Simple ideas painted on mixed media paper, each one chosen to practice a real watercolor skill
Introduction
The easiest way to improve in watercolor is to paint small, simple subjects often. Each one gives you a single problem to solve: how to keep a color transparent, how to make a flat circle look round, how much water a brush should carry.
These are ten paintings I made for exactly that kind of practice, plus a bonus idea at the end. They start with plain circles and end with a loose, wet painting where the water does most of the work. For each one, you will find the colors I used, the technique, and the skill it trains.
All of them were painted on mixed media paper, 300 g, with student-grade watercolors.
What You Need
- Paper: mixed media or watercolor paper, 300 g. A heavy paper holds water without buckling, which matters for the wetter ideas on this list.
- Brushes: two are enough. A round brush, size 6, does almost everything. For edges and small details, a finer tip helps: I use either a liner brush or a fine-tip water brush, using only its bristles.
- Paper towel: keep a piece next to your palette at all times. The water brush in particular holds a lot of water in its bristles, and a cloth towel does not absorb it well enough. A quick touch on paper towel takes off the excess before the brush reaches the paper.
- Your paints: any set works. None of these ideas depends on a specific color.
If you are just starting, Watercolor Painting for Beginners covers the basic materials in more detail.
Start with Circles
A circle is the simplest shape you can paint, and it can turn into very different pictures. The first three ideas all begin with it.
1. Overlapping Circles
Paint circles of different sizes and let them overlap. Where two colors cross, a third color appears, and that is the whole point of the exercise: it shows you how transparent watercolor really is.
- Colors: pink, lilac, yellow, blue and orange
- Technique: wet-on-dry
The one rule: let each circle dry completely before you paint another one over it. If the first layer is still damp, the colors bleed into each other and the transparency is lost.
This makes the exercise good practice for patience too, which is one of the most important skills in watercolor.
Variation: try hearts instead of circles. Cut three templates in different sizes, or use a single one, trace the shapes very lightly in pencil, and overlap them the same way.
Watercolor Techniques for Beginners explains wet-on-dry and the other basic techniques used in this list.
2. From Circles to Spheres
Here the circles become spheres. This is an exercise in volume, light and shadow: each sphere has a light side and a darker edge, and that change in value is what makes it look round.
This time there is no transparency. The sphere in front hides part of the sphere behind it, so you paint the front one complete and stop the back one at its edge.
I left small gaps between the spheres and filled them with darker colors. Those dark areas push the spheres forward and give the whole painting depth.
- Colors: blues, lilac, yellow, orange, brown, a neutral, pink and green
There is no fixed palette for this one. Choose colors you enjoy and work with them.
3. A Bunch of Balloons in the Sky
Now the shapes become a small composition: a bunch of party balloons drifting in the sky.
- Sky: blue, lilac and the white of the paper
- Balloons: pink, yellow, orange, blue, white, red, green and lilac
I painted the balloons opaque, so each one covers the one behind it. You can also paint them transparent, like the circles in the first idea, and let the colors mix where they overlap.
This idea trains several skills at once: arranging elements in a composition, balancing colors across the group, and giving each balloon volume with light and shadow.
For more ways to paint the background, How to Paint Watercolor Skies covers several skies step by step.
4. One Umbrella, Three Ways
This blog is called Umbrella Art Studio, so an umbrella had to be on the list.
The idea is simple: take one plain umbrella outline and paint it three different ways. Comparing the results teaches you more about technique than three different subjects would.
Version 1: Line and Volume
This version keeps the drawing and builds volume inside each panel.
- Technique: wet-on-dry
- Colors: red, yellow, lilac, brown and dark green
- Brushes: the size 6 round brush from my paint set and the water brush
When the paint was dry, I used a white gel pen for the lines between the panels and for the small white dots. Then I reinforced a few shadow areas with colored pencils in blue, brown and green.
Version 2: Loose and Wet
Here the outline matters much less. The paint moves freely on damp paper, and the colors soften into each other and into the background.
- Technique: wet-in-wet, on damp paper
- Colors: red, lilac, green and blue, with brown for the handle
To finish, I splattered white fabric paint over the umbrella. The small white dots read as raindrops and light.
Version 3: Dots
This is the most playful version. Instead of a brush, I used an old marker that had dried out, one with a round tip. I cleaned off any leftover ink, then dipped the tip straight into the watercolor and pressed it onto the paper. Each touch leaves a perfectly round dot.
- Colors: yellow, orange, light blue, dark blue, lilac and purple
The secret is the consistency of the paint. Too diluted and the dot spreads, too dry and it does not print. Keep stamping until the marker starts to run out of paint: the dots fade naturally, and that creates the gradient you see at the edges.
This is one of several tools you can use in place of a brush. Watercolor Textures with Alternative Materials shows more of them.
Fruit for Observation Practice
Fruit is ideal for painting from observation. The shapes are simple, so you can spend your attention on details: where the light hits, where the shadow sits, how the surface feels.
5. Citrus Fruit, Whole and Sliced
Oranges, lemons and limes give you two exercises in one.
- Whole fruit: work the peel and the volume. The fruit is basically a sphere, so the same light and shadow from idea 2 applies here.
- Sliced fruit: work the texture in more detail, and the small shifts of color inside each segment.
