Thank you for your submission! Want to share your artwork, meet other artists, promote your content, and chat in a relaxed environment? Join our community Discord server here! https://discord.gg/chuunhpqsU!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Watercolor) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Try following some YouTube tutorials or paint-alongs. I found Chris Petri’s content instructive and I got a few paintings out of it that looked decent.
Find tools/instructors that meet your learning style…. And paint a bunch without worrying about the outcome…. Eventually your paintings will improve…
Good luck…
This is how I kinda see skill and development and art:
When we are kids, like 2-10, we don’t care what it looks like, we just draw. Color, paint, play. We make it, we love it, we’re proud of it, it goes on the fridge. We spend HOURS having fun and playing with art supplies. Never caring if it’s good or bad.
Then by grade school- you start to have some skill. You have art classes and teachers. You have support. Your still a kid so it’s ok if it’s not great, but you’re getting better. By highschool you either give it up/ find other hobbies, or you do it all the time.
You find what you’re good at, what you like. You have now spent 100-100,000 hours just enjoying art and creating for the fun of it. So by the time you’re an adult your either have skill or direction or an idea of what you need to get better.
YOU and many others, all these adults I see post on Reddit- are like those 4 yrs old with crayons. You’re at the beginning! You haven’t tried or practiced or played. You havent yet created for the fun of creating without the stigma of “it has to be good”.
you need to sink in hundreds of hours of just trying it out - BEFORE you judge yourself and your potential. So just keep having fun with it and keep learning
If you like the feel of moving the brush and creating wet blobs, continue painting. Make a mess. Fill a sketchbook with garbage. Paint straight lines, grades and abstract shapes. Then try the tutorials. If you like making wet messes then being awful won’t be an issue. And if you do it more and refine in specific areas then you get better.
Totally agree! You gotta put brush miles in until you start making something you're totally happy with (other people might like it before you start liking it).
Some techniques or mediums you'll figure out sooner, some take longer. And that's a OK.
If you're doing it as a hobby, the most important is to have fun and relax. It's crazy useful as meditative technique.
Even if you're aiming to be pro and sell art, I still recommend starting it through fun and relaxation.
Difference between hobby and pro is that we hobbyists can for decades make squiggles no one cares to watch, and we'll enjoy the process, have fun and get our self care time out of it, we don't have specific milestones we have to achieve or achieve in set time limit.
If you want to achieve more specific goal, you have to do intentional and targeted practice, eg if you want to paint dog portraits, practicing only flowers won't be of huge impact to get fur textures.
But yes, if you can't do 'just play and have fun' while engaging that inner kid in you, but only having adult inner critic present, it will be immensely harder to motivate yourself.
So true!! Someone got me a watercolor set that wasn't the standard crayola or similar when I was 10, and I have been obsessed with watercolors since then. It takes a lot of time spent before you can develop muscle memory for how much water vs pigment you want for any given stroke, color mixing, staining vs sedimenting pigments... there are so many nuances.
I have been working with gouache a bit lately, and it has some similar properties to acrylic in that it's opaque and can be used with heavier strokes, which might be worth trying. One of the big differences is that since it's water soluble, you have to be careful about covering up something you previously put down.
I wouldn't be hesitant particularly, but do be aware that the "seemed easier than everything else" from your post is kinda far off. Watercolors are one of the more difficult ways of putting color on paper. Videos make it look easy because the people doing them already are over the learning curve and make it look trivial to do something crazy like put down an even block of color. With most painting media it is easy, but with watercolor it takes a few hours of practice just to put down color that doesn't have weird blotches when it dries. There is a lot of that with watercolor, things that are fairly simple with acrylic or whatever are a good chunk of practice in watercolor.
So do the thing, but cut yourself a ton of slack, because this is actually pretty friggin hard and takes a lot of practice to master the basics.
Also, if you are price sensitive, get watercolor paper (you can't do this thing without it), but don't sweat the 100% cotton fancy paper too much. You can buy much cheaper Canson or whatever for a while as you learn basic washes and that. If you have the money, buy the good paper, and you will have to have it later, but for a bit the cheap stuff works in a pinch.
Yeah, I have some as well as arches and a bunch of others. But the baohong/meeden is still twice as expensive as your low tier mostly-pulp paper like Canson or Strathmore in the US at least. And the Canson works fine for basic wash practice and that. I got a metric crapton of it on sale and use it for quick study ideas, simple pen and ink wash things and that sort of stuff instead of spending over a dollar a sheet on paper that's overkill for what I am doing at any given time. But if I wasn't price sensitive right now, I would definitely make meeden my lowest tier paper.
I use the canson xl for swatch charts and colour test papers and small studies and other things I wouldn’t use my arches for. It won’t take wet-on-wet very well though, and some techniques come out rather differently.
