learning how to watercolor is easy! watercolor doesn't have to be scary

Keep your colors clean!

• This is very important aspect of learning how to watercolor.

You want the colors in the wells to remain clean and pure. So do all the mixing in the center of the palette.

Never put a brush with one color on it into the well of a different color.

Clean your brush with water before putting it into the color wells.

Use a container of clean water to wash your brushes. When the water gets dirty, get clean water.

Blot the excess water out of the clean brush on a paper towel, rag or sponge kept next to the water container.

Split Compliment painting color scheme

We will use a split compliment color scheme.

This painting uses only 3 colors.

• Use any blue of your choice.
  
  
• An orange like Quinacridone Sienna or Burnt Sienna
  
  
• A yellow; Lemon Yellow, Raw Sienna or New Gamboge

Using a limited number colors will give your painting color harmony.

Paint the Throat

Use a round watercolor brush to pre-wet the throat area.

Paint a pale yellow on the side toward the light.

While the yellow is still wet, put orange on the opposite side.

Allow the two colors to mingle together.

Watching the beautiful colors mingle together is the joy of learning how to watercolor paint.

Paint the Body

Wet the body with water. The wet area will have a sheen.

The paint will spread into the wet areas.

Mix blue and orange to make brown to paint the areas on the shadow side.

Add more orange, as you paint toward the light.

Leave the area below the throat white.

Painting the wings

Mix a very light grey-brown with the orange and blue.

Use more water to make it a light color.

Paint the forward wing.

Colors get lighter and cooler, as they go into the distance.

Add a bit more blue to make it greyer for the wing farther away.

Painting the Head

Mix an orange-brown.

Paint the top of the hummer's head with the brush tip.

This leaves stippling marks to simulate the short feathers.

Leave the eye, around and behind the eye white.

Leaving the white paper is a basic technique of learning how to watercolor paint.

There is no white watercolor paint, so we use the white of the paper. More Info

Paint the Eye and Beak

Add more blue to your blue and orange mixture to make a black.

Color mixing is a big part of how to watercolor paint.

Paint the eye leaving a white highlight. Leave the white spot behind the eye.

Paint the beak with one dark line down the center.

Then put a lighter dark on the outside edges that catch the light.

Paint the Flower Petals

Freely paint the flower petals. Use a variety of oranges and yellow.

Leave some white spaces for a little spark.

On some petals put the paint on one end of the petal.

Rinse the brush, then pull the color toward the other end with the damp brush.

This makes the petal color go from full color to lighter and lighter.

Paint the Green Parts and the Flower Center

Add more yellow for the green toward the light.

More blue makes a darker green for the underside of the stem and other areas away from the light.

Paint the yellow-green parts first. Then paint the darker green areas.

Paint the center of the flower with a variety of brown, orange and yellow.

Stipple with the end of the brush to portray the stamens in the center of the daisy.

More about how to mix paint colors

Paint the Background

Using a flat brush, dampen the background area with clean water.

Do one area at a time, so the forward painting edge stays damp to prevent a hard edge.

It seems to work the best to not pre-wet right up to the edge of the bird or flower.

Paint right next to the bird and flower when you are painting on the background color.

If you pre-wet right up next to them, it makes the color pool up against their dry edge.

Make some marks behind the bird to simulate flight movement.

Final Touch-ups

This is a lesson on how to watercolor a hummingbird, so we aren't focusing on the leaves or foliage.

Go over the hummingbird again and darken and brighten any colors where you think it needs it.

Do this to increase the value contrast.

Do any needed adjustment on the flower petals.

Where a petal is overlapped by a petal next-door, darkened the overlapped petal.