Both were painted wet-on-dry. For the slices, I kept the brush only slightly wet, because the white areas are the paper itself, left unpainted. A wetter brush would flood those small white spaces.
For the texture of the rind, I used an ordinary school marker and dotted the edge. It is a cheap, simple material, and the dots give the rind its pitted look much faster than a brush could. The thin white lines and dots inside the slice are white gel pen, added once everything was dry.
6. Overlapping Citrus Slices
Once you can paint one slice, use the same drawing to build a composition. Overlap the slices, vary their sizes, and play with color. Blue citrus is perfectly fine here.
Leave some areas free between the slices and fill them with a dark color to create depth. I used a black ink pen to fill those spaces with solid black.
If you prefer to stay with watercolor, paint them with a dark blue and Neutral Tint. The result is softer, with a little variation in the dark instead of a flat surface. Should You Use Black in Watercolor? explains the options for mixing darks.
7. A Watermelon Slice
Still with fruit, a watermelon slice is one of the simplest shapes on this list, and it is great for practicing gradients and texture.
- Colors: red, yellow, green and a light brown for the seeds. The white band between the flesh and the rind is the paper.
- Background: painted wet-on-wet, with the colors blending softly into each other.
To finish, I splattered white fabric paint over the slice and the background.
Flowers and Objects
8. Simple Little Flowers
Flowers do not need to be realistic to look good. Simple, playful shapes work very well, and they are an excellent way to practice color combinations.
The coneflower is a good example. Its shape is easy to recognize: a raised center and a ring of petals hanging down. In the second painting, I kept it loose, with long petals in pink and lilac and a warm orange center. In the third, the same kind of flower is painted with more control, building volume in the petals and the center.
Try one flower in two or three palettes. You will quickly see which combinations you like best.
If you would like to practice watercolor on ready-made floral line art, the Original Floral Designs Coloring Book has 72 hand-drawn floral pages, printable on the paper that suits your paints.
9. A Rusty Jug with Lavender
An object like this jug trains three things: form, volume and texture. Here, the texture is rust.
- Jug: a soft beige, close to Naples Yellow or Pale Orange
- Rust: three browns, applied from the outside in: light brown at the outer edge, medium brown next, and dark brown at the center of each patch
You can add a little ochre around the outer edges of the rust, as if it were spreading across the metal.
The beige and the browns are typical vintage colors. How to Mix Vintage Colors in Watercolor shows how to mix this kind of palette.
Let Go
10. A Loose Seahorse
For the last idea, choose a drawing with a simple outline and forget about details. Only the shape matters.
- Technique: wet-on-wet, or wet-in-wet on damp paper
- Colors: blue, lilac, pink, orange, yellow and brown
A spray bottle helps a lot here. A light mist of water keeps the paper damp and lets the colors spread and blend more naturally.
The white lines on the seahorse were reserved before painting, with a white wax crayon. A candle works the same way. The wax repels the water, so the paint slides off and the paper stays white.
One important note: once an area is covered with wax, of any kind, you can no longer paint over it. Use wax only where you want texture or a white effect to stay in the finished painting.
Wax is one way to keep white areas. How to Use White in Watercolor covers eight, including the white gel pen and the splatter used in other ideas on this list.
Bonus: Paint What Appears
Take a sheet of suitable paper and a waterproof black ink pen. Draw random shapes, with no plan to make anything figurative. Then paint the areas with watercolor.
The pen has to be waterproof, otherwise the lines run as soon as the paint touches them.
You can use the shapes to build a composition, as I did: I saw a woman's face in the lines and followed it. Or you can treat each area as its own small test and fill them with different textures.
In this painting, I brushed a light layer of gold watercolor over some areas, and added the dots and spirals with white Posca pens, in fine and medium tips.
The goal is to free your imagination and paint whatever shows up in front of you.
| Idea | Technique | What it trains |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Overlapping circles | Wet-on-dry | Transparency and patience |
| 2. Spheres | Wet-on-dry | Volume, light and shadow, depth |
| 3. Balloons in the sky | Wet-on-wet sky, wet-on-dry balloons | Composition and color balance |
| 4. Umbrella, three ways | Wet-on-dry, wet-in-wet, dots | Comparing techniques |
| 5. Citrus fruit | Wet-on-dry | Observation, texture, detail |
| 6. Overlapping slices | Wet-on-dry | Composition and depth |
| 7. Watermelon | Wet-on-wet background | Gradients and texture |
| 8. Simple flowers | Free | Color combinations |
| 9. Rusty jug | Wet-on-dry | Form, volume, texture |
| 10. Loose seahorse | Wet-on-wet, wax resist | Letting the water work |
If you are new to watercolor, start with idea 1 and then idea 2. Between them, they cover transparency and volume, and almost everything else on this list builds on those two.
Conclusion
None of these paintings needs special skill or a large set of materials. A heavy paper, two brushes, a piece of paper towel and a few colors are enough for all ten.
What makes them useful is that each one asks you to practice one thing at a time: transparency, volume, composition, texture, or simply letting go. Paint them in order, or pick the one that matches what you want to improve, and come back to them as often as you like.
And when you want to bring the same washes and gradients to a finished floral page, the Original Floral Designs Coloring Book has 72 hand-drawn designs ready for your paints.
Happy painting.
