I have been off posting and busy learning watercolour these days. It’s quite the opposite from coloured pencils portraits, which are much more detail oriented and time consuming. If you are a beginner and don’t want to commit to paid classes yet, here are some of the best free watercolour lessons available online.
Best Free Watercolour Lessons For Beginners: Let’s Make Art
This is one of the very few places where they are nice enough to let you download free outlines for their projects even if you don’t pay to get their kits and subscription boxes. In my opinion, they also offer the best free watercolour lessons online. Their full length, free tutorials are available on both their own website and Youtube.
I did not trace from the images but just drew from the reference photos. However, if you can’t draw, you can download, trace and paint along with the fabulous Sarah Cray.
I am using Royal Talens Van Gogh student grade paints which have a tendency to lift when you glaze, but otherwise they are lightfast and mostly transparent. My techniques are not great as I am new to watercolour, but I had fun painting these.
As much as I like freebies (who doesn’t?), I don’t like taking without giving back. Even though I have my own materials and can draw instead of trace from their free outlines, I still purchase their subscription boxes from time to time. I believe in Let’s Make Art and I want to support them.
The Frugal Crafter
If I have to pick my favourite artist to watch on Youtube, it is Lindsay Weirich, aka the Frugal Crafter. She gives the most thorough and honest reviews on a lot of different art medium and supplies. It is through her I found a lot of inexpensive art supplies that rival the more expensive ones, at a fraction of the price. She has a ton of free tutorials but you can also get paid lessons.
Emma Jane Lefebvre
If you are into florals, Emma is a fantastic watercolour artist who gives great tutorials. I found my favourite watercolour brushes (Princeton Aqua Elite) based on her video showing different brushes from Princeton and she is spot on. She has a watercolour book coming out this fall, be sure to support her if you like her style. She also has a collab with Craftamo and offers paid lessons.
Jenna Rainey
Jenna is another fabulous watercolour artist. She also has a few books published but you can learn from just watching her Youtube channel, where she gives some of the best free watercolour lessons for beginners. She taught William Shatner in a workshop recently, so you can be sure she is the real deal. 🙂
Louise De Masi
Louise De Masi creates some of the most stunning watercolour pieces I have ever seen. She is great across different subjects, from floral to animals. She offers paid lessons but you can watch her videos on Youtube where she offers great tips and tricks for all skill levels.
Lachri Fine Art
Lisa is one of those artists who is awesome in all mediums. She has taught art for sixteen years and is a professional full-time artist, and one look at her work you will see that she is extremely talented. She also does a lot of reviews on art supplies.
Don’t you just love Youtube? You can find almost everything there for free!
Not Free, But Good For Practice
If you just want to focus on practising your painting without worrying about drawing, here are some ways you can do that at affordable prices:
Stamp & Colour
If you have stamps, you can use waterproof ink like Lawn Fawn’s Jelly Fish Ink and practice your painting.
The ink is a very light greige colour so you can practice no line colouring with alcohol markers, coloured pencils or watercolour.
Colouring Books
A more expensive but fun way to practice is using a watercolour colouring book. This one is from Altenew, which retails for US$23.99 and has 12 designs. Each design is printed on archival cotton paper in black and grey.
The grey printing is perfect for no line colouring.
By the way, I just ordered Meiliang aka Pretty Excellent 36 watercolour pan set, and cannot wait to play with it!
