Four Watercolor Painting Ideas For Beginners

And I'm just applying now some of the Cerulean wet into wet. Each time you sort of go across, keep loading that brush. You want to try and keep everything the same consistency so you don't get any streaking in your painting. I've also got my painting on a slight tilt. I've used something to tilt it forward. It's a very it's about a 15 degree angle, maybe a touch more. And I'm just lightening the wash now, paling it towards the horizon and then just putting a bit of the same color in the sea as well, just making it a stronger tone right at the bottom of the page. So you're creating depth in your painting. And I'm just using my damp brush just to pick up any sort of wet paint, their little drips. And now I'm just using a paper towel. You can use a tissue as well and just sort of scrunch it up. Keep it sort of random and just sort of lift off the paint. It comes off really nicely. It's fun to do, especially as I say, you're a beginner. You can play around with this technique and actually make the clouds look like clouds just by lifting off with a piece of tissue or kitchen towel there. So I'm just lifting off then as you go towards the horizon, just make those clouds smaller. The only thing I will warn you about is it's so much fun. You kind of get a bit carried away. So if you do get carried away, you can wash your sky off. It's always easy to wash the sky from that first stage, which I've just done now to show you. Sometimes there will be some staining. So I'm going to kind of paint the same sky again because that cerulean slightly stained the paper. So I've washed it off under the tap. So the so the paper is wet. It's nice and wet. And I'm just now applying. I've actually added a bit of ultramarine to that cerulean now to make it a bit darker at the top. And I'm just painting around those sort of cloud shapes that I lifted out before. And just going to pale that wash and make those clouds look a bit smaller as it goes towards the horizon there. I've even added a touch of pink into the ultramarine there just to make it a little bit sort of darker at the top, really to create some depth. So it's a little bit more of a dramatic sky, but it just shows actually if you do wash your painting off, you're a little bit braver, a little bit more confident. And as I feel now the second time round, because, you know, you can wash it off and you can wash it off again because the paper can take it. So I've made quite small, paler washes towards the horizon and just painted in the sea there as well. As you can see there, I'm just lifting off with my paper towel just to get some what you get with the paper towel as well. Some nice crisper edges, because obviously painting wet in wet, you get soft edges. So here I'm pressing a little bit harder and I'm just trying to vary the marks by even if you change your paper towel around in your hand, your tissue and just get different marks there as well. It's great practice this. And what I'm doing now is I'm just mixing up a little bit of the magenta, a touch of the ultramarine and a tiny touch of burnt sienna. I'm wiping off on my paper towel and I'm just going to paint this shadow at the bottom part of the clouds damp into damp. That's why I took that excess off on the paper towel. I don't want to introduce wetter paint onto the sky or else I'll get back runs. So I've just painted in them smaller marks towards the horizon. And now I've just rinsed my brush off. So it's clean and I'm just blending a little bit towards the top of the clouds, trying to leave the light at the top. So it's quite a nice way of doing that, painting these cloud shadows all at the same time, really, and getting some quite nice effects. And remember, if you don't like what you've got there, just lift it off with the paper towel, which I am going to do here just to get a little bit of light on top of those clouds. I'll let that dry naturally, but I'm quite pleased with that effect. And it's a really nice way of painting a sky, a nice, simple way. So what I'm doing here now is I'm going to mix up some washes now for this sunset sky. I'm using Daler Rowney's Permanent Yellow, but you can just use a Cadmium Yellow. I'm using the Core Pyrrole Red, but you can use Cadmium Red. And I'm mixing the Cadmium Red with the yellow, a little bit more yellow here just to make sure I've got plenty of wash for my sky. I don't want to be mixing colours while I'm painting. Well, I probably will do. But I would advise if you're starting out in watercolour, you want to be able to have your colours mixed. So I've got more of a red, orange and a yellowy orange and yellow on its own at the top there, wetting the sky. Make sure your masking fluid is dry before you do this. So just giving the sky a good soak. Really do spend time wetting your sky. The longer you do this, the more time it gives you to paint because the moisture goes into the membranes of the paper and it just keeps it wet for longer. I'm using my size 10 brush and I'm just painting in, just looking at the photograph and just painting wet into wet this sort of more the yellow sort of colours first, working light to dark. So the yellow is my lightest colour here. And I'm just really taking my time so I just get it in the right place. There's obviously a lot of blue sky here as well. So I'm not going to be painting that until the painting has dried. So I'm dropping in now the more the yellow, orange colours, the