7 Easy Fun Watercolor Ideas for the Absolute Beginner

If you’re brand new to watercolor painting and drawing, then these fun watercolor ideas are for you!

The best part? You don’t need to know how to draw for these exercises and they are a great way to get into a creative head space.

Let’s get into it…

Supplies

Before we begin the exercise let’s discuss what supplies you’ll need:

• Watercolor Paper– I used 100% cotton paper, but you can use student grade aswell
• Board- To secure your paper to
• Brushes– I used a size 10 round for every exercise besides one where I used a large mop brush
• Watercolor paint– I used a variety of colors and also mixed a few on my palette
• Waterproof fineliner pen– I only used the pen for one of the exercises
• 2 Jars of Water– One for clean water and one for rinsing the brush
• Paper towel– To adjust the moisture in the brush
• Straw– Only used for one exercise
• Sponge– To create texture
• Salt– Used for one exercise, table salt will do
• Spray bottle– Filled with clean water (used for only one exercise)

Simple Shapes

Painting simple shapes is an excellent way to familiarize yourself with the brush and master controlled strokes.

A few examples of simple shapes are stripes, polka dots, zigzags, dabs…etc

The goal is to fill up the page with these shapes by alternating between different shapes and colors to keep things interesting.

Make sure you keep the water to paint ratios roughly equal through out the entire painting session.

You can let some shapes overlap through layering or choose to keep them separate as I have done!

Drip, Splash & Scrape Exercise

This watercolor exercise is so much fun to do! It’s an excellent way to explore texture, color and unlock your creativity.

Materials needed:

• Large mop brush (or any large wash brush)
• Watercolor board- To secure your paper
• Watercolor paper- I’m using 100% cotton but you can use student grade
• Masking tape to secure your paper
• 2 Jars of water
• Paper towel
• Card – or palette knife to scrape

Step by step instructions

On your palette, mix a large puddle of paint using any color you choose, make sure you have enough pigment mixed in.

Next, load your brush with paint, it should be dripping.

Hover the brush a few inches above the paper and let the paint drop. If it’s not dropping, gently flick or tap it until the paint drops onto the paper.

Remember that watercolor paint dries lighter, here are the final results:

Gradients

This fun watercolor idea will have you exporing color mixes in your palette.

Start by wetting the paper with clean water where you want to create the gradient.

Next, rinse off your brush and load it with any color of your choice. The mixture shouldn’t be too watery or too thick (roughly equal parts paint and water).

Drop in the second color from the opposite end of the first color, slowly allow the two colors to meet and blend them with your brush.

Fun Ink & wash doodles

This exercise you’ll need a waterproof pen or fineliner. You can draw different shapes or trace random objects like I have done. Feel free to use stensils if you have!

Don’t worry about making the doodles realistic, the idea is to let loose and have fun seeing what you can come up with.

Wet & Dry Patterns

This fun watercolor idea focuses on playing with hard and soft edges all at once. It works by taking your brush and wetting small areas of the paper with clean water and leaving other areas dry.

Next, you’re going to load your brush with color, dampen it on a paper towel and graze the paper.

You’ll notice a rough texture in the dry areas and the paint flowing in the wet areas.

Spray, Splatter, & Sprinkle

We’re going to use salt for this watercolor exercise! Once again you’re going to create beautiful interesting patterns and just have fun with it.

Start by spraying a few spots of the paper with clean water. While the paper is still wet, load your brush with any color and paint lines across it.

Drop in some more colors into the wet areas, making sure there’s enough pigment.

Once the paper has completely dried, rub off the salt, peel off the tape, and voila! Your painting is done.

Blow and sponge

An exciting way to paint trees is using the blow and sponge method.

To work this exercise, start by using your brush to paint the bottom of a tree trunk shape. While the paint is still wet drop in some more color.

Grab a straw and start blowing the paint so that it creates branches.

Change the position of the straw to blow the branches in different directions.

If there isn’t enough paint drop some more with your brush into the wet paint and continue blowing branches.

For this next part, I used the following green mixtures:

• Light green– Cadmium yellow + prussian blue (more yellow)
• Medium green- Cadmium Yellow + Prussian Blue (slightly more blue)
• Dark Green– Cadmium Yellow + Prussian Blue + Paynes Gray

Next dab in a medium and then dark green for the darker areas closer to the tree trunk.

Allow the paper to dry and your tree is done!

That’s it! 7 fun watercolor ideas that you can try to unlock your creativity. Sign up for more watercolor painting resources below: