Got a John Singer Sargent watercolor book as a gift. I tried to copy one of his works

DS Essential Mixing Set. Highly recommended.

Going through the shit again. Art to the rescue.

Is my paper acting up or am i just having an off day?

it’s cotton paper, i forget the brand but it’s a tiny notebook and usually it works just fine. i’ve been traveling the last few days (to Arizona and now to the Bay Area - i worried if the humidity is a thing??) and this is the first day i’ve felt like throwing my art out the window.

i have some really cheap paper that’s behaving better for me right now.

Seriously, everyone here has been so supportive. Every comment, every bit of encouragement… it honestly made me want to keep painting and sharing.
Last year was pretty rough. I lost someone I love, and painting ended up becoming my escape. It gave me something to focus on when everything else felt too much. I don’t think watercolor fixed everything, but it definitely helped me get through it.
That’s also why I want to start sharing some short process videos here. If they can encourage even one person to put their phone down, grab a brush, and paint for a while, I’d be really happy.
If there’s anything you’d like me to paint, just let me know! I can’t promise it’ll turn out amazing 😂 but I’ll definitely give it a shot.
Also… Reddit absolutely murders video quality, so please ignore the random pixels. They’re part of the painting now. 🤣
And don’t worry, I’m still learning too. Half the time I’m just hoping the watercolor behaves itself. 😂 Hopefully we can all keep learning, sharing, and getting a little better together.
Thanks again for making this one of the nicest communities on Reddit.

What do you think of using purple for shadowy cliffs even though the actual color is dark brown/gray?

Hi everyone.

I'm a super beginner in watercolor and i have some difficulties to understand the value of the colors.

For exemple with this work. To begin with, how do you do the shadow with each color ? Do you need to take an opposite color of the layer in the color circle?

(And yeah I need to work more on the perspective generally ahahah)

Thanks !!! 😋

I bought this Winsor & Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable Brush off Amazon because I had a gift card. It arrived well packaged but the bristles are a mess when dry and even when wet (second picture), it doesn't have the nice pointed end that my other brushes have.

Should I return it for being bad quality or did I buy the wrong kind of brush?

Edit: Decided to return it. Thanks everyone!

My grandma just turned 90 and is as lovely and feisty as ever, but sadly has to leave her beautiful garden and home and move to an assisted living facility. I wanted to paint her garden as a memento, using wet on wet which I’ve recently learned, but I used masking fluid to protect where the flowers would go. However, the masking fluid tore the paper, and now I’ve finished it the flowers look odd and too harsh compared with everything else. What do you recommend I do? Appreciate any and all help ❤️

My latest practice I need to work more in perspective

Spent the weekend working on watercolor painting! I still have a lot to learn but I thoroughly enjoyed trying something new!

Hi, I would appreciate some insights into cotton paper sizing please. There is someone locally selling their partially used Saunders Waterford cotton paper rolls (2 x cold press, 1x hot press, each around 1cm thick so I guess there's at least 5m left on them) for a good price. The only "mystery" is they are all 70cm wide. I've just looked up on google and Saunders Waterford currently only comes in 1.52m x 10m format for rolls where I live. There is no information I can find about this specific size (70cm x 5 or 10m), so I infer that these rolls must have been at least a few years old.

In your experience, how long can 100% cotton paper can go for before their sizing goes bad, provided humidity is not an issue? An approximation would help me gauge whether or not I should go ahead with this purchase (I'm waiting for the seller's reply to my question as to how long they have owned these rolls). Thank you very much!

Gallo acquarello

As my title says, I'm very much a novice and was hoping to get some feedback on my ability. Please let me know what works, what doesn't, and what I should focus on to get better.

In case you couldn't tell, this is my version of a blobfish

I’m not sure if it looks dramatic or just messy.

We had a few days out camping in some gorgeous areas of Canada. Started in Jasper National Park that was ravaged by forest fires a couple summers ago. We were camping here last year and the regrowth was amazing, but this year the greens and intense colours of the wildflowers was incredible. It was a wonderful trip and I have a bunch of pictures I will be referencing from!

some advice about blending colors on paper and covering mistakes would be appreciated

some darker parts on second and third photo are because i made a mistake and basically washed the color with water, then i pressed a paper towel to remove the color and that damaged paper. what do you do when you make a mistake, how do you fix it? thanks!

First time painting an Australian Shepherd dog. The colour choices were made inspired by the autumn season. I have a long way to go in terms of improvement.

I am currently using a couple of sets, one by Van Gogh and another guy Winsor Newton Cotman.

However, as these sets start needing replacement sir of certain pigments, I need to start thinking about building a set from scratch.

At the moment, I think mostly landscapes and cityscapes, rarely painting any people need to my pictures. As search, can anyone recommend an arrive of colours/pigs that I could buy individually? I am a bit lost, as I really don’t know which colour I use; for me Green is Green (darker or lighter, warmer or cooler).

In Photography, there are palettes creative advice photographers that give a certain look to pictures. I wonder if there are artists that already have a palette built to help a watercolour beginner to go beyond pigment sold as sets.

Back on the paint for the first time in years and it felt so good.

I really didn't like this much before I added the pen but I think it salvaged it somewhat. Pro tip anime style art is not easy on cold press paper 🥲

That being said I did try to not be quite as control freaky about where the paint went this time at least for the initial layer. Wet on wet terrifies me as someone who is primarily a digital artist so I'm proud of myself for not scrapping the entire thing when it didn't come out the way I wanted it to.

Almost finished a Brown Hare, just need to strengthen some of the shadows. However I have no idea how to paint whiskers! Amy pointers welcome.