Watercolor Painting for Relaxation: 7 Easy & Meditative Projects for Self-Care

1. Welcome to Class!: According to a recent study, about one-third of people around the world are feeling stressed, worried, or angry. The world was harder and more stressed out in 2021 than ever before, according to a recent Gallup poll. While we all know the consequences of stress are very serious, there is also good news. Several strategies are proven to reduce stress and improve your overall psychological well-being. Exercise, spending time with a pet, and getting outside more are all effective methods. Studies have also shown that most people who try art as a form of therapy or stress relief have experienced significant reductions in their cortisol levels when doing so. Creating art stimulates the release of dopamine, the feel-good hormone that makes us feel happier. Isn't that amazing? In this class, I will show you my favorite exercises that you can do to unwind and release stress. They're easy, meditative, and very satisfying. Hello, my dear friends. My name is Selena and I'm a full-time artist based in Bulgaria. The artist's life is treating me well so far, and I'm enjoying it thoroughly. But that wasn't always the case for me. Before that, I used to work in high demanding jobs and I remember being stressed out constantly. It was then that I got the idea of coming back to my childhood hobby, making art. I can't tell you how good it felt to have some time for myself not thinking about anything except for my paints and paper and the brush in my hand. With time my passion grew bigger and today this is what I do for a living. But I often come back to some of my favorite quickly though, exercises I used to do to unwind. They are so relaxing and enjoyable, and today I want to share them with you. I hope that you will find them as soothing as rewarding as I do. Then you will adopt some of them into your day-to-day life or your mindfulness practice. You don't need any fancy supplies or a vast experience with watercolors. I believe that even if you are an experienced artist, you will find this class interesting. You also don't make much time just 15 minutes are enough, but you can also continue for as long as you wish. You'll just need another piece of paper. Great side benefit of the exercises is that you will slowly get to know better your brushes, your paints, and the mixes that they can create. You'll get familiar with water control, which is a crucial part of improving all your watercolor techniques and all these by simply enjoying a few quiet moments at the end of your workday or your workweek. Sounds good, right? Meet me in the next video where I'll explain a bit more about the class and the exercises. 2. Class + Project Overview: [MUSIC] Welcome back. In this video, I'll tell you how the class is organized and how we can approach the exercise in it. There are seven exercises in total. Each one is explained in a separate video and in real time. You can watch one video per day or per weekend or however you find suitable. My advice is to watch them first and then try on your own instead of trying to watch and repeat at the same time. Remember that the goal is to relax, not to stress you out. Some exercises you'll find easier and more enjoyable than other and this is totally normal and expected. After watching them and trying all of them, you can choose your favorites and start practicing them more often or you can just do whichever one you feel like at the moment. The final project for you in this class is to complete at least one of the exercises and upload a photo of the final result in the project section of the class. All of those who love to read about your experience, did you find the exercises soothing? Which one is your favorite and why? Was it easy for you to find the time to practice? If you want to keep this as a regular practice, have a look at this lesson in my Autumn Challenge class. There I shared my favorite tips on how to stay consistent with your art practice. Try not to be focused on the actual outcome if the project is going too good, if the colors are pretty and so on. Instead, focus on the process. Immerse yourself in it. You can play your favorite music or podcasts, or you can paint in silence. I am so excited to get you started. In the next video, I'll go quickly over the materials that I'll be using in this class. See you there. 