yellow with a pinch of red and just tickling this into the sky with the tip of my brush. You saw I wiped a little bit of excess on my water pot there. It's only because it was just too much paint on my brush. So you might want to wipe it on a paper towel as well. You might find that easier. But it's just to put the warmer yellow orange in here where I can just see it in the photograph there. So I'm sort of peeling away. It's funny, actually, looking at the photograph now, it's very pink, that cloud. But I printed off a photograph and it looked more orangey in the photograph. So that's why it looks a bit different. But you can actually make that a bit more pinky if you like. Just using Permanent Rose or Alizarin Crimson watered down as well. So whatever you fancy. But I'm just adding a little bit more red now on its own. I'm just mixing this up now because I just saw a little bit more red in those clouds from the printed photograph. And I'm just painting this in wet in wet as well, still using my size 10 brush. And I'm just sort of taking my time here. I don't want to rush this. The paper is really nice and wet. If you find your paper is drying out a bit, just give it a spray with a spritzer bottle of fine mist. Misty spray should keep it going. OK, just don't go too close because it will move the paint too much. So sort of spray from a little distance and it'll just keep everything moist. And I'm just painting this sort of yellow orange here now. A little bit more damp into wet. The paper's wet. I want to make sure that my brush wasn't loaded too much. I've just taken a smidge of paint with damp paint, which is different to wet paint. Wet paint moves quicker, spreads faster. Damp paint stays put, but you still get a soft edge. It doesn't travel so much. Just using some ultramarine here and pink. I'm taking the excess off on my paper towel. So my brush is damp and I'm just dropping in this violet color and I felt it was a bit too violet. So I'm just putting red on top of that so you can see what I'm doing here. So if you want to just add your ultramarine and red together rather than the pink to get that sort of more sort of shadowy color in those beautiful sort of fluorescent, pinky, peachy color sort of thing. It's stunning, isn't it? That's what I really liked about this picture. So I am using the paper towel just to control the amount of paint on my brush, especially as I work towards the horizon here. Now, if you're worried about using a large brush, do swap to a smaller brush if you want to, if you're going to paint these smaller sort of shadow clouds in the distant here, which is quite nice because sometimes the larger brushes do give off a lot of watery paint. So that's probably a good tip. So I'm just making sure I don't introduce too much moisture. So you want the consistency to be the same or not as wet, so damper than the actual surface of the paper. So the clouds don't move and spread too much. Otherwise, I'm going to have lots of violet clouds here and no yellow at all. So I'm really sort of taking my time, just getting another smidge of ultramarine touch of cerulean there and rinsing my brush and just getting that color there. I'm just going to put a little bit of blue just at the bottom of those clouds. Some of them are quite sort of cerulean colors. So I'm just putting on top of that violet color just to change them slightly. It's funny when you look at something or look at a color and then you paint it, then you look again, the color looks different. And sometimes it's because you put it on your painting as well, because obviously the colors on your painting affect the color that you've just put on as well. So it changes. So I'm just tickling a little bit of shadow in those bottom clouds. If you think your painting is in danger of getting a back run, you can always miss this stage out and then try again once it's dry. So I'm mixing up here some Prussian blue and some Prussian blue mixed with Payne's Gray. That's for the very dark area of the sky there. Nice big puddles. So you don't have to mix again as you're painting your sky. And I'm mixing up now some pink. Any pink will do. It's Quinacridone Magenta, but you can use any pink and some Prussian blue. I'm wetting the paper here. Make sure again you take your time wetting the paper. I'm using a large mop brush. So really giving that a good soak, making sure all the areas are nice and wet. I'm going to apply the sort of violet color first. So the lightest color first around that sort of area in the sky, sort of top left and around the moon as well. And I'm just applying now sort of a light, I've got the Prussian blue here. It's quite watery. So it's that quite lighter blue around the moon there as well. And just a painting it around the violet. This is all wet into wet and I'm using my size 10 brush. I'm quite excited about this sky. Do make sure your masking fluid is dry as well. So I'm just mixing a little bit more pink in there, making it a bit more creamy and just painting a stronger sort of violet color in there. It's a little bit of a darker shade in there as well. So nice and creamy. It's a little bit more damp into wet. And remember to keep getting fresh paint. That's really important. So I'm just working my way a little bit of Payne's Gray. Now you could use indigo and you wouldn't even have to put the Prussian blue in there because it's almost like an indigo color I've made here. But it's really dark and creamy. And