Watercolor Demo by Paul Talbot-Greaves

This watercolor painting of the old Pennine Inn by professional artist and tutor Paul Talbot-Greaves is a good example of how to create drama and depth in a painting. He also makes great use of the stone wall as a lead-in to the center of interest. This painting took around two hours to complete. It was done on Saunders Waterford 300lb rough paper.   Time-lapse video demo below.

Autumn Fairy by Linda Ravenscroft

This lovely autumn fairy sitting among the just-turning leaves is painted by Linda Ravenscrof using several techniques. Layers of thin acrylic washes (glazing) create the dark tones and rich colors of the background. Pen and watercolor for the figure
show the pale body and glowing colors of the wings to best advantage. Spattering suggests the stars emerging as the night draws in.

This demonstration is from the book How to Draw and Paint Fairies: a Step-By-Step Guide to Fairy Art by Linda Ravenscroft.  Linda has published a number of books dedicated to drawing and painting fairies.   Click on the images below for a full description of each book along with user reviews.

         

Woven Strawberry - Watercolor Weaving

Looking for something different to do?   Kay Smith presents a unique way to create texture in your paintings.   This demo is a very large strawberry painted twice on separate 140 lb cold press paper, then cut one into horizontal strips and the other into vertical strips to weave together. This "Watercolor Weaving" tutorial shows the step progression from beginning to end so that you may get up the courage to try a weaving yourself.

Perfect Penguins

The Lunch Queue by Fiona Peart

In this step by step demonstration, Fiona Peart creates wonderful watercolour washes to capture these rather proud looking penguins.  Fiona says: "I like to use a limited palette for most of my paintings, as I find this leads to a more luminous result and avoids muddy colour mixes".

Improve Your Trees with Terry Harrison

The Way Through, watercolo

Brush up on your tree painting skills with Terry Harrison! In this 3-part video, Harrison brings you his secrets to painting great trees in your autumn and winter landscapes.  Two different demonstrations are shown.



He uses basic watercolour techniques, showing how to make an interesting composition, mix colours, create depth and distance with the use of light and shadow and then, with the addition of some simple yet clever brushwork, to create the different kinds of trees and bushes.

Part 1 of 3

Part 2 if 3

Part 3 of 3

Peace Rose in Watercolor

In this lesson, you will learn how to paint a light-colored rose of two colors; pink and yellow. You will learn which colors make warm and cool shadows, as well as which colors will deepen the values.   Dawn McLleod Heim has provided step by steps instructions and a line drawing for this rose.

Lian Zhen's Floral Painting Techniques

The watercolor painting demonstration on this page shows Lian Zhen's floral painting techniques....a combination of poured watercolors and brushwork.


 You can see more watercolor and Chinese painting demos on variety subjects from three of his books published by North Light:
 Chinese Painting Techniques for Exquisite Watercolors ,  Chinese Watercolor Techniques - Painting Animals and Chinese Watercolor Techniques For Exquisite Flowers, as well as on his painting demo DVDs.

Keeping Color Alive

October Wind, watercolor

UPDATE:   SORRY, THE WEBSITE LISTED BELOW HAS MOVED OR DELETED THIS TUTORIAL.  

I WILL KEEP SEARCHING FOR IT AND UPDATE WHEN FOUND.

Artist Carl Dalio shares his winning formula for landscapes that pulse with energy in this article reprinted from Artist's Magazine (PDF).  Dalio says:  "To give my landscapes maximum impact, I remove extraneous detail, then focus on energetic

color...I think of color as a living entity and I use its energy to describe the movement of light in my work.....There are several keys for keeping color clean, intense and alive, and these span the entire painting process."

Learn how to keep your colors clean and vibrant as you follow Dalio's step-by-step demonstration of the landscape shown below.