If you’re new to watercolor painting and looking for some easy and fun ideas to get your creativity flowing, you’ve come to the right place! This list features 10 enjoyable painting projects that are perfect for beginners. Whether you want to experiment with colors or just unwind with a brush, these watercolor painting ideas will inspire you to take that first step and put brush to canvas!
Why Choose Watercolor?
At Homebody Hall we started with a love for acrylic pour painting, and it still has our heart, but creating art with watercolor is probably the closest cousin to pour painting. It consists of some of the same skills—keen attention to color choice and mixing, finding the right paint consistency, and hitting that perfect balance of color saturation without flooding the canvas and causing drying issues. Watercolor, like paint pouring, is a fairly simple process but packs a big punch when done correctly.
Benefits of Watercolor Painting
- It’s a budget-friendly form of art, only costing a couple of dollars for beginner packs.
- It’s a beginner-friendly art form, as you can easily correct mistakes and build up color as you go. Watercolor paints are very forgiving.
- You can create a great watercolor on inexpensive mediums like postcards or strong sketch paper. Canvas isn’t necessary.
- The range of art you can create with simple watercolors is vast. From pastel landscapes to playful and saturated portraits, with the right hand and a little patience, you can create almost anything with the medium.
- It’s kid-friendly (or messy-people-friendly) as the paint easily washes out from most surfaces with just soap and water.
Top Tips for Creating Beautiful Watercolor Art
1. Choose Quality Supplies
Start with a basic watercolor set (student-grade is fine), a small selection of brushes (round size 6 for details, size 10 for broader strokes, and a flat brush for washes), and cold-press watercolor paper (140 lb or higher) to prevent warping. These supplies will give you the best balance of quality and affordability.
2. Experiment with Water Ratios
On a scrap piece of paper, try mixing paint with different amounts of water. A small amount of water creates vibrant, opaque strokes, while more water makes soft, transparent washes. Test how much water you need to control your desired effect.
3. Master Basic Techniques
Flat Wash
Wet your brush, pick up paint, and use long, even strokes across the paper. This creates a uniform background, perfect for blue skies or sunsets.
Graded Wash
Load your brush with the strongest paint mix and begin at the top of your paper (or wherever you want the darkest color to be). Use broad, horizontal strokes across the paper. Before your first stroke dries, rinse your brush lightly and load it with a slightly diluted version of the color. Overlap the bottom edge of the first stroke, blending the paint downward. Repeat the process, rinsing your brush more each time to reduce the color intensity. Blend each new layer into the one above it for a smooth transition.
Wet-on-Wet
Dampen an area of the paper with clean water, then add paint. Watch the colors blend softly on the page.
Wet-on-Dry
Use a wet brush loaded with paint on dry paper to create sharp, defined lines and shapes.
4. Work from Light to Dark
Begin with the lightest colors and large shapes first (e.g., the background or sky). Let it dry completely before adding darker layers or finer details like trees or shadows. This approach keeps your painting clean and well-defined.
5. Be Patient with Drying Time
Allow each layer to dry thoroughly before painting over it. Use a hairdryer on low heat if you’re in a hurry, but avoid overworking wet areas to prevent paper damage or muddy colors.
6. Practice Brush Control
Use the tip of the brush for delicate lines, the belly for filling areas, and the side for soft, sweeping strokes. Experiment with different pressure levels—light pressure for thin lines and firm pressure for broader marks.
7. Play and Have Fun
Don’t worry about perfection. Use your first few paintings to explore how colors mix, blend, and react on paper. Each practice session will teach you something new!
10 Watercolor Painting Ideas for Beginners
If I’ve convinced you to grab a watercolor set, here are a few excellent watercolor painting ideas for your first creation. Remember that art is a personal process. Some of you will easily be able to recreate the examples; others won’t. Don’t give up, and don’t get frustrated. These are just examples and are meant to inspire. Go with your own flow, and allow yourself to deviate from the norm!
1. Sunset Silhouette
The stunning silhouettes of trees against a vibrant sunset create a scene that feels both calming and exciting. This painting may look advanced to you, but trust us, it’s doable for most novices.
The unrealistic nature of this painting is perfect for beginners as the colors are basically slapped on in a horizontal motion, and except for the mountains, there is very little attention paid to blending or grading. It’s meant to look a bit abstract and playful.
