Watercolor For Beginners

Have you ever wanted to add some color to some of your artwork but you don’t know how? Or are you wanting to learn how to start off on a new art medium? Maybe watercolor is a way you can go!

What is watercolor exactly?

Watercolor itself, as a medium, is a simple concept of painting with flowing yet tedious and intriguing simple techniques. Watercolor paints are different colored pigments that are mixed with arabic gum which has the same consistency as honey and/or corn syrup. In that case, will help make sure it won’t flake off when it is dry on the paper. Paint that comes in tubes are wet colors and in the dry pallets you have your dry colors. The real magic and beauty of watercolor comes into play when you add some water and a few brush strokes onto the paper.

Things You Will Need 

There are really only four main items you will need to paint with watercolors: watercolor paint, brushes, specific paper, and water of course. However, there are other basic necessities for this process, but these will be based on your own preference.

Watercolor Paint

Watercolor paint comes in different mediums and as many colors that are in the rainbow and then
some more. However, for the basics you have mainly two mediums and twelve main colors.

The different Types

Wet colors: comes in a metal tube, is wet to the touch, more maintenance, requires a palette

Dry colors: comes in as “cakes” (watercolor paint put under pressure and is shaped into circles or rectangles) and put in holders called pans, dry to the touch until water is added, easier for travel, and simpler maintenance

The dry colors would be more reasonable for a beginner though the wet colors are perfectly fine as well.

Basic colors

The twelve basic watercolors you will need to start off with are:

• Warm and cool versions of the three primary colors
• A violet red
• A black
• Two earth tones, one usually light and the other darker
• A warm and cool green

Brushes

For getting started you would not need an entire 20 piece brush set (nothing is saying you can’t) however you will need the two main styles for watercolor brushes.

Round: can create broad and fine lines within the same brush,  holds a well amount of water and paint

Flat: wide strokes, fine straight lines

Paper

There can be several kinds of paper you need for watercolor.

Watercolor: thicker, tougher, holds and absorbs water and the color, color is more radiant

Mixed Media: holds and absorbs the water and color, not as vibrant however, smoother surface

Water

Only thing to be said about this is for the water to be plentiful and clear.

How To:

Watercoloring is not necessarily a step by step process, but there are certain things that you can do or you will need to do for it to run smoothly.

First: setting it up

First thing you will need to do is to make sure all of the items you will need are set up how you would prefer and are close to you and each other. Once you start painting you will most likely not want to get up until an okay stopping point. This is because watercolor dries fast once on paper and you can not go back over a new layer and it to be smooth and clean.

Second: activating the paint

For wet or dry watercolor, you need water for the paint to "activate". Here what you do is you need to select a brush and put it in the water, and for this you may want to use a round brush to start with, at least to get the paint wet. Then apply the brush with an abundance of water to the paint.

Third: decide, draw, erase

Here you can either think about your art piece and how you would want it drawn and laid out on the paper you are using, or you can look at the blank canvas and let the brush guide your hand. If you are the latter of the two, skip to the next step please. Watercolor is very transparent and in return will show any graphite that is under it. For this to not happen you will need to either very lightly draw it out and leave it or draw it out and then erase it. If you try to erase after you put the paint on it and it has dried you will end up erasing the paint.

Fourth: applying the paint

Watercolor is the type of paint where you need to let the water be the vehicle. You need to have water with your paint regardless of how light or dark you may want it. The less vibrant you need that color to be, the more water you add to the paint. The more bold or vibrant you need it, the less water you add.

Fifth: just go with it

Once you have taken into consideration on these steps and on the things you need, and you have thought out what you want your art piece to look like, you should be ready to let the paint flow onto the paper. Enjoy!