When I first started painting, I bought many tubes of watercolor paint, a plastic watercolor palette and I just squeezed the paints inside of the little wells. No rhyme or reason. I had no idea about color theory or how I would work my way around my palette. I just put some paint in, let it dry and was on my way.

I didn’t think about the palette I was getting either and how it was so big and clunky that I didn’t want to take it anywhere. It was almost the size of my pad of watercolor paper. I also used only cold press watercolor paper pads that were huge, like 16 inches or so with nooks and crannies that I didn’t understand how to navigate. Sometimes I would take my paper out of the pad and make smaller pieces, but the paper would warp, buckle and bend due to too much water.

When it came to painting with my brush I either had the driest brush in the world or it was soaked like a mop. I was using a dry brush technique before I truly knew what it meant and I would struggle to get a consistent brush stroke from my paint puddles.

It didn’t take me long to know that watercolor was different and it wasn’t something I could just dive into like colored pencils or crayons. This was different and had many nuances and rules I needed to understand before I could make better and more fun discoveries on my own.

Some nuances about watercolor I wish I knew sooner:

1. The paint only goes where the water goes with watercolor. Either buddy up to those wet spots with more wetness or slow down and wait for things to fully dry before painting some more.

2. Every brush has a part of it that is called the belly and that holds a specific amount of your paint/water mixture and there is a sweet spot between super dry and dripping wet.

3. Paper reacts to water by buckling and bending if there is a lot of water added to the page at once. It helps to either just paint on a watercolor block or to take a sheet out and tape (painter’s tape) that sheet onto your table, clip board, etc.

I have a mix of Winsor and Newton, Daniel Smith and Holbein watercolors in my palette and the ones I love the most are listed in my resources.

If you would like to learn more and paint together I have two classes I would love to teach you in or we could paint together 1:1 and you can book a session right here. Perfect way to learn a new skill and makes a great gift as well. :)

Interested in painting too? I have a watercolor guide with videos here! I share tips, tricks I wish I knew when I started painting.

xo,
Erika