Beginners guide to watercolor painting, all you need to know

From which watercolors and paint to which watercolor paper,I will start at the very beginning,I will assume that you know absolutely nothing about watercolor painting. At the end of this course you will be confident enough to create a beautiful watercolor sky and landscape, hang it on your wall or give it as a totally unique gift to friends or family. 

You will also be skilled enough to tackle my other courses in wet in wet watercolor techniques.

Using real time videos you will be taken,step by step through the basics of watercolor painting with a professional watercolor artist.

Right at the start of the course I will go through your watercolor painting tools and then we will get straight into mixing watercolor on the paper,this lesson will explain which watercolors make which,we only use 4 watercolors in this course so we won't get confused,you will be amazed at how many colors can be made from just 4. In fact,throughout all my courses I only ever use a maximum 8 colors!

There is a short section on your pencil,rubber and art masking fluid,these are dealt with more in later watercolor courses.

There is much use of my Hake brush through this course and I cant express to you how good this brush is,they are really inexpensive and I have had mine for about 15 years,it is still going strong. It does take practice but remember you can always go back and start again at the beginning of the course,believe me it is worth the effort. Also remember there is a half hour video dedicated solely to the hake,if you like you can watch this video in the free preview, if that video does not convince you about this watercolor brush,nothing will.

The second watercolor painting we do in this course is simply a water wash exercise which we turn into a watercolor landscape,again we practice washes with wet in wet techniques with the HAKE brush and also discover that the hake can draw trees and leaves.

In our final painting we depict a watercolor scene from just up the road where I live in North Wales,the mountains in the distance,the sky,the mid ground and the foreground. Don't worry if as a beginner this all sounds too much,I take you right through every stage step by step,the results some of my students get are absolutely superb and so will you.

Hope to see you soon and don't forget your watercolor Hake brush,

David

Art is such a beautiful way to express yourself and as a watercolor artist for over 30 years I can not urge you enough to give painting in watercolors a try,I never get bored with the effects of the colors on my paper,I still learn new techniques in my work every time I paint something,it is such a free and easy medium and it is well worth the time and effort you may invest.

To paint a watercolor picture is to escape into your own little world where nothing else matters and all your problems and worries can be forgotten, at least for a little while.

To give your own watercolor painting as a gift could not be more rewarding,I never get bored with the expression on the face of a friend or family member when I present them with an original watercolor painting which I have painted specially for them.

The medium of watercolor, for me, is the ultimate medium because even as a complete beginner you can achieve many effects using techniques which sometimes you are taught and sometimes you learn by complete accident which we call "happy accidents",such as when one color runs into another color and creates water marks or bleached paper,this is why sometimes I sit and watch the painting paint itself in front of my very eyes.

Of course now and then it does not work out as I wanted it to but all I have lost is a little bit of paint pigment,a piece of watercolor paper and a little time so I put that piece of paper to one side and start again!

Too many people have a go at painting with watercolors and think that they have to produce a perfect painting every time and they overwork the piece,desperate to get a finished painting to hang on their wall and of course they end up with a mess,get dispirited and give up announcing that they will never be an artist and so never paint again.

I would like to show these people the hundreds of watercolor paintings that didn't work out for me because without making mistakes you can't improve.I keep all my paintings good and bad and I look at the failures quite often,in these failed paintings there is quite often a part of the painting that I really like and I try to remember which technique,which colors I used,which brush made a particular mark on the paper so I can use these same techniques in my future watercolor paintings.

If I was stranded on a desert island,my watercolor kit would be the first thing I would wish for.