3. Materials: [MUSIC] Welcome back, my friends. In this video, I'll go over the materials that I'll be using in this class. Please don't feel like you have to go and buy whatever I have. Remember that in this class, we're not going for results but rather experiences. So materials don't matter as long as you enjoy the process. For each of the mini-projects, I have prepared these sheets of paper. Their size is about one eighth of an imperial sheet, so I got an imperial sheet, I cut it in four and then each of the sheets, I cut in four smaller pieces. This is Arches 300 GSM, 100 percent cotton paper, and it has a rough texture. It's not necessary to use cotton paper, just keep in mind that paint acts differently over cotton and cellulose paper. Just keep that in mind in case you're wondering why your paint is not behaving the same way as mine. The rough texture is also not necessarily is just what they were, I have available right now, so I decided to use it. Just use whatever paper you have available as long as it's thick enough so that it can hold amount of liquid we'll be using. You will also need watercolor paints. I will use my custom palette. It has lots of colors, as you can see, I've gathered these colors for the last four years, and you definitely don't need such amount of colors, just use whatever you already have available. I will use these board to tape down my paper with the help of these paper tape. As for brushes I will use these two today, they are from Schimoni art are thinner handmade synthetic brushes. You can use just one brush, something that you feel comfortable with, that can hold enough liquid, and that has a good pointer. For some of the projects that I will use white brush, you don't necessarily need it, and if you have a white gel pen, that would work too. I will use this ceramic palette to mix my paints. You can use a plastic palette, dinner plate or whatever else you have available. A paper or cotton towels take off the excess liquid from our brushes. I will use both. Finally, a jar of clean water. This is everything you will need in this class. Gather your materials and let's meet in the next video where we'll start with our first relaxing project. 4. Galaxy: [MUSIC] Welcome to our first relaxing exercise, something that I really love to do to wind down. It's also one of the easiest things to paint with watercolor and you can get beautiful results even if you're a complete beginner. Yes, I'm talking about galaxies. Let me first take my paper to my board. I will show you just one time how I do it, and in all of the next videos, I'll skip this step so that we can get right into it. I'm placing my paper tape so that it covers about five millimeters from the paper. I put two stripes from the top and bottom side. [MUSIC] Then I move to the left and right. This way, it's easier for me to remove it afterward. [MUSIC] I run my fingers through it once I'm done to make sure it's firmly stuck to the paper, and no water or paint will sneak underneath. [MUSIC] I will start today's project by wetting the entire area of my paper with clean water. [MUSIC] As this is a thick cotton paper, it will take some time while the paper absorbs the water. If you are working on cell walls paper, you won't need that big quantity of water. [MUSIC] The goal is to have a glossy surface. I'm wiping the side so that these drops that gathered there won't crawl back into my painting, once I cover with paint [MUSIC]. I will start by taking some lemon yellow first. I take it straight from the pen, and I'm placing it randomly on the paper. I have some bigger, and some smaller areas with that lemon yellow now. Next I'll take orange. I'm repeating the same step, just randomly placing the color while still trying to place it somewhere around the yellow parts, you can already see how it's spreading in. This is one of the most relaxing parts of this process. Just watching how the paint is flowing on the paper surface. Next I'll add some pink. [MUSIC] the color is beautifully flown to each other. [MUSIC] Now, let's add some colder colors. I will take this blue-green and I will add it here and there. Then lastly, some dark blue like this, indigo, for example. [MUSIC] Next, I will splatter some water. The drops push some of the pigment away and create this pleasant texture. It will be lost soon, but at least we're breaking that even coat of paint. Now, with a clean brush, I will help the colors to mix here and there. Some splatters and now we get to the fun part. I will tilt my board in different directions, and this way the colors will flow and mix, and will create this nice and interesting blends. I don't care if the blue is going to mix with the orange and make a muddy color, I'm not going for a super bright galaxy. I'm just curious what colors I'll get when they all mix, and it even makes the galaxy look more natural this way. [MUSIC] I'm wiping the sides, because I got some drops of paint on my paper tape. Now you can add more colors if you like. I want to add some yellow here. [MUSIC] I'm tilting my board again. It is starting to look really good. I love all this unpredictable blend. [MUSIC] Now here I have some liquid that has gathered, and I will suck it up with my **** brush. [MUSIC] Now I'll splatter some clean water again. Now it's starting to look like a galaxy. [MUSIC] You can splatter some white gouache too if you have it. [MUSIC] Another fun thing you can do is just add it to the painting with the brush in a swirling motion. These could be clusters of galaxies. [MUSIC] You can tilt the board to help it flow, though keep in mind that the gouache is moving less than the