Course description

Watercolour has a reputation for being difficult, and many people give it one try, end up with muddy colours and hard edges, and put the paints away. The truth is that watercolour follows a few simple rules about water, timing and paper. Once you understand them, you can control it, and the "happy accidents" start to work for you instead of against you. This course teaches those rules step by step, from your first brush marks to a finished landscape you'll want to frame.

It's a full course, not a quick tour. There are 10 sections and 52 written lessons, with every painting method in numbered steps: how wet the paper should be, how much paint to load, which way to tilt the board and what to watch for. You follow a retired teacher in the Yorkshire Dales (a fictional learner) through her first 12 weeks of painting, including the mistakes she made along the way. Every section has a worksheet, model answers, a cheat sheet and practical tools, and the first practice pack includes eight simple reference pictures to paint from.

What you'll learn

• Materials: choosing paints, brushes and paper without overspending, and setting up a safe, simple painting space.
• Water and brush control: the right amount of water, brush marks, taping paper, and lifting and correcting paint.
• Washes: flat, graded and variegated washes, wet-on-wet, layering, and how to avoid streaks and blooms.
• Colour: a limited palette of eight colours, mixing charts, natural greens, greys and darks without black.
• Value and texture: keeping your whites, masking fluid, painting light to dark, dry brush, lifting, edges and negative painting.
• Subjects: skies, clouds, trees, hills, water and reflections, flowers, still life, buildings and ink and wash.
• Planning: composition, thumbnails, value plans, working from photos, painting outdoors and looking after finished paintings.

The final project

You'll plan, try out and paint a finished painting of your own, then compare it with the first painting you made on day one, using a planning sheet and a self-review workbook.

Who this course is for

• Complete beginners who'd like a relaxing, creative hobby.
• People who tried watercolour before and got frustrated with muddy or patchy results.
• Walkers, gardeners and travellers who want to paint the places and flowers they love.

How the course works

Read each lesson, then paint the exercise on watercolour paper, using your own subject or one of the reference pictures. Lessons suggest how long each exercise takes, so you can fit painting into a busy week. You keep lifetime access, so you can come back to any technique whenever you need it.

What will I learn?

• Choose paints, brushes and paper with confidence and set up a simple, safe painting space
• Control how much water is on your brush and paper, and lift and correct paint
• Lay flat, graded and variegated washes, paint wet-on-wet and build layers
• Mix clean colours, natural greens, greys and darks from a limited palette of eight colours
• Plan values, save whites with masking fluid and paint from light to dark
• Use dry brush, lifting, texture, hard and soft edges and negative painting
• Paint skies, clouds, trees, hills, water, flowers, still life and buildings
• Plan a composition with thumbnails, paint outdoors safely and complete a finished painting of your own

Frequently asked questions