When painting with watercolor, what art supplies do you need if you’re a beginner? How do you even begin to create a composition? What does “wet-in-wet” mean? Are there “sexy” watercolor techniques? (Of course – scroll down to see who teaches them.)
We answered these questions and hundreds more during the Essential Techniques Day of the 5th Annual Watercolor Live – the online art conference bringing you today’s masters to teach you everything you need to know about watercolor.
The event began with a pre-event Seminar from Platinum Sponsor Royal Talens, featuring Jeff Olson. Next, Eric Rhoads (CEO and publisher) and Kelly Kane (Editor-in-Chief of PleinAir Magazine and American Watercolor Weekly) kicked off the main session with an enthusiastic welcome and tips on how to make the most of everything we’re presenting this week.
Replays are available, so visit WatercolorLive.com now and catch up on what you might have missed, including the following highlights from Beginner’s Day:
In his lesson, David R. Becker explained the essentials of watercolor, including the basic elements needed and a simple demo showing how to use watercolor if you’re brand new to it.
Emily Olson gave us tips and guidelines for creating beautiful compositions in your watercolor landscapes, pointing out that composition is the single most important thing in a work of art – and it’s an element that can be learned.
Catherine Hillis explained the basic techniques for watercolor painting, including the “sexy” ones otherwise known as “special effects” and textures. 😁
“For me, watercolor is all about using color in beautiful and dynamic ways,” said Angela Fehr. She taught strategies to help you work with the pigments in your palette without adding anything new (and therefore saving money), how to mix color more dynamically, and how to create a personal style centered around color.
In her watercolor still life demo, Shari Blaukopf painted a bright prairie bouquet in a glass jar using both wet-in-wet and wet-onto-dry techniques. Tip: She said her favorite surface is a 9×12-inch Arches cold-pressed pad.
“As life brings new experiences to me as a person, there’s an exponential increase in confidence to my expression of life through color,” says Kim Johnson. “I particularly enjoy the challenge of carefully working out a composition without losing spontaneity.” And this she did during her watercolor portrait demo of a young woman, focusing in on the face and using a black-and-white photo reference.
Kathleen Lanzoni demonstrated a landscape scene with the goal of creating depth by layering the compositional elements and working light to dark, soft edges to hard details, and then adding the final details.
There’s even an online art auction with original works from the faculty of Watercolor Live and all of our painting events for artists! The silent auction and sale takes place through January 26. View the artworks here.
Of course, we wrapped up the evening with the infamous Cocktail Hour / Paint Along, during which attendees shared their works, their stories, and their love of watercolor.
There’s still time to join us for Watercolor Live! Register today and get access to all the replays you may have missed, and still learn from the world’s top watercolor artists now through Friday, January 24, 2025!
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