watercolors. [MUSIC] I will splatter some clean water again, and now I will leave it to dry. You can use a hairdryer to speed up the process. Now my painting is dry. You can see that it's much less vibrant now, watercolors always dry, a bit paler, but I'm happy with how it looks. I will add some stars with white gouache now, so I take some of the jar and mix it with water. It has to be watery, but not too much. I will splatter some stars. [MUSIC] I'm focusing on the same parts more than others, this way it will look more natural. You can also add separate stars with your brush. [MUSIC] If you have some whites spots that are oddly shaped, you can use a down-brush to reactivate the paint and fix their shape. [MUSIC] You can also use a white gel pen to add some stars. [MUSIC] Or we can use it to make some twinkling stars by adding a few rays of light crossing in the middle. [MUSIC] Or you can add the tail to some of the dots, and you got yourself a shooting star. [MUSIC] You can play like this for as long as you want. I'm happy with mine, so I will remove the masking tape. [MUSIC] We're ready with our first relaxing project. Apart from being super enjoyable and satisfying, this process will also help you to master water control, and you will learn a lot more about your colors and the mixes they can create. It's often my goal to when I don't know what to paint, or if I just want to watch some pretty colors mingle together. See you in the next video for another colorful and meditative experience. 5. Circles: Hello, again, and welcome to our second mindful exercise. I have taped my paper to my board, and now just go ahead by taking some color. [MUSIC] Just any color. I will make a few circles with it. Now, I'm not trying to make the perfect circles, but they're not also some shapeless blobs. You can do this in a way that feels the most relaxing for you. If trying to make a perfect circle is meditative to you, then definitely do it. If it's stressing you out, just paint whatever shapes you feel inclined to. You can paint hearts or squares. It's all up to you. I'll take another color. I'll go for a blue color this time. Then I'll add with some circles next to the green ones. Since they are still wet, the colors flow into each other and create interesting blends. It's always so satisfying to watch them flow. And I'm always curious to see which color will flow into the other. After some time, you can predict what will happen. This means you're already getting the hang of other control, which is awesome. But just staying curious and watching what happens is such a joy and a wonderful way to spend some time with yourself. I continue changing the colors and I've heard the size of the circles. Another awesome thing you can do is paint some circles with just clean water, especially when you already have some colorful circles on your paper, and you can add the clear one in a way so that it touches a few different color at once. [MUSIC] So far now, I'm sticking to the blue-green, yellow color palette is just what I wanted to play with, which you can always switch it up. [MUSIC] Now I'll add some circles with this lavender color. [MUSIC] In continuing forward, I will add more and more different colors to the paper. So you can stick to a certain color harmony, or you can use all the colors from your palette. You can put close together very different colors to see how they'll mix. It's always fun when you add something bright and unpredictable. [MUSIC] I will continue like this until my entire sheet of paper is covered with colorful circles. You can go over some of them that didn't mix well or have too much liquid, or you can just leave them to dry as they are, surely the results will be interesting to see. [MUSIC] My paper is now completely dry and I will remove the paper tape, so that was far-right. We introduce some playful elements to it and you can make it yours by using your favorite colors or even stricter monochrome, whatever you feel like doing at the moment. [MUSIC] If you enjoyed watching the color sworn to each other, I have another treat for you in the next video. See you there. 6. Stripes: This is probably the easiest and quick of all the exercises, but it's also one of my favorite. It's so effortless and satisfying at the same time. I will use my flat brush for that, but you can use whatever brush you like. This mindful exercise is just layering different colors next to each other. And I like to do it with colors that seem unusual to mix. I'm starting with just Bordeaux, I make a stripe with it. Next I want to use Naples yellow. Again, apart from relaxing and satisfying to watch, this exercise can also help you get more familiar with your paints in the mixes between them, and also with water control. As with the time, you will unconsciously know which color will flow into the other and how much it will spread. You can try to keep your stripes more defined by going over them or leaving the colors to flow freely, like what I have over here. Next, I'll add some