Super-quick Watercolor Techniques

Featuring sections on paper & sketchbooks, transporting and caring for your tools, layering and glazing, plein air, painting the four seasons, quick thumbnail sketches, and color swatches, '5-Minute Watercolor' is an inspiring guide for anyone wanting to make watercolor painting a part of their everyday lives. Ideal for a watercolor beginner, but more experienced watercolorists will find Samantha's plein air advice invaluable, as noted by Bekki Page from Doodlewash.

Creating a quality painting in a short amount of time might seem impossible, but it isn't! You can quickly gain control of a medium that at times can seem untameable. The key is learning the quick techniques that will turn your watercolor into impressive works of art, as Samantha Nielsen explains.

Featuring 60 exercises for new and aspiring artists, '5-Minute Watercolor' offers super-quick techniques for amazing watercolor painting. By painting from light to dark with watercolor paints, you can capture every detail of how light hits objects and scenery. Learning how to paint by gradually building up color will also help you to develop brush control and gain greater ability to focus on highlights and shadows.

To start with highlights, it is important to gradually build the color if different values are needed, as watercolor paints need to be layered to increase intensity and richness of color gradually. Once a lot of paint is on the paper, it becomes difficult to remove. Painting a value chart that shows how intense colors can get with more layers, starting with one layer of paint and gradually adding more, can be a helpful exercise.

Taking the skills learned in the shading chart and applying those to an object, most watercolor paintings start with a base coat to cover the paper, and over short periods of time additional layers can be added. It is crucial to listen to the paper - if the watercolor brush starts to pick up parts of the paper, or a thin spot has begun while layering, too much water and pigment have been added. The better quality paper you use, the longer the paper will take to get to this point, as watercolor paper can only handle so much paint and water before its performance starts to suffer.

Keeping a record of which colors have been used to paint a certain piece by creating easy color swatches can be helpful when learning the potential of certain colors.

Samantha Nielsen is a watercolor artist and urban sketcher based in Duluth, Minnesota. She teaches watercolor techniques, produces her own podcast, and creates watercolor tutorial videos.

product information: