10 Free Online Watercolor Classes For improving Your Technique
Discover the techniques used by watercolor experts that will help you achieve unexpected results
Watercolor is one of the most ancient forms of painting, and although you don't need advanced tools and materials to start out in this technique, you will require a great deal of confidence and control to achieve the best results in this medium.
Following a watercolor painting course can help you master it and explore the possibilities of this technique, which happen by combining water, pigment, and playing with transparency.
Watercolor lends itself to many applications and has been used through the centuries all over the world. It is a popular technique that has recently enjoyed renewed popularity, thanks to its expressivity, simplicity, and understated charm.
Under the expert guidance of ten skillful watercolor artists, you will master volume, light, color, composition, and experiment with traditional and more unexpected tools. You will discover the various watercolor applications, from painting wildlife to portraiture, from architecture to manga characters, and more.
Click on the red links to access and enjoy the classes!
Free Class: Creating Textures with Color Washes
In this class, watercolor and storyboard artist Alex Hillkurtz will show you different ways to create various textures with watercolor while only using one color. You will create an even wash on dry paper, a gradation wash for a slightly different feel, and play with the wet-on-wet technique. You will also create splatters, smudges, and scratches.
Find out all about these techniques by following his class, taken from his course Architectural Sketching with Watercolor and Ink. Combine loose ink sketching with watercolor to create beautiful buildings that leap off the page.
Free Class: Brush Strokes
In this lesson, artist Sarah Stokes will show you a range of brush strokes using different brushes, which you will use to create your first monochromatic watercolor bird. Through her detailed explanations, you will get to practice various expressive brushstrokes using different mark-making techniques, resulting in a piece filled with meaning and expression.
Learn all about it in this lesson, taken from her course Artistic Watercolor Techniques for Illustrating Birds. Bring vivid wildlife compositions to life by exploring modern methods of watercolor painting.
Free Class: Explore Watercolour & Coloured Pencil 1
In this video lesson, illustrator and artist Laura McKendry will guide you into practicing working with watercolor, looking at how the medium moves and how to combine and mix colors. She will also demonstrate ways of working with colored pencils over the top of watercolor layers.
For Laura, there are no hard and fast rules about how you should and shouldn't use watercolor. She will encourage you to experiment with her and show you how to approach a blank page with an open mind and a playful spirit.
Check out her process in this video lesson, which is part of her course, Illustrating Nature: A Creative Exploration, in which you learn to illustrate the natural world with an experimental approach using watercolor and ink.
Free Class: Colours
Artist Anna Lau’s floral compositions can brighten up anyone’s day at a glance with their unique color schemes and expressive shapes. This video will show you how to experiment with colors and put together a color palette and elements for the final piece. Choosing the right colors and creating a great color palette is an essential part of the design process, adding feeling and the whole vibe to the final piece.
Find her secrets by following her class, taken from her course Vibrant Floral Patterns with Watercolors. Create colorful watercolor compositions of flowers and learn how to apply them to products.
Free Class: Lights and Shadows
Artist, illustrator, and author Felix Scheinberger explains light and shadows very simply: "A shadow is where there is no light". This explains almost everything you need to know about painting. Producing a sense of space with watercolor mainly involves painting the shadows. Check this video and learn to create shadows with watercolor and ink using Felix’s original methods.
This class is part of the course Artistic Watercolor Sketching: Dare to Express Your Ideas, in which you learn how to sketch the atmosphere of your surroundings with watercolors, ink, and a fearless attitude.
Free Class: Color, Contrast and Balance
In this lesson, illustrator Sarah van Dongen will show how to mix colors and make a color wheel. She will give examples from picture books showing how colors create an atmosphere in an illustration. She will also show you how to create color palettes from a reference and your imagination.
Find all these essential tips in the lesson, taken from her course Exploratory Sketchbook: Find Your Drawing Style, teaching you fun methods to develop your ideas and draw from observation using gouache, watercolor, and colored pencils
Free Class: Tracing onto Watercolor Paper and Painting the Base Layer
Manga and anime are art forms known for the expressiveness of their characters. The magic of Geoff Pascual’s artwork happens when he adds the fluidity of watercolors into the mix. In this video lesson, Geoff Pascual addresses the topic of tracing linework onto watercolor paper and how he lays down the first layer of paint.
You can learn about all these processes and apply them to your project in this video, taken from his course Expressive Manga Illustration in Watercolor, in which you explore the vibrant Japanese art form by learning a range of drawing and watercolor techniques.
Free Class: Anatomy and Proportions 1
There is something idyllic about the way watercolors playfully permeate the white space. Michele Bajona, a contemporary figurative artist and master in his trade, beautifully portrays the essence of his subjects through his captivating work with watercolor. When we understand the structure of the skull, it is much easier to create a more realistic portrait. In this lesson, you will learn about the main parts of the skull and the main proportions of the head so you can paint a skull in frontal view from beginning to end. He will explain the main structural drawing and how to work the volumes, painting the shadows in order to find the lights.
Find all these essential tips in the lesson, taken from his course Watercolor Portraits: Capture a Model's Personality, teaching you to paint striking and realistic portraits with a live model.
Free Class: Painting the First Layers
In this lesson, visual artist and photographer Arthur Braud will be laying down the foundation for a painting, in this case, a portrait. He will show you in detail how to paint the first layers of your final project. You will start by observing the different colors of the skin. You will then paint two or three layers to map out the colors on the face. Adding a background color will also help your painting come together more successfully.
Find out more about the whole process in this lesson, taken from his course Expressive Watercolor Portraits, in which you explore color, composition, and technique to create captivating portraits with a powerful message.
Free Class: Basic Watercolour Techniques / Understanding Watercolour
In this video lesson, Amy Pearson will show you how to use watercolor to make some beautiful marks that you can later scan into Photoshop and use to enhance an illustration, creating interesting textures and patterns. The most important thing to remember when you work with watercolors is just to experiment as much as possible and enjoy it.
This class is part of the course Portrait Illustration with Analog and Digital Technique, in which you combine graphite, watercolor, and Photoshop to create a stunningly lifelike portrait.
These classes are free to follow until July 4, 2021. If you’d like to refer to the material after this date, you can sign up for the relevant Domestika course.
2 comments
brulette
I have really enjoyed doing Sarah Stokes Birds and animals and look forward doing the charcoal lessons that she has. These classes have been great in the aspect that they can be done in ones own time so you're not under pressure as time is so limited.
maduromiasis
Nada es gratis.