Free Watercolor Tutorials

Painted this morning, not quite finished

In the midst of organizing my craft room I came across a drawer with several old boxes of watercolor paints that someone had given me. I looked one of the boxes up online and it was originally $35! I didn't know watercolors were so pricey (you know, compared to the kid versions).

I love art, so I decided to teach myself to watercolor (it's always been something I wanted to do). But I'm kind of chintzy and didn't want to pay much for a class.

Loving the feather practice!

So I went to Creativebug and Pinterest to look for classes that might be free...and there's a lot out there. I decided to sign up for the Creativebug two week free access to all their video classes, because I also want to learn calligraphy and they have some lovely lessons. My two weeks are almost up, and then they will charge me $4.95 per month. Which is as much as a latte, so it all seems fair to me.

FREE TUTORIAL SITES

I also found some gorgeous quick tutorials on painting wreaths, flowers, leaves and more at these cute sites:

The Postman's Knock
This is where I found the wreath and how to paint leaves

A Piece of Rainbow
Really gorgeous flowers!

My Flower Journal
There are some amazing watercolor flowers and a heart shaped wreath

Practice

Here are a few of my first watercolors:

The great thing about learning to paint is that you don't need a lot of crazy stuff to do it...you can even use a cheap kid's paint box until you're sure you want to continue. Then you will definitely see how amazing the true artist's paints are compared to the children's brands.

I had a stash of paintbrushes already, and luckily had some mixed media paper that works well for beginners. A week or so after starting I did buy a big brush for washing the page with water, but I haven't purchased anything else yet. (I'm secretly jonesing for a super cute mini paint box with homemade colors though)....

Below is a journal page I finished last night in bed...I paint the watercolors during the day and then I can doodle at night...the dog in the corner is my little schnauzer Kirby.

I hope this inspires you to try something new...start easy peasy, don't try to paint a landscape on your first try...I tried a landscape and those are hard to do!