Watercolor Washes: 5 Essential Building Blocks For Watercolor Painting

Course Level:
Beginner

Total Run Time:
1 hour, 37 minutes

Total Videos:
13

Lifetime Access With A Class Pass
$27 One-Time Payment Access With A Foxsy Membership
As Low As $19 Month

Course Description:

One of the most essential techniques for a new beginner watercolorist to learn is how to paint a wash. This course is designed to walk you through everything you need to get started with watercolor washes. You’ll learn what a wash is, why it’s important for watercolor painting, and where you will use washes in your practice.

Then we’ll dive into how to do each of the five different washes with step-by-step instructions. Once you’ve learned the techniques, you’ll get to apply those techniques with five projects that focus on each type of wash.

What You Will Learn:

What washes are and why they’re important
How washes are used
5 different watercolor washes
5 paint-along projects using each wash style

Supplies You’ll Need:

Watercolor paper
Large paintbrush (flat/round/mop)
Watercolor paint
Masking tape
2 jars of water
Cotton rag (or paper towels)
Heat tool (optional)

Explore Class Projects:

In this course, you’ll learn to create these amazing class projects, but more importantly, you’ll learn how to create your own pieces in the future.

This course is part of the Watercolor Academy

What’s In The Course?

13 Videos (over 1.5 hours of content)
5 Class Projects
Project Feedback (Optional)
Self-Paced

Course Level: Beginner
Run Time: 1 hour, 37 minutes

Get Access:

Lifetime Access With A Class Pass
$27 One-Time Payment Access With A Foxsy Membership
As Low As $19 Month

? Class Pass includes:

Lifetime Access To This Class

? Foxsy Membership includes:

Live Class Access To This Class & All Foxsy Live Classes
Access to full 190+ Class Library, The Watercolor Academy, & The Modern Lettering Academy
Project feedback from Foxsy Pros & Unlimited Creative Support

Shelby Abrahamsen

Foxsy, Co-Founder
Blogger at LittleCoffeeFox.com

Visit LittleCoffeeFox | Instagram | Pinterest

Meet Your Instructor:

Shelby is the co-founder of Foxsy and the creator at Little Coffee Fox. She is a professional watercolorist, letterer, and artist with a passion for teaching others to reintroduce creativity back into their lives. Shelby lives in Chicago, IL with her husband Jon and her pets Summer, Basil, and Korra.

Class Content

Introduction & Materials

Washes Explained

What Are Washes?

5 Types of Washes

Flat Wash

Project #1: Flat Circles

Graded Wash

Project #2: Graded Powerlines

Variegated wash

Project #3: Variegated Mountains

Wet On Wet Wash

Project #4: Wet on Wet Fisherman

Glaze

Project #5: Glazed Candle

Conclusion

Ratings and Reviews

5.0

Avg. Rating

15 Ratings

What's your experience? We'd love to know!

KarenJane Mcilwain

Posted 1 year ago

Great Classes! Lot of Insights!

Lots of tips and watercolor wisdom presented in a fun you can do it way! I’ve been really struggling to get back into being creative with watercolor and figuring out how watercolor works…I use to have some know how. I signed up with Shelby about a year ago. So glad I did! I just finished this Saint Nicholas. You’ll find lots of encouragement, advice and instruction here to get you through.

Lois

Posted 2 years ago

Drying time, patience, consider a "mess up" as valuable learning!

All the projects were great fun. I learned best when I completed multiples of the same project. Also, the way Shelby had us paint all the washes side by side and dry vs.wet of the same wash was brilliant! Each section was thoroughly explained. Shelby gave me the sense that I really can watercolor!

Lori

Posted 3 years ago

Let it dry!

Most important thing I learned in this section was the importance of drying between washes to get the proper effect. As well as the importance of enough water for the gradients. I liked all the hands on exercises. (Sorry about the text on my paintings - used scrap paper.)

Janet Gillis

Posted 3 years ago

Vital Skill You Need to Know

Another course that you just need to take to be successful in water coloring. Knowing how to create washes is a vital skill. I keep my creations on the wall where I paint and refer to them frequently.

Susan Casey

Posted 3 years ago

All the modules were very helpful

I really enjoyed the course and the projects. I value to feedback provided and will practice more to try and improve on the techniques. Thank you.

Gail Prouse

Posted 3 years ago

Confidence Builder!!!!

I enjoyed this course as a newbie to watercoolers. The feed back on projects was great and just what i needed to nudge me along!

Jim Rose

Posted 3 years ago

Water and pigment control

Shelby does a great job explaining techniques and the projects are challenging while not being intimidating. (Actually, for me, a couple of projects were intimidating but perseverance allowed me to learn some techniques that made the process fun)

birinkova

Posted 3 years ago

So useful

I love this course so far. It is easy to follow, the assignments are fun and not complicated to do. And you get to practice what you have learned right away.

BrittneyE

Posted 3 years ago

easy to follow instructions

The instruction was very easy to follow and I appreciated the explanation as to why and not just what, for example when discussing the glaze, the reason we needed to wait for the first layer to dry to prevent color bleeding was useful information

Thomas Beltran

Posted 4 years ago

Where to actually begin for a true beginner

What I have enjoyed the most is finally connecting with Shelby at the very beginning level for an old timer. She has explained things very well and has given excellent demonstrations as to what materials I need and where to begin - baby steps.

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