How to Paint with Water Colors

Water color paint is easy to use. Many non-professional artists choose water color paint because it has a distinct look when dry, and doesn't require art skills when painting. Water colors are also favored by many professional artists when painting natural landscape scenes. Water colors are painted on canvas with wet paint brushes. The water liquefies the paint, making it watery when applied to the canvas. When the paint dries, the result is a solid color with a dramatic blended effect.

Step 1

Take two clean metal cans and fill each one with tap water. Place the cans side by side. Dip your paint brush into one can to wet the brush. Clean your paint brushes in the other can of water as you paint. Put your paint tubes side by side with the caps off. Open the paint case if your water colors come in a kit.

Step 2

Take a big paint brush, and dip it into a medium to dark shade of blue color, and begin painting a sky scene. Take a small paint brush with a fine point for painting detail in your scene. Use the fine paint brush for small areas, and to eliminate the water colors from running, while detailing. Use a separate fine tip paint brush for darker colors.

Step 3

Activate the water color paint by moving the paint brush around on the color kit until the paint liquefies, and then paint on your canvas with the brush. Squeeze out a pearl size drop of water color onto a plastic palette--if using water colors from a tube--and blend the paint and water together on the palette. Use a clean paint sponge to blend the color onto the canvas or the rest of the paint, or to remove excess paint if it is too watery.

Step 4

Take the paint sponge and use it as an artistic tool for shaping the scene you are painting. Put one drop of white titanium paint onto a wet sponge, and dab the white onto the top of the blue sky color in the region of your painting where you want clouds to form. Make the clouds big to give the appearance of puffy clouds. Mix a little gray in with the white to add an overcast look to the clouds.

Step 5

Apply a clean wet brush to the canvas section you are painting. Apply the water color in rows over the wet section in top, middle and bottom layers. Let the water color paint blend into the lower layers of color. Continue painting in the rest of the sections with various shapes or other nature scenes such as trees and sea, until you are satisfied with the result. Let your canvas painting fully dry before hanging it on the wall to display. References:

• YouTube: Watercolor Painting for Beginners : How to Mix Colors for Watercolor [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RvUSobtOfk]
• Youtube: Watercolor Painting Basics [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ip2GCum2g4]