Last Updated on February 28, 2024
Art takes a lot of forms. When it comes to painting, watercolor is one of the more challenging mediums to work with because of the mutability that water brings to the paint.
Your paint can be hard to control if it’s too liquid, and there’s no going back once it becomes too dark. But as with all kinds of art, constant practice can really result in stunning finished products.
Watercolor may seem like an elementary form of art medium, but with the right amount of practice, dexterity, and determination, even this seemingly childish material for painting can help you come up with great pieces!
It’s true that as kids, we’ve played and had our days with watercolor in those art sets given to us by our parents or those available to use in elementary school.
We may have outgrown this kind of paint but there are artists who have developed the mastery of this medium and they can come up with great pictures. Some are so detailed and filled with so much depth, you might not even believe they’re made with watercolor!
If you take the time to try your hand at making art with watercolor, you’ll find that you can create wonderful masterpieces with this medium. Every brush stroke and each added layer of color can bring to life unique images you can only achieve with the range of colors and textures that watercolor can bring.
The vividness and intricacy of your watercolor art would depend on you of course, and finding your own style may take time. Of course, you can also combine your watercolor art with other mediums like ink or colored pencils if you feel that this would bring more personality to your creations! Your artwork is your masterpiece and you can pour your heart out onto each stroke you make.
If you have decided you’d like to try making your own watercolor paintings, here are some great examples to help inspire you. Ranging from simple color combinations to realistic artworks, these pieces made by various artists can help you find the watercolor painting techniques which would suit your style and artistic preferences:
Watercolor horse by Olgait
Watercolor Art by Barbara Bernat
Italy by Jane-Beata
Watercolors by Marc Allante
Watercolor Bowie by Sabrina Eras
Cat Tastes the Grumpy Rainbow by Olechka
Flamingo by Olechka
Step back into fun by Mina Teslaru
London Skyline by ArtPause
Watercolor Jellyfish by Elisabeth Fredriksson
Skull by Olechka
Adorn by Anna Dittmann
Peacock Feather by Olechka
Rainbow Zebra by Olechka
Dragonqueen by Alice X. Zhang
l’assenza by Agnes-cecile
Autumn rain by Nicolas Jolly
Watercolor Giraffeby Jacqueline Maldonado
The Wind…by Alice X. Zhang
If on a Winter’s Night Young Lover’s…by Paul Sheaffer
The Impossible Specimen by Will Santino
Dream Theory by Archan Nair
Headdress by Amy Hamilton
Sunny Leoby Robert Farkas
Red Deer by Amy Hamilton
Calm Bear by Amy Hamilton
Art is really dangerous by Agnes Cecile
– Watercolor Design Resources –
Here are some outstanding watercolor based products from CreativeMarket that will help you speed up your workflow.
1. Give Me Watercolour Textures Quick!
You don’t always have the time or energy to whip up watercolor splotches and splashes when its just what your project needs…so here in a handy pack of over 80 items, you should find what you need to create gorgeous handmade watercolor designs.
Hours devoted to dabbling, mixing, splashing, mopping ,swooping, and swashing – all digitised into one mega-useful pack for you to drag and drop onto your designs, and claim as your own.
2. Watercolor flower DIY
More than 107 graphic elements ready to be used.
3. The Watercolor Branding Kit
4. Watercolor flower DIY pack Vol.3
85 hand drawn watercolor graphic elements. Each element on an individual png with transparent background.
5. Kyle’s REAL Watercolor for Photoshop
For years, Illustrators have been trying to recreate watercolor effects with Photoshop, usually with little success. Most of us must resort to using different filters, the impractical ‘wet edges’ brush setting, overlaid textures, or other special effects to create passable results, but a truly excellent set of ‘out of the box’ watercolor brushes has not been available … that is, until now.
This download contains over 50 finely-tuned watercolor brushes, including bonus tools like Spatter, Salt, and Soft Edger. These brushes produce natural wet edge effects, bleeds, and textures without the aid of any layer effects or added textures. You simply paint on your canvas. By combining the brushes, nearly any watercolor effect is possible. And, with the addition of the salt, alcohol, spatter, and soft blenders, you can quickly add finishing touches that take your digital watercolor images to the next level.
6. Watercolor Professional Painter
Convert any image into a watercolor painting in just one click.
7. The Essential Watercolors
Looking for some Watercolor effects and brushes – look no further!
This Essentials Watercolor pack has 105 high res textures (blobs, brush splats, washes, bleached washes and ombre effects) and 57 Photoshop brushes – giving you more than enough different elements and options to create your own ‘handmade’ watercolor designs for that project you working on with minimum effort.
8. 30 Textured Watercolor Backgrounds
9. Watercolor Design Bundle
The Layerform Watercolor Design Bundle is perfect for those looking to add a handcrafted feel to their artwork, this set covers your artistic endeavors in Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator with brushes, vectors and watercolor textures all made by hand and digitally converted.
In this Pack you will receive 340 individually crafted design elements, including the following:
- 169 Handcrafted Watercolor Stroke Photoshop Brushes (large brushes)
- 64 Watercolor Textures (300dpi)
- 107 Watercolor Vectors (100% scalable in .ai and .eps formats)