Are you looking for inspiration for your next watercolor artwork? In this article, I will share with you 20 easy and fun watercolor painting ideas to get started and unleash your creativity. In addition, you will get suggestions on what techniques to use to create beautiful watercolor artwork. Let’s go!
Nature is a great source of inspiration in art. You can just look around and find some reference objects for your painting such as a flower, a leaf, or a tree. Painting those objects also gives you a chance to study nature, so you can apply what you learned later on in a more complicated painting such as a landscape painting.
Below are four simple watercolor painting ideas you might want to try.
Watercolor Cactus
A painting of a cute little cactus can brighten up your room. You can create a simple watercolor painting of cactus with the wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry techniques.
Watercolor Leaf
Studying a leaf with watercolor can be interesting. There are different types of leaves which have different shapes, colors, and patterns. You can find a leaf near your house and try to paint it, or simply paint simple leaves in the abstract style. The key thing is to have fun with watercolor and to be creative.
You can also follow my guide for painting leaves with the negative painting technique. It’s simple but you can create an in-depth painting.
Flowers in Watercolor
What are your favorite flowers? You can paint your favorite ones or more with watercolor in different styles. Flowers like roses, daisies, sunflowers, and peonies are great to start with
Checkout my playlist of how to paint different flowers with watercolor on Youtube. The video below is an example.
Watercolor Tree
You can choose to practice watercolor painting with one tree first, then paint a garden or a forest to make it more challenging. One tip for creating textures for the branches and the trunks is to use a dry brush to paint.
Still-life Watercolor Painting Ideas
Fruit Art
There is a variety of fruits you can paint such as apples, pears, pineapples, coconuts, oranges, and mangosteens. Painting fruit can help you understand more about shapes, highlights, and shadows, which are two of the four pillars of a painting. Mastering shapes and values (or highlights & shadows) can bring your art skills to the next level.
Cup of Tea/Coffee Art
Are you a fan of tea or coffee? A cup of tea or coffee is a simple object to practice painting. Next time when you go to a coffee shop to hang out, bring a small pack of watercolor tools with you and enjoy painting.
Cupcake Art
I love colorful cupcakes. You can create a vibrant painting of cupcakes. It could be a nice painting to decorate your room or a nice gift for your friends.
Checkout my video about how to paint a cupcake in a realistic style
Watercolor Art Supplies
Anything around you can be a reference for a painting. Watercolor art supplies can be fun and easy to paint too. Grab some tools you like such as watercolor paints, a watercolor palette, and watercolor brushes, and try to paint them. You don’t need to paint the supplies in a realistic style but more like an illustration style.
Landscape Watercolor Painting Ideas
Landscape is an unlimited source of watercolor painting ideas because it keeps changing. You will never see the same sunset, and different seasons have different beauties. The four landscapes introduced below are just some examples.
Northern Light with Watercolor
The Northern light is magical! You can capture the beauty of the northern light in watercolor by using the wet-on-wet technique, with neon green, ultramarine blue, and some pink colors. To create a starry night, add some salt crystals to the wet paint, and let the paper dry completely. The salt will create a stunning glittering effect.
You can also splatter some Chinese white gouache to create the stars if you cannot find salt crystals.
Foggy Forest Painting
To create the foggy effect in a foggy forest painting, use tissue paper to absorb some paint from the paper. You will need to work on different layers and allow each layer to dry 100% before starting a new layer.
This video will show you how to create a dreamy forest with watercolors.
Mountains Painting
It is fascinating to see mountain ranges. When painting mountains with watercolor, start first with a light color, then use darker colors for the mountains that are closer to the audience’s eyes. You should paint mountains in more than one layer and wait for each layer to dry completely.
Sunset Watercolor
Sunsets have been the inspiration for paintings, poetries, and music. A painting of the sunset on the beach can be a blessing to paint. Try mixing different colors such as red, yellow, purple, and blue for the sky. To get a gradient color, the wet-on-wet technique is a great option. Remember to control the amount of water on the paper. Putting too much or too little water is a common mistake in watercolor and it might not create a smooth gradient color as you expect.
Watercolor Animal Painting Ideas
Animals can be great watercolor painting ideas because you can learn more about shapes, and colors, and how to describe their expressions.
Watercolor Cat
Cats are such cute animals! It can be very joyful to paint a cat either in a simple painting style or a more realistic one. You can paint wet paint on wet paper to create fluffy fur for the cat, then paint details such as eyes and nose with the wet-on-dry technique. Try different poses of a cat to make it even more interesting.
Koi Fish in Watercolor
Koi fish are great subjects for watercolor painting, especially for beginners because they are colorful and simple to paint. Use the wet-on-wet technique with some salt crystals to create more interesting effects for the fish.
Watercolor Whale
Similar to Koi fish, you can add salt to the wet paint to create textures for your whale painting. For the lines along the whale, use a small brush and paint it on dry paper.
Watercolor Birds
There are many species of birds that you can paint. Birds are beautiful and some have vibrant colors or unique features. For example, a kingfisher has a beautiful vibrant blue color with a big beak while a flamingo has a light pink color with long legs.
You can watch and follow my tutorials to paint different birds from the list below:
Abstract Watercolor Ideas
Abstract watercolor painting can be a form of meditation when you just enjoy the painting process and watch how watercolors bleed into each other, without focusing too much on the details or composition of the painting.
Bubble Printing
Bubble printing watercolor art is amazing and unique. The way to do it is also fun. First, you will need to create bubbles on the surface of the paper using dish soap. Then, drop pigments on top of the bubbles and let them print on the paper. Wait until the paper is dry and the bubbles disappear, you will have a beautiful bubble painting with watercolor.
Salt Effect
Salt has been mentioned earlier in this post, but this time you can use salt to create abstract art. Create washes on the paper with different colors and let them blend into each other. When the paper is still wet, splatter some salt on the paper, let it dry, and remove the salt afterward.
Plastic Wrap Art
Use plastic wrap to create random and interesting patterns for your painting. When the paint is still wet, put a sheet of plastic wrap on top. You can wrinkle the wrap to get more patterns.
Dish Soap
Dish soap is fun to play with. In watercolor painting, you can get a really interesting effect using dish soap. Drop diluted dish soap into the wet wash on the paper and watch how dish soap pushes the pigments away, creating blooming patterns. Check out my step-by-step tutorial for painting with dish soap.
The Takeaway
Daily practice helps you improve your painting skills and master watercolor techniques. Trying to paint complicated topics can be challenging for beginners. The 20 simple watercolor painting ideas are easy and fun for you to start with.
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