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In this step-by-step watercolor techniques lesson, Van Gogh is your muse! Let's experiment with sweeping brushstrokes and variegated washes to create a starry night masterpiece.

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...

Popular Compositional Themes As a pastime, watercolor legend Edgar Whitney inventoried and cataloged successful painting compositions. He weighed the primary visual masses by size and value as well as arrangement and came up with six visual themes that most successful paintings appear to fall into. As an aid for composing paintings, these themes were passed on to his students, including Tony Couch, who wrote about them in his book: Watecolor: You Can Do It!. What we have here are the symbols of first impressions of paintings. The vague shapes and values that first attract your eyes to interesting paintings have...

Here's a watercolor technique for painting interesting textures by dropping clean water onto your painting as paint dries.

Design Principles and Elements: an aesthetic tapestry Look around you. Everything you see that is made by man is made by design. Our buildings, our transportation, our entertainment, the items we consume; everything is designed for a purpose. Some design is utilitarian, some is ergonomic, some informative, and a whole lot of design is aesthetic. Products are designed to please the eye and produce a reaction based on the "feel" the product evokes from the viewer/user. Artists do this every time a pencil is sharpened or a color is mixed. We are the designers. When you look through the catalog...

Matting and Framing Your Work Matting your watercolors protects and enhances the look of your paintings by cleanly defining the image edges and isolating your image in a uniform neutral or complementary background. Mats are made from mat board which should be made from all cotton acid free fiber. How to make a mat 101 As a start, choose neutral off white mats either warm or cool depending of the overall hue and value of your painting. After you've been at it a while and have seen what others are doing with colors and bevels and layers feel free to...

Get inspired to paint like an award-winner with new painting ideas! In this course, you can learn how to recreate the busy atmosphere of the city landscape of Chinatown.

Cumming, Georgia "WATERCOLOR: You Can Do It!" by Tony Couch was first published in 1987 by Northlight Books. It quickly became the defacto textbook for watercolor instruction at many college art departments. In the 22 years since, he has brought inspiration and joy to thousands of students through his books, videos and watercolor workshops. He has also mentored many future art instructors, many of whom now proudly list attending “Tony Couch” workshops on their resumes. After receiving more than 70 national awards, authoring numerous best-selling instructional books, 10 "How To" videos and being included in exhibitions of the National Academy...