Watercolor painting learning structured plan for those who want to start but struggle to find how, unless ready to pay for courses.
Over several years I got completely dissapointed in my way of trying to get into something I'm interested in. I spent money on different courses, I kept watching videos, buying books, but nothing really brought me forward much in any of the topics. I suspect it's due to my Russian upbringing. I expected courses and mentors to push me and motivate me to do something, because that's what teachers do in Russian schools. One day I realised, it's not working, I have to get out of this. Trying to analyse my past experiences and experiences of my friends, I came up with an idea to create a structured approach to learning something through analysis and then I applied it to watercolor painting first, and planning to continue working on this approach for other topics.
I do not believe in procrastination. I believe that we need to get bored first, and then when we want something we know where to start. This structure is to help with the second part.
I hope this can be helpful for those people who had similar experience and are looking for free ways to learn something new.
There are some general rules of a thumb for the painting:
- have a sketchbook and paint all the time (this is not going to happen straight away, but eventually, so no stress at the beginning)
- take notes about paintings, studies, etc.
- collect reference material (photos, other works, objects, whatever inspires you)
- always start small and simple, use small charts (small paper, big brush)
- analyse your practice all the time
- find a mentor, one-to-one to guide you and improve your skills (it's important during late stages of learning)
Some people do not recommend to start with expensive materials. I found that bad paper or color does not make you feel watercolor better. You can use those cheap ones for experimentations, but learning should go with a few but good materials. It's better to get 2 decent brushes and 3 tubes of watercolor, along with good high GSM paper.
| Material | Why and what |
|---|---|
| Painting board | Just a wooden board. It's important to paint using different angles in order to undesrtand the medium better. Painting on the table will limit the learning experience. |
| Watercolors | Tubes or brickets. Good ones: Schmincke, Winsor & Newton, Daniel Smith, Nevskaya Palitra. I found buying different brands helps to experiment and see the difference in pigments and how they behave. |
| Paper, paper charts | Any good 300+ GSM watercolor paper. Suggest buying hot pressed, cold pressed, etc. to see how it behaves. |
| Masking tape | To make paper charts and tape the paper to the board. |
| Brushes | There are lots of videos about what brushes people recommend. Eventually you will end up buying different shapes and sizes. To start with you can choose ... |
- Tate watercolour manual - to study and repeat techniques from great masters
- Painting landscapes from your imagination - this is a book I found helped me to make this structure most, I reference here lots of ideas from it.
The first step is to learn basic traditional watercolor techniques. This is something to practice a few times. I suggest to prepare lots of small paper charts and go through each of those techniques many times by:
- using different colors, color mixes (just for fun for now) and brushes
- experimenting with amount of water on the brush
- experimenting with thickness of the color mix
- experimenting with the angle of the paiting board
- laying down of the wash (how often stop/start, etc.)
Techniques:
- flat wash
- gradated wash
- glases (tones)
- variegated wash
- reserved whites
- dry brush
- wet-in-wet
- mingling
- charging
- granulation
- negative
- blending edges (fading)
- side brush
Marks (using different brushes as well):
- dotting
- dabbing
- rolling
- dragging
- spatters
- lifting
- scrapping back
- washing out
To find about each of those you can google or search on youtube by name.
While practicing, constantly analyse and make notes of results. What you like, what you don't like. What you find works or not. You may also start finding that there is certain style you prefer or avoid.
Instead of jumping straight into drawing complex pictures and compositions, I suggest to start with drawing simple objects: trees, flours, cubes, apples, clouds, rocks, etc. Here it's important to practice drawing, for example, a tree using all the different techniques you learnt about during the first step. During this step we also start learning from someone else. I suggest picking up a few artists youtube channels and repeating their studies on small objects.
Make sure:
- artists are not doing speed painting (you want to see their way to apply techniques to get a better feel of the watercolor)
- artists explain or vocalise what they are doing (not critical, but nice to have)
- to pick up multiple channels with different styles (that way you can see how the tree can be painted from 5000 directions)
Here is the learning process:
- observe and study the demonstration
- copy the process
- experiment
- analyse
Artists channels I found interesting for myself (all have very different styles):
- Grant Fuller - some good simple studies on rocks, trees, etc
- iraville - very specific style of painting, has simple studies of birds, characters, trees
- Scott Swinson - for landscapes and moving into step 3, also has chinese techniques
- Lena Gemzøe - very unusual style (hard techniques, but worth trying)
- Mind of watercolor - lots of tutorials
- Henry Li - chinese painting tutorials
There are also books that analyse and showcase different application of techniques by greatest artists. For example, Tate watercolour manual. These types of books are good to study from.
During this period I suggest also to start learning about colors and color mixing. This is a very big topic, but it may be a good time because you are starting to work with objects and can apply color mixing learnings and findings while you are practicing.
This step is about trying to draw a finished project which will end up in a form of a completed painting. Again, here I suggest copying and repeating after masters. It is also important (if possible) to see masters at work, or you can pick your favourite watercolor paintings and try to reproduce them yourself which can be a bit harder.
So here are ways:
- find video demonstrations to copy (masterclasses, etc)
- find favourite watercolor paintings to copy
- find step-by-step guides, exercises, projects to follow
- art-kits, e.g. https://www.mossery.co/collections/art-kits
During this step the learning process is the same:
- observe and study the demonstration
- copy the process
- experiment
- analyse
At some point, when you feel more confident with the techniques and the medium itself it's a good time to start leaning about composition. Try to analyse work from the composition prospective, make some preliminary sketches. Learn about golder section and other general composition rules.
Photographs is a good way to get ideas for paintings. Here are some things to consider:
- build composition sketches from photographs
- take color notes from photograohs
- add detail to your painting using photographs
- build reference library
Time to draw things from your head.
Here are some idea startes I found from books:
- making landscapes from "blots"
- making landscapes from little rocks, crumbled paper
- using real branches and other things
To make it all happen one needs a schedule - something to hold on to and try to practice every day. I came up with my own one that fits my routine. Feel free to change it to your needs and circumstances.
See my schedule here.