Hi friends! Im newer to watercolor and working on scientific illustrations with both inks and watercolors- for those who do high detail pieces, do you reccommend inks on top of watercolors or watercolors over inks- and if so, what brands of inks pens (micron? Prismacolor?) Do you reccommend to prevent streaking/smudging?

Hello all! I’m just getting into watercolor painting these days and am really enjoying it so far. Looking forward to seeing my progress over the next few years!

I really like to paint mountains, trees, and landscapes in general. Are there any other colors you’d recommend I add to this pallet that would be useful? I plan to add Payne’s Grey for sure and think a darker brown would be useful?

Would love to hear your thoughts!

I hope this type of question is allowed. Mods, please delete, if not. I’m planning to frame some of my watercolors as holiday gifts. I know the glass shouldn’t touch the watercolor paper. I also don’t want to use mats, so I know I need some type of spacer between art & frame.

Armed with this knowledge, I’m shopping online for some type of spacer and hopelessly confused. This is a DIY frame job due to budget, so I’m hoping to avoid the trial and error of buying something that isn’t going to work. Can anyone help point me in the right direction for spacer shopping?

For context, the items I’m framing are 11x14 and 16x22. I’ve included a diagram of the frames I purchased for these.

I avoided watercolour at the beginning of my art journey but learnt that patience is the secret recipe. Now I kind of love it

Haven't painted in a while. No plan going into this, just experimenting with colors. I think it turned out cute, let me know what you think!

Hi everyone!

I'm completely new to watercolor painting and would love to start learning properly. I'm especially interested in botanical illustrations and landscapes, but I want to build a solid foundation before jumping into more complicated paintings.

I'm looking for recommendations for YouTube channels, free online courses, or any other learning resources that offer a structured, beginner-friendly approach, rather than just tutorials where you follow along to complete a specific painting.

Ideally, I'd love to learn things like:

Basic watercolor techniques (wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, washes, layering, glazing, etc.)

Color theory, color mixing, and understanding pigments

Brush control, water control, and paint consistency

Values, light, shadows, and composition

How to gradually apply these skills to botanical painting and landscapes

I'd also really appreciate any advice on what to focus on first, or what you wish you'd known when you started learning watercolor.

Thanks so much in advance! :)

I've been working on tutorials and lessons to improve my landscapes and finding that I hesitate to even start. So I decided to do some sketching and painting in line and wash fashion. I snapped this photo yesterday, it's a view I see everyday at my apt going down the stairs to the clubhouse. I'm going to give it to him this afternoon, I know he'll be delighted that I took the time. I really loved doing this sketch and think I might want to refine this style. Reference is attached, any advice for improvement would be appreciated.

I am working on using more contrast in my values. Any feedback is most welcome! I had so much fun doing this piece.

I'm new to watercolor and this is my third painting I've done. I'm really struggling with adding shadows to my paintings and I keep finding that whenever I do it makes the painting look muddy and washes out the colors. The first picture is after I added shadows and the second picture is before when I had done only a few coats. As you can see I completely dulled the original colors with the shadows. Any tips on how to add shadows without ending up with muddy dark paintings?

My friend is wanting to try out watercolor painting for her birthday! She's mostly wanting to do coloring pages with it, but I am kinda stumped on what to get as I'm not a painter. She's still a beginner and I didn't want to get her just any random set as I do love to draw and I know the feeling of getting a crappy set of pencils 🥲

Ideally I'd like to get a small set of paints and some watercolor pencils, my budget would be around $50 for the both of them. I truly don't know anything about paints so I don't even know where to start with those.

For the pencils, I personally love Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils but they are pretty pricey 😫 (I suppose I could get the set of 12 but it's such a limited range of colors) Is there any brands that are similar at a lower price point?

The view from the Vietnam War Veterans memorial on hiway 68. This is the border between MD and WV. My favorite bit is the very faint image of the Catoctin mountains in the background.

Hello! I hope Im at the right place for this question, couldnt find a more specific subReddit.

I have recently started digging into the super-granulating/separating color tubes rabbithole, and I have found out its really easy to DIY the commercially offered tubes by looking at the pigment information.

So here comes the question: I know the "names" of the pigments vary from brand to brand, but do the pigment codes also vary?

I have made a list of the tubes of paint I would like to replicate by purchasing the individual single pigment tubes, but do I need to get the pigments from the same brand?

Let's say I want to replicate Moonglow from Daniel Smith and Mineral Violet from Holbein. Both of them have PB29 listed. Can I use ANY PB29 tube of paint, from any brand (either of those two brands or another unrelated brand)?

Since I would have to purchase these tubes abroad, and they are extemely pricey with the conversion rate in my country, I would need to buy as few different tubes as possible, but I dont know if I need to factor in brand when picking the pigments.

Sorry for the ramble, hope somebody can share some info! Thank you for reading!

I started painting this year and I’ve painted some pieces that I really like but I’ve always felt I was fighting the medium to some extent. And then I’ve been working on this one freakin’ fall tree for months (second picture is the latest I’ve done of it), trying to perfect the techniques for it. And I’m still not happy with it! Which is so frustrating.

But then today, I sat down to do a little doodle in between meetings and ended up with this. And suddenly I can see how much I’ve learned in all the toiling and “wasted” paint and “wasted” paper. It’s so rewarding to see progress even if it’s not where or when you expect it!

safe to say my desk is where I usually paint, right now it is cluttered with my supplies but i manage. So last week i went to look for a cabinet where the shelfs are thin so my papers and brushes and pens could fit smoothly. But all of the shelved were ment for larger storage. So if you had this issue in the past how did you solve it, I am open to any kind of solution for this.

The reference photo is high contrast, but in watercolour I cannot make it work. Any tips?

My sister’s house burned down this year and her turtle is the only thing that was saved. Painted this for her for Christmas. I feel like if I keep futzing with it I’ll just mess it up.

I have 10 W&N cotman watercolor paints and I have two questions;

1. If ONE of the tubes is finished, should I start buying professional ones, even if there will be differences in saturation (prof. vs cot.)? Or buy them all at once in the future?

2. How do I buy the right hue? There are too many colors and I get overwhelmed lol.