Naples yellow deep. Now, some Persian blue, some pink. See the vibrant purple these two created. I never knew they mix that well. Now let's add some Indian gold. And here's another surprise for me. Look at that bright orange they created together. So gorgeous and how beautiful it flows. I'll finish with some olive green and now leave it to dry. Now that it is dry, you can take this to another level by simply adding some words on top of it. I will use my gel pen. You can use gouache or a marker or whatever else you find suitable. I'm writing just the word create, but you cannot hold sentences if you'd like. You can write your favorite quote or an affirmation. Something that I like to repeat in my mind when I'm winding down is I am calm, I am relaxed, I am grounded. Or you can just make some doodles on it, it's also very relaxing activity. And if that last suggestion resonated with you, I think you will like the next exercise too, see you there. 7. Blobs + Doodles: Welcome back my friends. In this video, we will relax by painting some colorful blobs and doodles. Thought unlike the previous exercises here, we don't have any specific outcome in mind. You don't need to imagine the final result, you just put some paint on the paper and form some shapeless spots. I do like to repeat the color for a few of the forms, but other than that, I let my hand move freely. Once I get the basic shape that I fixed some of the edges, but you can also leave them rough and unfinished. You can also stick to a certain color palette, for example natural downslope, very nice with this type of art. Once the paint is dry, you can continue adding different shapes on top, or you can just make some scribbles. You can fill in the forms you already have filled the blank spaces in-between, or just go wherever you feel like there are no rules here. On lighter colors you can go with more concentrated watercolor, and on top of dark colors, you can try pens, markers or white glass. In my case, technical pen didn't work, so I'll come back which dark watercolor on top. White gel pen is also tricky to use on top of watercolors sometimes I'll go with gouache. You can continue adding more and more elements for as long as you like or until there is no space left. I think I'm ready with this one, so I will remove the masking tape. I ended up with a pretty nice abstract artwork I don't think. In the next video we'll try something that requires more precision. 8. Random Shapes: [MUSIC] Hello again, my friends. In this video, I will show you a pretty cool and meditative exercise that can also help you strengthen your precision skills. I'll start by taking some orange. You can take whichever color you like of course. I'm adding enough water to it. Then I will paint a random shape. Then next week, I will paint another shape that fits the previous one, so that I have just a little gap between them, just a couple of millimeters. The goal is to fill the entire sheet of paper by painting shapes that are that close to each other. There are no rules about the shapes or how big or small they should be. You can do it however you want. Doing this also helps you get more comfortable with your brush. You're getting familiar with the water control, and you also develop greater precision as you're living such a small space between the different shapes. Since you have such easy to follow guidelines and the rest is up to you, this then becomes a very relaxing activity that will quiet your mind and keep it focused on the shapes and colors. Speaking of colors, you can paint this with one or many colors. You can use different color for each shape or how I like to do it, I gradually add more and more from another color, and then little by little, I'm changing hues. I'll start by adding some yellow to my orange. I'll speed up the video so that you won't get bored. Now I will add some more yellow. You can also paint geometrical shapes like triangles or hexagon, or you can write your name or just the first letter and then add more shapes around that. There are so many options. I'm adding more and more yellow to the mix. Now I'll add some green to that yellow. You can also start with a shape in the middle of the painting and then paint shapes around it, but with watercolor, this gets a bit tricky and you'll have to rotate your paper so that you won't smudge the wet paint with your hand. It's why I like to do this from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. Adding more green now. Let's finish with some deeper green. I'm ready with my random shapes meditation. It's a very relaxing and comforting process. In the next two exercises, we'll enjoy once again, the flow of watercolors. 