Watercolor Painting for Beginners Course

This course is also available in my Art Academy.

Do you like watercolors? Especially the realistic kind full of rich luminous layers of paint and details.

Are you interested in learning the traditional ways of working with watercolors? Techniques that have been past down from one professional artist to another.

Do you like to create your own original artwork? Learn usable skills to make your own art vs. relying on having to copy from others.

Here's the Rundown to my Step by Step Process

• 🖌 I'll start off by introducing you to professional tools and materials, where to get them, and how to use them.
  

• 🎨 I then show you how to set up your workspace, and get you going with your paints! I’ll show you how to set up your paint palette, and important painting exercises to familiarize yourself with your paints.
  

• ✍️ Once you’re all set up and feeling good about your paints, I show you how to do 15 watercolor techniques.
  

• 🤔 Then it’s time to teach you the strategy behind making a watercolor. This is a very important step most watercolor enthusiasts never learn how to do, and without understanding the strategy you’ll never be able to master making the layers involved with creating bright and luminous watercolor paintings.

• 🖼 Once you understand the strategy it’s time to test it out. Here’s your chance to make your 1st painting!

• ✏️ Next it’s time to learn how to properly prep the paper for painting. This includes learning how to stretch your paper, and how to transfer your composition over to your paper without damaging it.
  

• 🙈 🐵 After the completion of your 2nd painting it’s time to learn how to critique it. Critiques are an important part of the painting process. We’ll discuss how to do it when you’re by yourself and with others.
  

• 💦 For the 3rd painting you'll get to experiment with layering lots of washes and working with the wet on wet technique. We're also going to work on your ability of "reading" the wetness of the paper, and how to combine multiple techniques to complete a painting.
  

• 🖼 For the 4th painting you'll learn several important lessons including how to work from a still life, how to work with a monotone palette, and how to mix flesh toned colors. (Spoiler alert! You will NOT be painting a person.)

I've strategically chosen these 4 paintings for you to create:

Landscape Painting

Learn how to paint a sun setting over water, while also implementing your very own paint strategy to created foreground, middle, and background.

Animal Painting

Learn how to set up and transfer a drawing to watercolor paper along with mastering techniques to create realistic texture of leaves, wood, and fur.

Water Lily Painting

Learn how build up and work with really wet layers of paint. This painting will really sharpen your skills at "reading" the wetness of the paper!

Still Life Painting

Learn how to paint from real life with a monotone palette. You will also learn how to mix the colors of human flesh tones without having to paint a portrait.

These paintings are very different, and chosen for the variety of skills you will have to learn, practice, and execute in order to create them.

Once you're done making these 4 paintings you’ll be ready to test out your newly acquired skills on any subject matter you aspire to create!

What Students Have to Say:

"The proof is in the pudding, as they say, so I am going to let my work speak for the value of Tracy Lizotte’s art academy. The first two photos show my work in July as I struggled to teach myself and the third is a painting of the same subject only three months later! I was prepared to commit a year to learning how to paint with watercolors and I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined I could have this kind of change in only 3 months!

Tracy’s online instruction is value enough, but it doesn’t stop there. I also feel like I have a relationship with Tracy and her community of artists through the bi-weekly online live meetings. I just can’t say enough about what she is doing and I’m so excited about her future plans for this academy!"

- Elaine Santos

Elaine's watercolors before the course and then after.

"Tracy has taught me to "visualize the process" in my approach to painting! She has changed the way I think and paint with watercolors, and it has made a big impact on my work. With clear direction and constructive criticism, this class has been a fun and worthwhile experience!"

- Sue Sacco

Sue's artwork from: Watercolor Painting for Beginners course

"I'm just sad I'm finished with the exercises. I literally sucked up the instruction in the class. Your guidance has made me a better artist, for sure. I think I stalled on the last exercise, the still life, because I didn't want this to all be over! I'm also thrilled to be part of the Academy.

Now I'm looking forward to the bonus courses too."

- Paula Millhouse

Paula's still life assignment from Watercolor Painting for Beginners

What Students Say About This Course:

"I have immensely enjoyed the Watercolor Painting for Beginners course.

Tracy is not only a gifted artist, but also a brilliant teacher. Her instructions are easy to follow, and she shows and tells, step by step, how to get the best results and what to avoid doing.

The lessons are great preparation for the assignments. I like that they were challenging and that each had a goal for exploring and executing techniques that produced stunning results. It was so rewarding to see my paintings build up to completion. It’s very satisfying to see the patience of layering pay off.

Tracy helped me to see my work objectively, through thoughtful and invaluable corrective criticism."

- Tara Urbach

Tara's paintings from Watercolor Painting for Beginners course.

"I did not know much about Tracy before signing up for her online watercolor class. I have never taken an online class of any kind and have only ever taken one watercolor course. Tracy Lizotte's on-line watercolor class has been life changing for my art!

Her lessons have really taught me a great deal in a short amount of time while providing me with charts I now use every single time I paint. That alone was worth the class! I can actually see myself growing in my art. Her written and video communication skills are perfect for teaching, in fact I'd say she is a natural born teacher as well as an outstanding artist. I like that I can refer back to any class at any time as well, especially if I do go a few days/weeks without getting to paint and feel like I can not remember what she said about a certain technique. I would give this class 5 out of 5 stars!"

Stacey DeGrace

Stacey's painting exercises and artwork from Watercolor Painting for Beginners