Watercolor Lessons

Paint the complexity of the universe by simply using salt & watercolors, as seen in this easy tutorial given by Leonardo Pereznieto.

Dive into fur and detail by learning how to paint an adorable fennec fox on an abstract background.

Learn how to apply variegated washes, a specific wet-on-wet watercolor technique.

Embellish your written words through the clever use of watercolor and calligraphy. This watercolor technique shared by Linsey Bugbee is a step-by-step crash course on watercolor calligraphy for beginners.

Learn how to add a unique effect to watercolor using a common condiment by following Jennifer McGuire in her card-making tutorial.

Phi Divine Proportion and the Golden Spiral Pleasing shapes, interesting coincidences, existential ramifications, and some mathematics reality... using this unique set of mathematical concepts can create an innate linear balance when used formally for composing your artwork. This is one of those weird places where science interacts with visual aesthetics, philosophy, and the meaning of life. Maybe. : Phi = 1.618033988749895... The Golden Number, prounounced "fi" as in "fly." In the Golden Rectangle with A as the height and B as the width, the ratio reveals itself: A is to B as B is to the sum of A and...

The Color Wheel The 12-part Color wheel is a representation of the visual spectrum of light that us humans can actually see. It is the rainbow we see through the dispersion of white light through prisms and raindrops. The visible spectrum (traditional ROYGBIV) is a very small range of the whole electromagnetic spectrum that runs from radio waves on the long end to Gamma waves on the short end. Each color has a specific wave frequency that our eyes perceive as different color sensations. The basic color groupings that concern artists are the Primary colors (3), the Secondary colors (3),...

The Stuff of Paint Watercolor: What it is. Traditional transparent watercolor is finely ground pigment in a water-soluble binder such as gum arabic. Gum arabic is water-soluble gum produced by a species of the acacia tree and is available in crystalline form or in prepared solutions. The gum arabic crystals or granules are transparent when pure, but less highly refined varieties can be yellowish to honey colored. Gum arabic is also used in inks, adhesives, pharmaceuticals, and confections (it's non-toxic and tasteless). Other binders used for watercolor paint have included Tragacanth, a gum optained from various asian shrubs, and fish...