Highly Recommended:

Watercolor DVD by Susan Harrison-Tustain

Learning How To Watercolor
Painting with watercolors is one of the most popular and accessible ways for any beginning artist to learn how to paint. Of course we all remember dipping tattered old paintbrushes into turbid water and then scrapping them on paint squares in art class and making an awful mess. It was fun back then and it is enjoyable today. But watercolors are popular for one simple reason: they can be used by either beginners or experts. For example, Winslow Homer became a legendary painter based mostly on his work with watercolors.

So, while they may be a popular plaything for children in art class, watercolors are also an effective medium for revered masters. But in this article we are going to turn our attention to the beginner and discuss a few basic watercolor techniques that anyone can experiment with.

But before we move on, let us continue to explore the popularity and appeal of this medium and method. For one thing, watercolor painting isn’t quite as easy as it seems. The paints dry quickly and while it certainly isn’t as permanent as oil or acrylics, mistakes can be difficult to correct, especially for the beginner. Of course, that is part of the appeal. The fact that paints dry quickly means that the work is often creative and unrehearsed. That is why watercolor paintings often include a lot of quick sketches that rely on sense impressions.

The fundamental difference between watercolors and oils or acrylics is that with watercolors you must work from light to dark, rather than from dark to light. What we mean is that with the other two mediums painters always conclude with light color highlights, whereas with watercolors the process is reversed.

For those who do not have a background in art, the process of producing a painting with watercolors is strikingly similar to completing a simple pencil drawing. At the start, the artist begins with a basic sketch, and as the picture begins to reveal itself, he will then highlight it by adding shading and darkening lines. The progression makes perfect sense, since an artist working on an unplanned sketch will naturally gain confidence as he proceeds.

Another great thing about starting out with watercolors is that mistakes and accidents can actually be serendipitous once an artistic learns patience and control. That is why most professionals recommend beginning with watercolors, since it can help new painters find their style and develop confidence much more quickly than with other mediums. The truth is that using oils and acrylics can and often does discourage new painters because the mistakes are far more difficult to disguise and even harder to alter.

Lastly, we would be remiss if we did not at least mention the affordability factor. The truth is that oil and acrylic paints are extremely expensive when compared to watercolors. Even beyond the basic elementary school set, an intermediate or professional watercolor set will cost you only a fraction of the price of oil or acrylic paints, which often must be purchased individually.

This video below features recent paintings by Susan Harrison-Tustain.
It's very interesting to compare how the images look both framed and unframed.

The term 'watercolor' is used for both the painting medium and the finished artwork. The British spelling for watercolor is 'watercolour' and in France it is known as 'aquarelle'. Some of the most popular commercial brands of watercolor paints today are Winsor & Newton, Schmincke, Maimeri, Holbein, Daler Rowney and DaVinci.