9. Free Flow: [MUSIC] Welcome back. In this exercise, we will paint a flower using the free flow of colors. It's very freeing and satisfying. Others say they'll paint a flower, but you can paint whatever you like: a fish, fruit, a leaf. I'll start by taking enough water on my brush and I'll make a circle of droplets, it doesn't need to be a perfect one. [MUSIC] Then I'll drag each droplet into a petal shape. I bring more water to it with my brush so that the shape stays glossy while we continue with the rest of the petals. [MUSIC] My water is slightly bluey, but it's even better this way because you can see it better. [MUSIC] The shape of my petals is quite irregular with very rough edges, but if you prefer, you can make yours round and symmetrical. Just don't forget to leave some white gaps so that we give the impression of separate petals. [MUSIC] Now I will introduce non-concentrated paint in the middle of the flower. [MUSIC] It spreads out because the petals are still wet. Some pigments will travel farther than others, and it depends a lot on how much water you have on your brush and paper. Another fun thing you can do is to tilt your board. In this way, the paint will travel in different directions and we'll color the petals beautifully. [MUSIC] You can also add some strokes with your brush with the same color or another. [MUSIC] You can define the edges of the petals or leave them fading into the background. [MUSIC] You can add smaller petals or some green leaves speaking out. [MUSIC] Now I will add some dark color in the center of my flower. [MUSIC] You can add more lines from the center to the edges of the petals once it's dry. [MUSIC] I will leave mine as it is, but I'm curious to see what you'll create. [MUSIC] See you in the next video for the final relaxing exercise. 10. Abstract Landscape: [MUSIC] Welcome to the final exercise, our project in this class. This one is a bit more creative and unpredictable, but this can also be a huge source of inspiration and creativity. As each of the other exercises, this one is extremely satisfying and relaxing. I call this one abstract landscape, but you can let go off the expectation to create the landscape and just enjoy the flow of the colors. I start by taking some very concentrated paint with my flat brush. If you have tubes, you can directly squeeze some paint out of the tubes. Another way is to use the palette knife or some other instrument to scoop some paint from your pans, and transfer it to your paper. I usually start with some blues and greens, maybe some yellows. I'm just imagining a forest scene with the river or a lake. I can add some browns too, and some greens here on top. That would be the crowns of my trees. Here comes the fun part. I'm starting to add some clean water to my paper, and this reactivates the paints and it starts to flow. It's really curious to watch how the colors flow and shapes they're forming. You can leave the paint to flow freely or we can try and guide it with your brush. You can also tilt your board. You can add more colors. I think I interfere too much. I should have left it as it was in the beginning, but still I'm going to finish it. After all, we're not going for result here, but for a time nicely spent and some relaxation and joy. I'll add some trees with my flat brush. I will add more blue to the water. Some splatters. You can really go crazy here and add as many colors or shapes as you want. You can experiment and then try to make it look like something, or just leave it unfinished and messy, the choice is yours. I will leave it to dry. My painting is now dry. Now I will define the trees. I'm just going over with some brown, adding some branches. Now let's add some grass. Somewhere with a darker green. I will define this space between the water and the grass. Finally, I will add some texture to the crown of the trees using a dry brush, some lighter green too. Some ripples in the water. With that, I consider my abstract landscape complete. I will remove the masking tape. As I said in the beginning, this one requires a bit more attention and creativity from your end, but it can also be just the thing you need sometimes. You can try different and unusual colors and different compositions for the spots. The possibility here are truly endless. We'll wrap up the class in the next video. 11. Wrapping Up the Class!: [MUSIC] Congratulations on completing the class, well done. I hope you enjoyed the exercises and you'll continue forward taking some of them with you in your day to day life. Don't forget to upload your creations in the project section of the class. I'm so excited to see them. I also love to read about your experience so don't hesitate to share. If you find the class helpful, please leave a review so that other students will find it more easily. It helps me a lot too and I always appreciate your feedback. If you have a question for me, just post it in the discussion section of the class and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. If you post your project on Instagram, don't forget to tag me so that I won't miss your work. You can now also find me on YouTube. I started my account very recently and I'm slowly uploading more real-time tutorials and process videos from which you can learn. Thank you for joining me and for painting along with me. See you in the next class.