I'm painting it on the wet surface, still using that size 10 brush, really taking my time just to see exactly where I should put this paint. So I'm sort of putting it all around the top area, down the left hand side, a little bit on the bottom right hand side of the sky there across. I want to keep that lighter area here and there. So it's kind of like a focal point as well. And just bringing that right down. I was trying to decide what to do about the foreground. I was a little bit in two minds about how to treat it. And in the back of my mind, I thought it'd be quite nice to use the plastic card technique here and sort of just to get those buildings in the background. And just even though you've got the photograph there, it's quite nice to do your own thing as well. So I'm just putting a little bit more of the Payne's Gray, a little bit of the Prussian blue here, nice and creamy. Just going to put a little tip of this around the sun. So I'm taking off the excess on my paper towel there. And I just want to put a bit of dark around that sun. So when I take off the masking fluid, when it's all dry, it'll really make that sun stand out. Already, it looks really effective here. And it's kind of like a really interesting sort of sky at night, you know, with a full moon there. So I'm putting really creamy paint now. So it's damp into damp, really. So these sort of darker shadows stay there in the sky. So as you can see there, it's dried a little bit and it's really drying a lot paler. So really do use a lot of stronger, darker shadows if you can in that first stage with the moon sky. So I'm using a little bit of yellow here and burnt sienna. And I'm actually painting this, wetting this stormy sky again. So lots of these skies are wet in wet. This is going to be a two stage sky as the one above it is as well. And I'm just applying the yellow onto the horizon. If you look at the reference photograph, there's a lot of kind of a yellowy horizon there. If you don't want to use this particular permanent yellow, you could use raw sienna for the horizon as well if you wanted to. So I'm just putting a little bit of that in the sea because I can see a little bit of yellow color in the sea. I'm just using quite a watered down burnt sienna just for a bit of warmth in those clouds. It'll give them a little bit of body and depth later on. So I'm putting all burnt sienna in there, painting all of this wet into wet. So I'm actually using a little bit of the violet now. That's the Prussian blue and the pink. And I'm painting that wet in wet just in the sea because I can see a little bit of purple in there as well. Just using my imagination a little bit. This is ultramarine and I'm just adding a little bit of burnt sienna to it. Ultramarine and burnt sienna are a great combination. They make a really nice sort of blue-gray color or dark browns. You can really sort of vary it. So I've just got it quite watered down here and I'm just painting some softer shadows around the horizon and just coming up into this sort of bottom part and middling part of the sky, putting in those really sort of smaller cloud shadows in the distance there. So if your brush is too wet, remember you can take the excess off on the paper towel as well. Just painting those distant clouds damp into wet. I'm actually going to mix up a slightly creamier color now just to paint some darker sort of clouds just around the sort of horizon as well, just to really build up those tonal values there. So I'm just finishing off putting these paler clouds in and just softening there with the tip of my brush. And now I'm mixing up some ultramarine again with the burnt sienna, this time a little bit more paint, slightly creamier, damp into damp still, and just using the tip of the brush just to put a few more dark shadows on those clouds in the distance. That really gives a little bit of depth to the painting. So I'm going to let that painting dry naturally. And I am painting now the seascape that's from my imagination. So I'm just painting in some distant hills here using a little bit of ultramarine, a touch of pink, very grey down, very watered down. So this is the furthest. We work light to dark in watercolors and in landscape or seascape paint. I like to work back to front as well. So I'll paint the furthest thing first, let that dry. So it's paler in tone, cooler in color. I'm just dropping a little bit of creamier paint here, sort of wet into wet really or damp into wet just to create a little bit of dark just at the bottom there. So while that's drying off, I am now using my plastic card. I've wet the bottom area of the paper here. I've given it a little spritz, actually. And I'm just using a little bit of the Payne's grey and a little bit of the burnt sienna and just sort of varying it. I've actually cut my card up quite skinny so I can dip it into the pans, which is quite makes it a little bit easier rather than squeezing them out again. And I'm just painting this now sort of damp into damp, just creating all these buildings just by really just pulling the card down, going across, using the tip of the card as well to get all these sort of geometric shapes, as it were. So as you saw, I've just mixed up a little bit of the Payne's grey and a bit of the ultramarine. So it's a really dark color. So this bottom left hand corner is really dark. So I just wanted to put that in the painting. They're really creamy paint. This is really nice and effective