Realistic Watercolour Tutorials

I've tried a few different online tutorial sites but find I am happiest with Anna Mason's online school, which teaches very realistic watercolour painting. It's not traditional botanical painting as such, but there is a similar focus on detail and realism.

Here's a few more of my paintings, which were all done using Anna's tutorials. I'm doing the beginners courses, so the subjects are quite simple.

Coloured Pencil Advanced Techniques

Wow - coloured pencil work using the advanced layering and burnishing techniques I've just learned is SLOW!  It takes hours and hours to do very little. Quite a lot of patience is required, which is a definite challenge for me. I'm starting to get a feel for it though - this is my first piece done completely solo - no tutorial. Not perfect, but not too bad for a beginner.

Beginning Botanical Painting

I've decided to study botanical painting. I'm studying from various books and am also taking an online course. I'm learning both coloured pencil and watercolour, both of which lend themselves well to botanical portraits. There's a LOT to learn, but here are some of my first efforts! These are all watercolours done in tutorials.

Another Hare!

I'm enjoying my hare theme so much I can't stop! This one is watercolour with coloured pencil on top.

 

 

Winter Hare Collage

I'm still enjoying my seasonal theme of hares in snow. I used a brayer and distress ink pad to create a simple background, and then cut all the collage pieces by hand. I think this one might make a nice greetings card.

 

.

 

 

Painting with Distress Ink Pads

More seasonal painting! I love snow scenes.

 

I used to keep my Distress Ink pads in a drawer and hardly ever used them. But I recently bought a nice wooden storage unit for them (second hand but in perfect condition. Total bargain!) and now that I can see them all displayed for easy access, I'm suddenly inspired to use them.

 

I used a mask/stencil to get the basic outline for the trees in the background, then painted them in freehand with a waterbrush (ink pads smeared onto my glass tabletop for a palette). I painted the hare freehand with a waterbrush, using several layers of soft colour.

 

 

Seasonal Painting

A simple little robin for my Christmas cards. Watercolour plus coloured pencil. I printed them onto watercolour paper and hand-finished each card with an additional layer of coloured pencil, so each card is unique.