains on top. So all we really care about now is creating that first layer of a very light green. Now, once again, we're going to have to let it dry completely before we add on the additional layers. So in between each mountain layer, we need to let the paint dry completely. If I were to go try to add another mountain on top, it's going to bleed into that first layer, and we want crisp, clean mountain edges. So make sure you're patient and you let this dry. Once that first layer is dry, we'll get a slightly darker value. And we want each of these transitions to be nice and gradual. I don't want to go from the super light green to a dark intense green. I want to just kind of gradually get darker. And I'm going to put four different layers of mountains on my painting. You can do more, you can do less. But it's good to have that in mind, so you can kind of gauge what value you want each layer to be. So now we can go on top. I'm not going to go too close to this first layer we already did, but I do want it to overlap. I don't want to see any of this white space. And for this one, I'm going to start from the left side a little bit higher. And that's even a little bit darker than I want, so I'm going to rinse off my brush and kind of dilute that a little bit. And again, wiggling my brush a bit, overlapping that layer, and then bringing it down. So again, I'm just kind of creating a jaggedy mountain edge. And then I'll rinse off my brush and bring that color down a bit more. Again, we will be putting darker layers on top of each one of these, so you really don't have to bring the color down too far. Let's go ahead and let this dry, and then we'll do the third layer. All right, third layer coming right up. I'm going to make it slightly darker. And again, I'm going to start from this left side and just gradually bring this one down. And I'm going to need that to be quite a bit darker. So I'll load up some more color in my brush. And you can see, I just wiggle my brush as I work my way down to create that edge of the mountain. And I am going to do one more layer of mountains down here at the bottom, along with some trees. But for now, I might as well just bring it all the way down. And you can really add your mountains however you want. They can be more like hillsides and you can do it a little bit less jaggedy. Or if you want them really sharp and steep, you can do that. Again, this is where you can exercise your creative freedom and start building up your confidence. So there's our third layer. You can see it gradually getting darker. And so our last layer, once this is all dry, will be very dark and bold, and then we'll go even darker and add a little bit of tree line. So let this dry and then we'll do our final mountain layer. Okay, so we're on to our fourth and final layer of the mountains. I don't want to go too dark to where it's almost black because I do want to add a little bit of tree line at the bottom, which needs to be even darker. But I do want this fourth and final layer to definitely be darker than the third one. So go ahead and mix that up. And remember, as we do each of these layers, this is the wet on dry technique. So even though we are overlapping layers and layers of paint, we're waiting in between each layer so that it's nice and dry, and that allows us to get the crisp lines in between each layer because it's dry. So it's almost as if we're just painting on blank paper because everything's dry, so we're not getting any bleeding of color. So this is really great practice for learning how to layer using wet on dry. So once you have your dark mixture ready to go, we can get started with the last layer of mountains. So I'm going to actually have this one kind of overlapping that third layer and then coming down. Again, you can do any type of mountain you like. You can do it in a different direction than mine is going. I just kind of wing it gently kind of bring my brush down across the paper, creating some jaggedy edges. And I want it to be even darker, not too dark, but a little bit darker than I just did. So going over one final time, making sure it's a nice, even layer. So there is our final little gradient of mountains. We're going to let this dry and then we'll go in with a very, very dark value. You can even use black if you want. And I'm just going to add some little tree tops peeking out at the very bottom. So great job with your mountain range. Go ahead and let this dry and then we'll finish it. 17. Mountain Landscape: Trees: Okay, for our last layer, which is the tree line, of course, you don't have to do this part if you just want to keep it a simple mountain range, but I'm going to use my deep sap green, which is a very dark green. It's almost like a black if I pull straight from the pigment. I've moved down to a size five brush so I have a little bit more control, and I'm going to start adding in a little bit of a tree line down here at the bottom. So starting from left to right, all I'm going to do, you don't have to make these trees very complicated or detailed. All you have to do is use the tip of your brush and create the little tree trunk. Going to make mine a little bit taller. And then you're just kind of pressing down your brush, making some blobby little shapes for the branches. I'm not making detailed strokes for each of these. I'm just kind of pushing down my brush, leaving a little bit of white space, and then bringing it all the way to the ground. I'll do another little guy to the left, starting with that little line for the trunk and then pushing down and just creating blobby little shapes for the trees. Now, I don't want to do too many of these. I'm just going to do a few all the way across the bottom. You can make them really however you want. You can only do a few of them if you want. You can line the entire thing and make a really lush forest if you'd like. Just make sure we add them. You're making them a little bit different. You don't just want a straight across line that wouldn't look very realistic. So you can see this one's a lot shorter. This one's a bit taller. This one on the left is a little bit in between, and then I'll move over and add a few more. I'm not going to do it, like I said, across the entire thing, but just adding a few little groups of trees, starting with the trunk. And see how I'm just kind of tapping my brush down and creating full little tree just like that. Let's make this one a little bit taller. Using the tip of my brush, I'm not putting a whole lot of pressure down on the page. Just kind of working my way from left to right, filling out these trees. I know for sure I want to have a tall one over here, so I'll use the tip of my brush, try to create a straight line, and then start adding in those branches. So the tip of your brush is just kind of gently scraping on the page. I'm not pushing down too hard. Just tapping it down to create these trees. Like I said, you can add as many or as few as you'd like. You can also add some birds in the sky, if you want. You can really make this painting your own. And it's such a simple painting that if you end up not liking what you made, that's all good. This is a great practice exercise. And it's, like I said, so simple, you can always remake it and make some changes. So I'm going to call that good for mine, and we can go ahead and remove the tape. And there is our beautiful landscape. See how that tape created a nice, clean border. I personally love that look. Keep up the great work, and I'll see you in the next lesson to wrap up this class. 18. Resources and Final Thoughts: A huge congrats to you. You made it to the end of this beginner's watercolor class. I truly enjoyed painting along with you today, and I hope by now you're feeling more comfortable, brave, and ready to move forward in your watercolor journey with confidence. We learned a lot in this class, so let's quickly review. We started by learning all about supplies and what you need to get started. We dove into water control, which by now you know is the foundation of watercolor. We practiced painting different strokes with our brushes, and we learned three of the most common techniques. Wet on dry, wet on wet and dry brushing. We talked through some of the most common mistakes and frustrations that beginners face and how to overcome them. And, of course, we finished by completing our two beautiful projects, a loose watercolor floral composition and a simple, serene mountain range. Well, investing in good supplies and diving into classes like this one can definitely help speed up your learning process. The absolute best thing you can do to further your skills from here on out is to practice, practice, and practice some. There's no way around it. Do your best to be gentle with yourself, enjoy the process, embrace your mistakes and learn from them, and appreciate all of your artwork, even the ugly ones. If you're ready to take your art to the next level and learn some more techniques, feel free to check out my other classes, or join me in my shorter tutorials over on YouTube. I'd love to see you there. Thanks again for joining me in this class, and as always, happy painting from me to you.