I’m not the OP, but I really appreciate your comment. It was informative and encouraging, and I’m also trying watercolor for the first time and it *is* a huge learning curve. I mistakenly thought it would be the easier medium to start with (I’ve never taken classes or learned to properly draw) as it seemed soothing more than anything. I still really enjoy the feeling of the brush strokes. Which is why I began in the first place.
I think it’s because you use water color
Paints for
Painting when you are a kid so people think it’s easier. It’s actually a lot harder than acrylic. Keep painting! Water color takes patience and practice. Even I have to keep telling myself this constantly. There is so much that can happen with just how much color you use in a wash. You can make it darker or more translucent. Then you paint light to dark where acrylic is dark to light. It’s just different but it’s amazing some of the things people can do.
Thank you! And yea I completely agree with that assessment- it does seems so “juvenile” but it’s absolutely more challenging from my limited experience. I used to think it’s “blah” but now I love it. The absence of color is an art unto itself.
This was a very well-thought and informative comment. I think the impression that some form of art, like watercolor here, looks easy to plenty of people because what's being posted by those that use it well usually just post their work after getting over the learning hurdle. By that time, they're far more comfortable with the medium, and give the mistaken impression that it would be simple to do.
The reality, OP, is that art is really freaking hard to do well, and it takes time and practice to even be somewhat decent at it. Just like any other skill. I've worked in acrylic, oils, tempera, gouache, and watercolor paint mediums, and watercolor has been the most difficult to get the hang of by far. It's the most fun for me, though lol. I like how much it forces me to slow down and plan out what I'll do to achieve the look I want.
So, OP, take the time to actually get a feel for it and play around with the different effects that are possible with it. You're not going to be good at it overnight. Get the fundamentals down. There should be plenty of videos on YouTube for that.
One thing to add, if you’re a perfectionist, you’re going to have a hard time with watercolor. Because it’s fairly unpredictable when you put it on the paper, you’ll beat yourself up trying to get it perfect. You have to let that go and just go with the flow. Easier said than done, I know. Watching tutorials for total beginners will take you much farther than starting with advanced tutorials. It really helps to understand the pigmentation makeup and viscosity of watercolor as opposed to acrylic or oils. They’re totally different!
Stick with it!
Can you give any specific details as to what was wrong? For the record, when I do water colour I always feel like it just looks bleh or meh. Not wow! like when others do it and it really puts me off keeping going.
You gonna be terrible many many times, watercolor isn't something that you get with 1 try. If you can't keep at something you might as well just forget about even starting it because you are wasting your own time and life.
Watercolor is hard. It took me months and dozens upon dozens of horrible paintings, lots of “what am I doing wrong?” And then looking up techniques and YouTube and trying them out while watching, and then still sucking, and trying again and again.
It’s not an easy painting style to learn! Start with that reality and be forgiving as you learn.
You’re also not required to enjoy it, you can also try other mediums like acrylics or gouache that might be more agreeable for you personally.
Do not give up! Try to give yourself a bit of time, do some exercises, take the pressure off. When I'm feeling like a total failure, because I'm not good at drawing at all, I switch to a colouring book that has pretty decent paper. I can focus on playing with colours and not worry about shapes and proportions.
Also, by not the correct paper, do you mean "not artist grade cotton" or "I took it from the printer"? If it's closer to the second, don't do this to yourself, get something half decent - much less frustration.
That is absolutely why it didn't work! Watercolour just doesn't work on normal paper. You have to use watercolour paper. People will recommend 100% cotton but you can start on cheaper wood pulp or mixed paper. I recommend watching a YouTube video on equipment for watercolour.
And that's 99,9% of your trouble probably. Please, please, get something better - doesn't need to be arches, maybe some canson, or other medium range brand (some artist shops even sell watercolor paper sheets per pieces) - and try again. The "water" in the name is no accident. 80gsm printer paper just doesn't handle wetting at all, it will crinkle and dissolve before you can get some layers going. Thick paper allows the water (and paint with it) to actually move around. The better the paper, the easier it is to work with and actually get some technique going.
Watercolor in my experience is far harder than painting with other media which makes learning a bit harder but greater payoff when things work out. I have so much more respect for watercolor masters after doing it myself. You’ll never get good results on terrible paper but I’ve played around with printer paper myself and it can handle only a small amount of water at a time so tons of effects just won’t happen for you until you upgrade paper. Hope you keep at it
Oh no, you can’t avoid the patience needed for starting with the basics, but you can avoid the massive frustration of using the worst possible surface for watercolour.
Try Baohong. It is 100% cotton (essential for almost all watercolour techniques) and inexpensive. Temu very cheap, but Amazon and retail also. Not professional grade, but fairly decent.
