Essential Watercolor Painting

Hi, I’m Darren from Watercolour Mentor and in this class, we'll be painting some loose watercolour landscapes and learning my fun and easy wet-in-wet watercolour process along the way.

Painting loosely is a fun and liberating way to approach your watercolors. Feel free to express yourself and portray your scene/reference photo in your own unique way. Besides, a reference photo is called that for a reason!

You'll learn how to paint a cloudy mountain landscape, a vibrant landscape with trees, as well as two famous architectural landscapes.

By the end of this class, you'll have the skills and confidence to be able to paint loose architectural and natural landscapes from a reference photo and will have some beautiful paintings to show off to your friends and family.

Some topics we will cover are:

• Two included drawing lessons at the beginning of two demonstrations to show you how I sketch in basic details. I will show you how to place the horizon line, and quickly and accurately sketch in the reference photo. I will also talk about how I use my sketch to plan out the steps of my watercolor painting afterwards. 
• How to paint skies, water and mountains in soft and loose manner, using wet-in-wet techniques. I'll talk about how and when to wet your watercolor paper to obtain particular results such as the appearance of soft clouds, and when to paint in more rigid and accurate shapes once the paper has dried.
• The importance of timing in watercolors and when to use different brushes. 
• Essential materials required in watercolor painting, and the 3 basic colours that you can get by with any painting.

I'm excited to get started, so join me for this class and let's have some fun painting! 

*The reference photos attached in the class projects are royalty free images covered by the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. 

Demonstration Paintings:

For the class project, referring to my completed paintings or the attached photos below as a reference, use a pencil to lightly sketch in the outline(s) of the landscape you would like to paint.

Using the tips and techniques shown in this class, create your own paintings for one or more of the scenes demonstrated. You can even change the colours to your liking. If you're feeling adventurous, try finding your own reference picture and use the tips and techniques to create your own unique painting.

Upload your creations under projects! If you have any questions, let me know in the discussion/project and I will get back to you.

*The reference photos attached in the class projects are royalty free images covered by the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.