Top 12 Best Tips for Someone Who Has Never Used Watercolors or Wants to Start Over

Hey there, it's Dona Nice to see you here. In this video, I wanted to share the top 12 best tips for someone who has never used watercolors before or wants to start over because they just need this special motivational boost. Number one, use quality supplies. And they don't need to be the most expensive watercolor supplies either, but it really does make a difference and it fixes many problems you come across with the cheap stuff, especially when it comes to watercolor paper. So give yourself the best chance to enjoy and learn this medium. Investing in good supplies is like investing in yourself and the experience. You spend money on experiences like movies, vacations, trips, and things like that. And when you do that, you want to have a great experience, right? So by investing in good supplies, you're not only having a lot more fun learning and painting, but you'll also feel a lot happier during the process. It's basically an investment into your happiness. So don't worry about ruining your artwork just because you spend money on the supplies. Just enjoy the experience. I always remind myself of this quote, there's always more where that came from. Do not live in this mindset of scarcity, but really in abundance. At the same time, don't fall into the trap of buying and buying and looking for the best supplies. Just start. In the end, you might spend more money buying a lot of watercolor sets, looking for the perfect one. Then you buy, buying just a few good quality supplies to start with. Number three, it doesn't need to be perfect. Focus on the healing process. Sometimes beginners start with expectations that everything they create has to be a masterpiece. And when it doesn't turn out the way they want it, they get discouraged and quit. And some people who would love to learn how to paint with watercolors, might not even start because they're just too afraid of failures. But we all go through that because we sometimes fall into this trap of focusing too much on the outcome and not on the process itself. But remember, anything creative from writing, making music to painting is a form of expression, a form of healing through a creative process. You can process all sorts of things that you're going through. You can convey a message, tell a story, or just enjoy looking at different colors melt together on the paper. It should never be a form of bashing yourself when the outcome is not a masterpiece. It doesn't matter. It's more important how you feel during the process, especially when you're just starting out and you want to learn or you just want to paint to have fun. The attitude of thinking, I don't have much time to paint so it might as well turn out to be a masterpiece. This will just ruin all the fun and will just add more frustration into your already stressful life. So don't pressure yourself to do it perfectly. There is no perfection. The best part of watercolor is that it's not meant to be perfect, which again, there's no such thing. And when you view art as a process rather than a product, it changes everything. Number four, play with your supplies. Regardless of whether you're just starting out or you've been painting for a while, don't forget to play with your supplies. If you're just starting out, you can focus on playing with colors, different basic techniques, and really get to know this medium. And remember, when you come from acrylics or oil painting to watercolor, don't be afraid to use water. As the name suggests, you use colored water. That's the beauty of it. Watercolors are totally different from acrylics, oils, and other mediums. Layers work differently, the colors act differently, and you want to embrace this loose and light paint application. Otherwise, your painting might look like a paint-by-number painting made with acrylics. So don't expect the same results acrylics would give. Watercolors don't work like that. Number six, there will be ugly stages. This is one of the key things to keep in mind. Your painting will go through ugly stages and a lot of times. Keep going and don't toss it into the bin. Oftentimes, we judge our paintings way too early and think it looks bad, when in reality, it's just not finished. So in your eyes, it might look ugly or weird until all of a sudden, it isn't. You can also check out one of my previous videos where I talk about why we sometimes don't like our art and sometimes we completely love it. You can find the link in the description box down below. Number seven, don't compare yourself to others. I know it's easier said than done but there's always this issue that we're not 100% confident in our abilities and in our art and you might have even joined a group for watercolor painting for beginners on Facebook, for example, and all you see are masterpieces and you wonder if you really belong in there, right? But the problem is that sometimes, we completely misjudge ourselves. Someone who in your eyes is advanced might really think of himself as a complete beginner or maybe you hit the point where you still feel like you're not really progressing, you're still a beginner but someone else thinks that you must have painted for years because your art looks amazing. So there's always this comparison between who is better, who is worse and that's totally not healthy at all. Focus on your own journey. Save all your art and remember to look back at it when you think you hit a roadblock. You might not even realize how far you've come. With watercolor painting, when you apply wet paint onto a dry layer, you really want to make sure it's completely dry. Usually, when you think it's dry, it's not that dry and if you want to speed up the drying process, you can totally use a hair dryer for that and there's nothing wrong with using a hair dryer. You don't have to sit there and wait for the paint to dry. Just use a hair dryer to save time. Number 10, watercolors seem to have a mind of their own but you can still control it. Oftentimes, you might hear that watercolors is the most difficult medium and you can't control it at all. To some degree, watercolors do have a mind of their own but you can still control it by learning about how much or how little water or how much or how little paint you need, all about the different drying stages of your paper and things like that and everyone can learn it. One of the things I also hear a lot is the fear of making mistakes but in watercolor, it's actually as much about taking color off as putting it on, meaning even if you apply paint to the paper and you're not happy with it and you want to fix it, you can simply use a tissue paper or a towel to lift up some of the wet paint and if it's already dry, you can still do that by just slightly reactivating the paint and lifting it up. And lastly, be kind to yourself. Remember, everything you see posted online is just a highlight reel so don't compare your behind the scenes with someone else's highlight reel and art is subjective. What you might not like now, someone else absolutely loves it and wishes he or she had your skills and even the best painters make mistakes and have do-overs, they just usually never share it online. At the end of the day, watercolor painting is a journey, not a destination and all journeys have their ups and downs and one of my favorite quotes is, change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end, just like everything in life, right? And if you would like to learn how to paint with watercolors but you don't know where or how to start, make sure to download my free guide to watercolors. You'll find a link in the description box down below. I really hope this video was helpful to you. Thank you so much for watching. Have a wonderful day and I will see you in my next video. Bye.