because I'm actually lifting off the paint now. Some of this dark paint by swiping it with the card. Do practice this and don't keep swiping the same area twice because you can actually tear the paper or scratch the paper too much. So I'm going to leave that to dry and I'm going to start working on my sunset top right here. So I'm just mixing up a puddle of ultramarine. It's quite dilute. It's going to be a very pale blue sky area. So make sure you have plenty of paint. I'm using a large brush to wet the surface of the paper very gently. You could actually spritz this as well to wet the surface of the paper. Make sure your painting is dry. Make sure your brush is soft so it doesn't disturb the paint. And I'm going to now paint the blue sky and using my size 10 brush. So I'm painting this wet into wet and just try and leave a little gap between the yellow and the blue. So it just avoids any green paint. So it might be tricky as it gets narrower and you may want to swap to a smaller brush as well. Allow your painting to dry before you do this next stage. I don't think mine was quite dry, but I've wet the sea area. You can do this wet on dry as well. But you can once your painting is dry, wet your sea area. And I've mixed up some ultramarine, a touch of pink and maybe even a touch of Payne's grey. So I'm just painting in the sea there using the size 10 brush and just sort of nice horizontal marks, smaller ones in the distance, thinner lines and just bigger marks as the sea comes towards you in the foreground there. So it really creates depth in the painting and just try to leave some gaps there in the sea. So when the painting is dry, I'm going to put some of the colour from the sky in the sea so it looks like some really colourful reflections. So I'm just mixing up some creamier, darker paint just to paint some darker marks in the sea and just really sort of trying to follow the photograph a little bit. And so make sure the paint's really nice and creamy and just painting it in the foreground there, damp into damp. And then a few more little dark marks sort of in the centre of the sea. And as you can see, I've left a little bit of light there in the sea as well, which I'll put some colour in there later. So while that's drying off naturally, I'm just going to put another layer on my imaginary painting here. It's just building up. Remember, I said earlier about light to dark. So it's darker in tonal value here. And I'm just creating a little bit of texture and interest at the top of this as well. So it looks like, you know, bushes or trees in the distance here. And you get a nice hard edge because this is working wet on dry as well. I'm just mixing up a little bit of colour here for the sea. It's a little bit of ultramarine, a tiny touch of the pink, or you could use a touch of burnt sienna. And I'm just painting this quite creamy at the bottom there. But you can see I have a dry brush effect there because the paper is so rough. So if you sort of bring your brush very quickly across the paper, you get a nice dry brush effect. You can also get this by having less paint on your brush as well. So my bottom right hand stormy sky is dry. I'm just wetting it again because I'm going to be painting wet into wet. Just be very careful when you do this. Do it nice and slow so you don't wake up the washes underneath because you can get back runs and muddiness. So it really does pay to have a soft brush and take your time. So I'm mixing up some really nice, dark, stormy colours here. And you can really go to town. But I've used a bit of the Payne's grey. I'm using a bit of Prussian blue and ultramarine with a bit of burnt sienna. So you can really go to town, make sure they're nice and creamy because remember that surface here is wet. So I've got some Prussian blue there. My water pot is getting very dark, a little bit more ultramarine here. I'm going to mix this with the burnt sienna. There it goes. Nice and creamy. So I've got plenty of paint on standby and I'm going to start working wet into wet. So I've just gone on there with a little bit of the Prussian blue. I think there's a tiny bit of burnt sienna in there as well. You could actually use some violet colours here as well. Be quite nice. It doesn't have to be exactly like the photograph, but I'm just working wet on wet here. Remember to leave gaps so you've got that light colour coming through as well. So that light sky behind and still using the size 10 brush. And the other thing you can do as well, if you want to, is a little bit of tilting to get things going and moving. It's quite good fun. As you work towards the horizon, do leave lots more light as it is in the photograph there. You need some light here. So as you can see here, I'm tilting and I'll actually paint sideways as well here. So you could actually use a bit of the Payne's Gray and a bit of burnt sienna for the warmth here and just tickling a little bit of dark clouds just here and there. And I'm going to use some of this, the colours I use for the sky, for the sea as well. This is actually wet on dry. So as you saw, I pulled my brush very quickly. We get that lovely dry brush effect and I'm just leaving some little gaps there as well for some light to come through, as you can see from the photograph as well. So I've got some Prussian blue. Ultramarine and burnt sienna at the bottom there and just some Payne's Gray and a bit of Prussian blue at the top and at the bottom. So you're really