After a while of not painting I always feel like I don't even know how painting works! And now that I know I'm not the only one struggling with this problem I want to show you how to get back into watercolor painting.
The first thing to warm up is picking colors!
Pick your favorite colors that are next to each other on the color wheel (analogous colors). You can let them melt into each other, you'll see they look beautiful together. Then pick a color which is on the opposite side of the color wheel and create some contrast.
(If you don't know what analogous colors are or what the color wheel is or if you want a little more information on color harmony there will be a free cheat sheet for you at the bottom of this post).
Now let's warm up with some brush strokes!
Create some thin lines while moving your whole arm and barely touching the paper with your pinky finger. (You might not wanna waste high quality paper but use a piece of watercolor paper that you use for practicing.) You can try to focus on gliding your hand and arm instead of only focusing on the thin line you want to create.
Go on with drawing some thick lines by pushing your brush a bit more against the paper. The more pressure you apply, the thicker the brush stroke will be. Placing the bristles vertically creates even thicker lines.
Play around with different brush strokes and try to not create a perfect masterpiece. Sometimes one brush, your favourite colors and some random brush strokes is all you need!
Depending on your brush you can also try to switch between thick and thin lines in one stroke, making it look like a wavy line.
Moving on to the next step: Create some curves! Being able to paint curves is very helpful for round shapes, leaves and petals. You might wanna try to do this with different directions to train your hand movements.
Those are the first steps on how to get back into painting. In the video below you'll see me doing these steps plus a few more simple paintings to practice and warm up a little bit more.
As promised above here is my FREE Ultimate Color Combination Cheat Sheet for you. Click here and learn a bit more about color theory and color harmony to take your paintings to the next level!
Not subscribed to my YouTube channel yet? Just click here to subscribe. You'll never miss any of my future videos where I want to help you with your art journey!