Make a watercolor

Painting in peace: your first watercolour step by step

Start painting slowly: learn watercolor and urban sketching techniques, create a warm color palette and draw your first creative sketch.

It can be that nice: a place where you can work undisturbed. Clear your table. Take your equipment with you. Put on some soft music and put a fresh cup of coffee or tea next to you on the table.

Take a moment to make a small sketch of what you would like to draw. It doesn’t have to be perfect. On my Pinterest page you will find many ideas for sketches.

Tip: collect everything you come across and like to paint yourself. On my Pinterest dashboard you will find many more great ideas.

Whether you start with watercolor or slowly find your own style in urban sketching : it all starts with a warm color palette that suits who you are.

I have chosen a vintage warm style that suits my site. But you choose the colors you prefer. I painted my grandparents’ living room , as I remember it.

If you want to start from scratch, first check out my watercolor page for beginners.

Blue/pink shade for the urban sketcher

This palette is very suitable for watercolor and urban sketching. It also has a vintage vibe.

Basic recipe (simple and reliable)

1. Start with red
   Use preferably:
   • Permanent Pink (Van Gogh 537)
   • or Carmine (Van Gogh 318)
2. Dilute with plenty of water
   Old pink is light and fluffy, so dilute your red considerably.
3. Neutralize carefully
   Add a mini-tap of:
   • Burnt Sienna (Van Gogh 411) → for a vintage, powdery look.
4. And for the blue you use Indigo (Van Gogh 533)

Why it works:

→ quiet
→ is reminiscent of old sketchbooks and comics
→ perfect for watercolor and creative experimentation

Why use minute amounts:

One brush tip is often enough.

For my paint I first started with the watercolor paint from the Action of course.

In class I saw people using paint by Van Gogh and by Winson & Newton. The latter is said be very good. But the Van Gogh paint also contains a good amount of pigment. For a good price.

The paint comes in both cubes and tubes.

I prefer to use the tubes. For a tube of 10 ml you pay an average of 4 Euro. 10 ml doesn’t seem much, but you can go a long way with it. You only take a very small amount of paint at a time, which you dilute with a lot of water.

Build up your watercolor layers step-by-step

So you have mixed your pigment with a generous splash of water and mixed until you get soft, transparent tones.

Now you now build up your first, light underlay on your top.

1. Prepare: wet-on-wet

First moisten the area you want to color with a thick brush.

Not too much water, but not too little either, it must not be dry before you apply your color.

You will soon notice that you have to work fast. The paper absorbs the paint quickly, unless you use enough water of course.

Soak away too much water with a cloth.

2. Apply first coat

Apply your color in soft strips (for even results) or dots of pigment (for muted results with color shades).

Use more pigment on one side and a little more water on the other. Because of this difference in nuance, you immediately create depth, without effort.

3. Second layer: subtlety

Let everything dry thoroughly . Then apply a slightly darker layer, very subtly. This time you work wet-on-dry, which again brings extra depth.

4. Details and figures

Color smaller elements in the same way:
→ a light base layer first
→ let it dry
→ a second, slightly darker layer for shading and shape

5. Fineliner for playful contours

When everything is dry, take a fineliner. But wait long enough until everything is completely dry. Otherwise, the fineliner will run into the paint. There are fineliners that don’t smudge, if you want to make sure it doesn’t smudge.

Draw loose, playful line contours. Don’t outline your shapes completely, but rather give an idea of the shape. This will give the whole thing a light-hearted, cheerful character.

Not too tight, not too precise. It is allowed to live.

There you go, your first trial is finished! Do you see that it is not that difficult?

Curious about my trials?

On the homepage you will find a brief overview of all my projects. More stories like this one above can be found on my site at ‘discover my stories‘.

Emma