varying the colours. There's lots of dark in that sea as you get towards the foreground. They're very dark and that's damp into damp. Just getting a touch more of the ultramarine and Payne's Gray just to really, really get that dark in the foreground and painting a little bit there in the centre of the sea. Some of my sea is running up into the sky. So if that's happening, what you could do is tilt. I have got my painting on a tilt, but you can just get your paper towel and just sort of just pick that up with a paper towel, dab that off. But actually, it's almost looking a little bit like some land and trees in the distance. So I think I'll leave it. And as you saw there, I scraped out a little bit with my plastic card and I'm just going to let that dry naturally. I'm using my size two brush here with a mixture of the Payne's Gray and the ultramarine. I'm just putting a few darks and details to finish off this painting that I did from my imagination. So I've allowed the paintings all to dry. Make sure they're absolutely dry before you remove your masking fluid because you could do one of two things or both. You could tear your paper and you can smudge your paint. So make sure it's absolutely dry. And for this time, I'm actually using the paper towel to remove the masking fluid. It's come off really nicely. So I'm back to the sunset again and I'm using the size two brush, making sure it's absolutely clean. I'm just using some yellow and I'm going to paint that yellow in the gaps in the water. So it looks like the reflection of the sky, you know, little bits of yellow reflection here and there. I'm also going to paint a little bit more of a red orange colour around the sun to really pop it out as well. So I'm getting a smidge of red, mixing it in with the yellow. So it's quite creamy. And I'm going to use the size two brush and just so it's our focal point. And I really want the eye to go there straight away. So it's a warm colour. It's only a small area. I'm painting wet on dry, but I'm really pulling out the light of that sun. I'm just lifting off a little bit of paint here using my stencil brush. But you could use a flat synthetic brush as well. I'm just working away there with clean water and then just taking off the residue moisture with the paper towel. So I've all my paintings are dry and I'm using some white gouache and I'm spattering a little bit more on this starry sky. I felt I didn't have enough stars when I spatter with masking fluid. But if you haven't used masking fluid, you can now use some white gouache for the sky and the moon. If you don't have gouache, you could use white watercolour. It's not as opaque or you could use acrylic as well. And I'm using the size two brush now just to put in some windows in my sort of buildings that I created with my plastic card. And I've actually used the gouache, but I'm going to use some yellow paint as well, some yellow lights. And I think I'll use some red as well, really will give a little bit of colour to this painting. So even though it's a very, very small area that I've chosen to put the buildings, it's so effective. And I'm really chuffed with this painting. I'm just putting a little bit of yellow and white mixed together just on the water here. I just felt I needed a little bit more reflection of the sun in the sea there. And I'm using the size two brush again with the white gouache. I just felt my moon was a bit ragged on the edges there. So if you need just to tidy things up, it's quite useful for that. And I thought this stormy sky painting needed a sailing boat. The poor boat being caught out in this storm. But it's quite effective just to have some sort of focal point there. So I'm just using the gouache as well. But if you want to put a sailboat in your painting, maybe you could use the masking fluid at the beginning. If you want to set that up, it just occurred to me towards the end there. So I'm just using the gouache and a little bit of dark just underneath the sail there. And I'll put a little bit of the white gouache in the water as well. So it looks like a little bit of reflection from the sail. A little bit of artistic license here, but it's very effective. And I thought I'd put a little bit of the gouache in the sea as well to create a little bit more light. So I'm removing this washi tape now, which is coming off beautifully. There's no tears or anything like that. So I'm really impressed with it. So I'm just mixing up a dark now and I'm going to paint some birds in the sky wet on dry using my size two brush. I thought I'd put some on this top left hand painting as well. It just needed a little bit more life to it. And actually just adding a few birds to a painting like this really brings it to life. So I'm just using a bit of Payne's grey, maybe the touch of burnt sienna. They're quite a cool color with this size two brush, just varying the size. So there's one larger bird, one small and one in the distance as well. So I really hope you enjoyed this tutorial and inspires you to have a go. If you would like to support the content that I create here on YouTube and get access to extended tutorials and my exclusive tutorials with downloadable outline sketches and PDF documents with progress photographs to help you with your watercolor painting. Why not think about joining my Patreon membership? Details about the membership can be found in the description below. Thank you so much for watching. Happy painting. Bye for now.