A Little Busy, portrait of Kate's cat Busy by Robert A. Sloan
Anyone can learn to paint in watercolor, and the joy of being an absolute beginner is that you have nowhere to go but up. Watercolor isn't an easy medium, but it is cheaper to take on and generally less frustrating than oil painting, and that frees you to experiment, change styles frequently and start several projects simultaneously.
Instructions
1. Get the supplies that will make it easy to do a lot of small, quick watercolors without much fuss. A pocket set like the Sakura Koi 12-color pocket box, and a good waterbrush, are essential.
Buy or make a watercolor journal. You can make an inexpensive one with a cheap ring binder and a hole punch. Get sheets of 140-lb. watercolor paper, cut them down to fit in the binder and punch holes in them. You can add as many pages as you like. You'll use the journal to chart the colors in your watercolor set for quick reference and it will also act as a sketchbook.
2. Search YouTube for watercolor instruction videos; there are plenty of good ones. Find as many free instructional goodies as you can online and try the paintings in them. If you don't have exactly the same colors, use the closest ones. If you don't have exactly the same brush, improvise.
3. Get a good book on sumi-e, Japanese ink painting. Monochromatic sumi-e techniques will expand your skills in composition, in different kinds of strokes, in ways of seeing your subject and most of all, in being able to simplify a painting to make it more powerful. Sumi-e practice improves anyone's watercolor painting. Do some traditional Asian monochrome or simple multicolor paintings, paying attention to the white space and not covering the whole page. For this practice you can use pages of lighter weight --- 90-lb. student watercolor paper --- because you're not dealing with massive washes that can cockle.
4. Turn each stroke exercise into an actual painting. Start with one stroke and build on it to create whatever subject it suggests to you. This is a powerful inspirational tool even for the expert. It encourages you to start from scratch and paint from imagination, freeing yourself from strict realism and fear of failure.
5. Sketch and draw often. Learning to draw helps a painter develop good observational skills and understand the shapes, textures, values and other tricks involved in representational painting. Try sketching with watercolor pencils so that when you paint over the sketch, your lines are close to the colors you used and blend completely.
6. Paint every day if you can. Take your pocket set and a small watercolor pad to work and paint during your break. How often you paint, not how slow you paint, will determine how fast you progress.
On weekends or whenever you have more time, do several paintings at a time, spreading out the early stages to dry while you start another. To aid this, get three or four small watercolor blocks bound on all four edges, especially if you like painting outdoors.
7. Start a blog or use the blog you have to post your Daily Painting. There's nothing more encouraging at any level than posting your work online and getting comments. Even if you're a complete beginner, just doing daily painting and blogging it will help you progress.
8. Find a good art community like WetCanvas.com or DeviantART.com where you can post your art regularly for comments and critique. Make sure the forum you choose is a friendly one that encourages painters at your level -- WetCanvas is very good because beginners are welcome, and many professionals participate in the forums, teach classes and give tips. Also, many art sites post challenges and prompts with photo references to give you ideas.
9. Paint what you love. If you're into marine paintings, do lighthouses and seascapes. If you love animals, paint your favorite animal again and again, using different strokes and color schemes. If you like portraits, paint the people you love and sketch the people you meet. Your best paintings will always be the ones that mean something to you.