2. Charming Cottage Landscape
This charming cottage is a lovely sight with its bright flowers and cozy design. This one takes a bit more drawing experience. While you can certainly attempt to freehand it, if it were me, I’d lightly sketch the major details with a pencil first.
You’ll need to work in layers, over the course of several days, to complete this as shown. Start with your lighter backgrounds. Let it dry. Move on to the trees, and build back to front, and light to dark, allowing each section to dry completely in between.
3. Gentle Ocean Waves
The ocean has a way of calming the mind. Watching the gentle waves roll in can make any stress fade away. It’s a simple pleasure that reminds us to take a moment and breathe, and this painting certainly has that effect.
If you want the stark white wave peak as shown, you’ll need to keep your white spaces white when working with watercolor, as the paint doesn’t pack enough saturation to paint over colored spots with white. If you want a more realistic graded effect, go ahead and paint the wave light blue, and then build your white on top.
4. Simple Fruit Still Life
Moving away from landscapes, still lifes are also great watercolor painting ideas for beginners. This colorful fruit arrangement is a feast for the eyes. Apples, bananas, and grapes come together to create a cheerful display that look good enough to eat.
This is certainly a more advanced idea. These are fairly realistic looking and were crafted by a seasoned hand, but you can create your own beginner-friendly version focusing on the skill of light brushwork needed to create detailed shapes and outlines. This a great painting to help you get to know brushstrokes and master brushstrokes and grading.
5. Blooming Wildflowers
Wildflowers bring a splash of color and whimsy. This painting is another opportunity to master your detail work. You’ll utilize tons of grading, include variations of opaqueness in your paint mixing, and work on your detailed linework.
Remember, it doesn’t need to be perfect. If you mess up (which you will) let it dry, and work over it. That’s the great thing about watercolor. You can always come back and try again.
6. Colorful Geometric Patterns
Colorful geometric patterns bring a playful vibe to any space. The mix of shapes and hues adds a cheerful touch that can brighten your day. You will certainly need to work in layers here.
Remember to start with the lightest colors, and add in darker hues as you go. You may need to use some small strips of painter’s tape or wax to get these clean lines. You also want a substrate with very little texture! If using a canvas, give it a couple of coats of Gesso, and sand it with fine sandpaper before you start.
7. Calming Mountain Reflections
The serene mountains reflecting on the water create a peaceful scene. I like watercolor painting ideas with mountains for beginners because they allow you to play with shadow and light.
This particular painting is effective because it has a vibrant and slightly artificial feel. The mountains appear a bit cartoonish and not fully realistic, which is typically an easier aesthetic to pull off as a novice painter.
8. Whimsical Animal Portraits
Check out this adorable fox portrait! Its big, bright eyes and playful expression are ideal for a child’s space or any spot that needs a little whimsy.
When working on a piece with this much detail and this many colors in a small space, it’s important to not over-water your paint. You want to work with minimal brushstrokes and opaque paint. Take your time and map out your strokes for this one.
9. Starry Night Sky
The night sky is a breathtaking canvas filled with twinkling stars and a glowing crescent moon. We’re going back to free movement and easy color grading with this one. Start with your light blue background, and build up, using more and more opaque paint to achieve that dark blue hue.
You can either leave a ribbon of white for the galaxy and the moon, or you could add in some white acrylic paint at the end to get that bright white contrast. The latter may be easier for beginning painters. The thicker, more opaque acrylic paint with make creating the moon, stars, and galaxy simpler, with fewer layers.
10. Abstract Color Swirls
Doesn’t this one look like it could be an acrylic paint pour? The bright hues blend together, making it feel like a celebration on canvas. The trick is getting the right level of blending, without muddying the waters, so to speak! Patience and layers people…patience and LAYERS!
For creating these graded “blobs,” I like to place a clean water drop on my canvas. Then, take a round brush loaded with paint, and drop it in the center of the water drop. The paint will gradually flow outwards becoming lighter around the edges and darker in the center.
Watercolor Painting Ideas for Beginners-Final Words
I hope you loved this list of watercolor painting ideas, and that it motivated you to try something new! Experimenting with watercolors opens you up to a whole new world of opportunities to express your creativity.
