How to Learn Watercolor Technique

Watercolor painting can be beautiful on its own. It can also help prepare you for painting with other kinds of mediums, such as oils or acrylics. The only thing standing between you and a fantastic work of art is learning some watercolor painting techniques. If you're not sure how to start learning painting technique, this article will give you some ideas.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• watercolors
• watercolor paper
• paint brushes
• water

1. Take a class for beginners. Watercolor painting is the most popular way to learn to paint. So there are tons of classes offered in community colleges, art studios and through your local recreational department or village hall. These classes will give you the basics to learn beginners' technique, such as how to thin and mix your paints as well as how to make the paint move across your paper in different ways.
2. Find a private teacher to help you with more advanced technique. Blending and controlling watercolors can be very difficult. Once you have some experience painting with watercolor, a private, professional lesson can help you to hone your skills and develop new technique.
3. Teach yourself by doing some research online. There are hundreds of websites that can describe some watercolor technique. However, watercolorpainting.com is one of the few that is devoted solely to watercolor painting. It describes just about everything, from ways to hold the brush to ways to make flawless washes (see Resources below).
4. Get a book that describes watercolor technique. Again, this is a do-it-yourself method that relies on your ability to understand the writer. Of course you will find step-by-step instructions on how to accomplish certain techniques. In fact, having each step frozen for you to study may prove helpful in your quest to pick up more watercolor technique.
5. Study a watercolor painting that you like. Looking at the professional work of others can be very helpful. You may notice something that you hadn't seen before. You may be able to guess what that artist did to create a certain effect. Later, you can test your guess by trying it out at home.
6. Practice, practice, practice. Of course the best way to learn anything is by doing it yourself, and watercolor painting is no exception. You can understand how some technique is done, but you won't have learned it until you've mastered that technique yourself.

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