[Video] Easy Watercolor Painting Ideas for Beginners Step by Step

Hey, it's Mako, it's so nice to see you here. I always get asked, "If you're just starting out with painting with watercolors, what should you paint?"

Now, the answers could be totally different depending on who you ask, and I think it's best to start with practicing the basic techniques, such as the wet-on-wet, and the wet-on-dry technique.

And the easiest way to do that is by painting simple landscapes, step-by-step. And I'll show you three simple paintings that you can try out.

Begin by applying clean water all over the paper, until you covered everything.

You know you have the right amount of water when you see a light gloss on the paper.

If you see any pools of water gathering around the edges, make sure to soak it up with a tissue paper or a damp brush.

To create the sky in the first painting, I mixed my cool and warm blue color to create their midtone, and then I diluted it with a little bit of water so I have enough for the first layer.

Then you want you apply your blue color to the top of the paper, and distribute it while moving downwards to create a gradient wash.

You want to make the top half of the sky darker than the lower part.

If you notice you still have too much paint on your brush towards the bottom, simply rinse your brush, dab off the excess water on your paper towel or tissue paper, and then you can easily blend out the rest of the paint that is on the paper.

Even though we're going to create multiple layers to intensify the color, you can still mix in a little bit more blue to your mixture now, and repeat the step.

Remove any excess paint and water, and let it dry for now.

For the second painting, you want to repeat the same steps.

First, apply a little bit of water all over the paper, and then start distributing the blue paint, starting at the top.

Here, we also want to create a gradient wash, but not all the way down. You want to stop somewhere in the center.

Now, the second painting, we're going to create a sunset.

To create that, I mixed my two reds together to create their midtone, and then I applied the paint to the lower part of the painting.

Then, I rinsed off the brush, dabbed off the excess water, and then I blended out the red color upwards, so it slightly blends into the blue color.

And then I did the same, but this time, I distributed the red paint downwards.

You want to keep the middle of the lower half of the painting darker, so I added a little bit more red on top.

This is how it looks for now. While this layer is drying, we can work on our third painting. Now, on this painting, we're going to create a night sky, but to build it up and to create dimension later, you want to prepare the first layer the same way as in the first painting.

Now, here you don't have to keep the lower part that bright, so it's okay if you apply the blue paint all the way down for now.

All right, now once everything is dry, we can build up the intensity of our backgrounds.

First, load up your brush with clean water, and gently brush over the paper to distribute a thin layer of water all over the first painting. And then, repeat the previous step by distributing the blue paint, starting at the top while moving downwards to create gradient wash.

To make it even darker, you can add more blue to your mixture.

Now, since I wanted to create just a few light clouds,

I went over with a tissue paper and soaked up some of the wet paint.

If you want to make really bright, white clouds, do this step already with the first layer of paint.

Now, while the first painting is drying, I repeat the same steps in the second painting. I first applied water to the paper, and then added the same colors on top of each other.

And since I wanted to make the sunset slightly warmer, I applied a little bit of orange to the upper part of the red layer, and then blended everything together so we have a transition between red, orange, light blue, to a darker blue on top.

To intensify the night sky of our third painting, I also applied a thin layer of water all over the paper, and then mixed a very dark blue, using different colors.

I used blue, green, and red, and just played around with different ratios until I was happy with the color.

And then, I repeated the steps. I applied the paint at the top part of the painting, and then I distributed, moving downwards to create a gradient wash.

Once everything is dry, you can go ahead and add details.

Below the sky in the first painting, I used yellow ochre to create a field, and used a little bit of burnt sienna to add some more details.

In the second painting, I wanted to add mountains and a lake in front of them.

So, I first mixed a warm red-purple color with my cooler red and a warm blue color, and diluted it with a little bit of water.

And then I applied a very light layer of paint to the lower half of the painting to create the silhouette of the first mountain.

Now, to create more depth, I used the same dark blue mixture as I used in the third painting, and then I dab it onto the wet paint, while leaving out some areas.

So, the light areas will be the highlights, and the dark purple areas will be the shadows.

And then, I used a little bit of the same color and lightly brushed it over the lower part of the painting to create the lake with a few lighter areas for the light reflections.

Since the colors were still not vibrant enough for me in the third painting, I applied another layer of a darker color mixture on top.

I also moved my brush slightly diagonally to create a few lighter and darker areas, and just to add another atmosphere compared to the rest.

All right, now we can finally add some more details, so our paintings can slowly come together.

In the first painting, I painted a small hill above the field, so it looks like a mountain in the distance.

And then, I mixed a warm green color and added it right along the horizon to create trees and a few additional trees to a few areas in the field by just dabbing on the paint here and there.

You can also create more depth in the field by painting the lines of the tractor, and some additional shadows here and there.

Now, in the second painting, I created another mountain in front of the first one. Here, I mixed a darker version of the red-purple color, and applied it on top, leaving out the first mountain.

And to add some shadows, I dabbed on a little bit of a darker purple color to the lower part, to keep the top area of the mountain lighter to keep the highlights.

And since the mountain in the background is lighter, it looks like it's a lot further away compared to the dark mountain in the front. And to make the water darker, I also applied another layer of paint on top, while keeping a few lighter areas for the highlights.

In the third painting, I also added a mountain onto the lower part of the painting, using the same, but darker shade of color, so the lighter part of the sky disappears behind it to create an atmosphere.

And now, I can add the final touches to every painting, and we're done. In the first painting, I added a windmill and a few highlights to the trees in the background using a white ink pen.

In the second painting, I used the same pen to draw the moon. I also added a few reflections in the water and around the mountains, to make it look like the lights are on.

And in the third painting, I diluted white gouache with a little bit of water, and sprinkled the paint all over the sky using a bristle brush to create stars. And this is how it looks. It only took me around 30 minutes to create all those three paintings, and was really fun and relaxing.

Make sure to download my free guide on watercolor painting so you can learn more about this medium, so you can set yourself up for success. I really hope this video was helpful. Thank you so much for watching. Have a wonderful day, and I will see you in my next video, bye.