There’s a reason they say that eyes are the window to the soul: of all facial features, eyes are the most expressive and can add personality to a portrait—which is why it’s also important to pay particular attention to the details.
Super Easy Watercolour Painting For Beginners (10 Minute Tutorial)
Want to learn how to paint an easy watercolour painting for beginners?
And do you want to paint it in only 10 minutes?
Then you’ve come to the right place!
In this step-by-step watercolour tutorial, I’m teaching you:
- How to paint a simple watercolour lake with a moon.
- How to apply the wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry techniques.
- How to use the dry brush technique to create texture.
So without further ado, let’s get started!
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Table of Contents
Watercolour Supplies You Will Need
Before you begin, make sure you have the following supplies:
- Watercolour paints (I’m using Sennelier l’Aquarelle Watercolor Paints)
- Watercolour brushes (I’m using Silver Black Velvet Brushes)
- Watercolour paper (I’m using Arches Cold-Pressed Paper)
- Mixing palette (I’m using Meeden Porcelain Mixing Palette)
- Masking tape (I’m using Pro Artist Tape)
- White gouache (I’m using Pebeo Studio White Gouache)
How to Paint an Easy Watercolour Painting Step-by-Step
Step 2: Paint the Mountains
- Dilute some blue pigment in your mixing well and combine it with a dark grey pigment (I’m using Payne’s Gray). Mixing these two pigments creates a dark blue/indigo colour.
- Draw a straight line in the middle of the pink section. This is the horizon line, and it distinguishes the point where the sky and the earth meet.
- Next, paint two sloping mountains that converge in the middle of the painting so that it looks like a V shape. Draw the outlines of the mountains and then fill them in with the dark pigment.
- Add extra pigment to refine the shape of the mountains. They should look uneven with some bumps and dips. This gives them a more organic appearance.
- While the paint is still wet, rinse off your brush and load it up with clean, clear water.
- Then, drag the bristles along the horizon line to blend the dark blue pigment into the pink pigment. Do this two times to create a smooth transition. It should look like the distant mountains have reflections on the water.
- Wait for the layer to dry.
Step 3: Paint the Moon and Reflections
- Switch to a round 4 brush and load it up with white gouache. You can apply the pigment without diluting it. Alternatively, use white ink if you don’t have gouache.
- Next, use the tip of the brush to paint a small circle at the lowest point where the mountains converge. As you can see, the composition of the mountains draws the viewer’s eyes to the moon.
- Last, dilute the white pigment with a tiny bit of water. Use the dry brush technique to add the white gouache to the surface of the lake. This texture creates reflections of the moon on the water.
- Wait for the layer to dry.
Step 4: Refine the Moon and Reflections
- Once the layer has dried, load up your brush one last time with white gouache and lighten the moon a little bit if you need to.
- Then, use the dry brush technique to add more reflections onto the surface of the water. Make sure the reflections are lighter and more abundant the closer they are to the moon. Conversely, the reflections should be less light and more sparse the further away they are from the moon.
- Wait for the layer to dry.
Tutorials to learn the basics of working with watercolor
Pick up and practice essential skills, including the basic rules of working with watercolor to specific techniques like wet-on-wet.
Wet-on-wet is a technique in which you apply paint to a wet surface, whether that’s a wet sheet of paper or over another layer of paint that’s still wet, to create an effect in which the colors blend together.
It’s also a technique that requires a basic knowledge of how watercolors work, including how long they take to dry, when to use more opaque or watery colors, and how to mix different shades well to avoid undesired results (or even use them to your advantage).
In this tutorial, visual artist and illustrator Ana Santos (@anasantos) introduces you to the basics of how to use the wet-on-wet technique to successfully blend watercolors.
Watercolor Tutorial: How to Fix and Avoid Mistakes on Wet Paper
While the wet-on-wet technique allows you to blend pigments with remarkable effects, the fluid nature of the technique also means that mistakes happen. However, by learning how the paint reacts to water on paper, you can avoid errors, blooms, and ineffective layering—plus, you’ll better understand how to fix any mistakes you do make.
In this tutorial by watercolorist and wildlife painter Sarah Stokes (@sarah_stokes), she teaches you her top tips to fix and avoid mistakes on wet paper.
Watercolor Tutorial: Basic Mark-Making Techniques
Amy Pearson (@amypearsondesign) is an illustrator who combines traditional and digital techniques to create vivid mixed-media illustrations.
One of her techniques involves crafting bright and beautiful strokes using watercolors that can then be scanned and edited in Photoshop before being incorporated into digital illustrations. But, in order to achieve the desired effect, first it’s important to learn the rules of working with watercolor.
Here, Amy shares her basic techniques, teaching you how to create hand-painted watercolor strokes, shapes, and marks for any project, including suggestions for blending colors and exploring different effects.
So here I offer you free mini watercolor tutorials covering a range of watercolour painting techniques and subjects, to get your creative juices flowing!
If you want to take a selection of full-length, step-by-step watercolour painting classes for FREE, click here for free watercolour painting classes.
And if you enjoy the free classes, or if you’d like to take the full-length version of any of the short videos below, consider Nature Studio membership, where you will get access to them all.
Painting Technique
Before you dive into the mini watercolor classes, watch this simple overview of my watercolour method so you can understand my simple yet powerful technique!
Mini watercolor video classes
Draw a pencil conker
31 Oct 2023
How to paint a green and red apple – without making it brown
02 Oct 2023
How to paint realistic raindrops on an apple
01 Oct 2023
How to paint dog fur
19 Sep 2023
How to bring back watercolor highlights
05 Sep 2023
How to paint a raspberry
22 Aug 2023
Watercolor: One of the lowest cost art hobbies you’ll find
18 Jul 2023
Draw a realistic lily flower
11 Jul 2023
Understanding colour for realistic painting
06 Jul 2023
© 2023 Anna Mason Art Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Registered in England number 09616196. Registered Office: 106 London Road, East Grinstead, West Sussex, RH14 1EP.
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