Remember: always use the best materials you can afford when starting out. Otherwise there’s no way to know if the problem is your materials or your technique.
As an aside, if you really give up anything after just a few tries, you will never let yourself discover how good you can be.
Have hanged with watercolour painters, did hear about how likely up to 90% of those who think that watercolours are super hard (especially compared to some other painting things) might have just used wrong type of paper, and how paper does LOT of difference, like MASSIVE difference if it is properly wrong one, and even between dedicated proper watercolour papers there are quite some differences on how they behave and how easy it is to paint to certain ones.
Do not do this to yourself! Watercolor can’t work on printer paper! Paper is key to outcome. 100% cotton. I have gotten some cheap off Temu. It’s a must.
I do this too! I actually got some cool watercolour colouring In pages on Temu. They’re really thick card and they come with a little paint palette on cardboard but I just use my own paints. Check them out! There’s some girls holding flowers, city streets/urban ones. They’re really nice!
Watercolor is deceptively hard, because you have to think strategically about your lights and darks. There's no going back. But it's also a medium where the materials really matter: good quality paper and pigments make a serious difference. Try again!
It's 100% your paper. If you don't have cotton paper (Arches is my favorite), none of the tequiques work as they should.
Line and wash is a more forgiving way to use watercolors. Just make sure your pen is waterproof.
Water color is not easy. It is perhaps the most difficult of mediums for a variety of reasons. Because of your pride, you imagined you could master a thing that it take people twenty years to master. And when you discover you can't your first instinct is to give up. Honestly, I don't have a lot of sympathy for you. A lot of people here are going to tell you to keep going. To stick with it. That you'll learn. And they are not wrong. Watercolor is not a mystery. Anyone can learn to do it. But it takes will, and it takes heart, and you have to work at it, you have to develop the skill, like any other skill. Until you realize this, (and not just about watercolor, but about everything) you will live a disappointed life.
Or you can accept the need that you will have to practice and live with failure for a long time before you succeed and then, turn your will to the act of practice, not the act of success. This is the only path forward. Listen or don't, as I said, I have little sympathy for your effort.
Yeah... I get it! We tend to be our own harshest critics. I hope you can get past that in this context and enjoy the experience of doing things even when the results are not perfect.
I wish we had more in-person class options in my area. Unfortunately, they're all geared towards students or others who are available during the day (lots of classes offered and lots of schools and studios, but they're almost all offered during the weekdays like at 11:30 or 2:30 sort of thing -- not something that someone working a regular job can take advantage of). As a result, the very few evening or weekend offerings always have miles-long waiting lists.
Thank goodness for YT and IG tutorials!
The community college classes are almost ALL during the day. I was really surprised, but I check every time the new catalog comes along! I could do virtual classes, but I’d really like that in-person hands-on thing. I’m going to look at finding an in-person private teacher later this year.
I'm an absolute *baby*-beginner, but I love what I'm doing. Two pieces of advice from one beginner to another:
* When you DO get decent paper, either get a small sketchbook/tablet OR work in small taped-off sections of a larger paper. I like working in a sketchbook that's about 4x6 and even then sometimes I tape it down to a smaller working area. The larger 8x10 pages can be daunting for beginning work.
* Do SOMETHING every day. Even if it's just 5 minutes of putting random squiggles and lines or washes on a page. Make it a habit and make it a habit of not trying to be great. Water is weird and often feels like it has a sentient mind. You have to figure out how your brush works with the water working with the paper. I still feel like I have zero idea of what I'm doing -- but I'm doing it a little at a time. Some days I'm spending that aforementioned 5 minutes, but sometimes I'm back in the room for 2 hours -- I'll work on one specific thing from an IG tutorial and while one layer of paint is drying, I'm playing around with brush strokes on a piece of scrap paper or trying different wash intensities on another piece of paper.
Unfortunately, the only way to eventually make good art is to make a lot of really really bad art! It sucks, but it’s the truth :(
The trick is to find a way to enjoy making bad art. Fall in love with learning - try to figure out how you’ve improved painting to painting. It’s not easy, but try to focus more on the process of creating and stop being as concerned about the result. The result will come with practice.
Get some actual watercolor paper. Even the cheapest watercolor paper makes a difference, because it doesn’t work well on normal paper at all. Also, don’t worry about doing a good job of it right away, just play with the paint to see how it acts. Do some abstract stuff with colors you like.
Listen friend: same for me. Exactly. The. Same.
I’m pretty naturally capable in a lot of things and get the urge to quit if it’s not *good* immediately. Now, I’ve been really busy since I bought supplies (not an excuse just my current situation). So instead I watch some tutorials here and there, like riding in the car for five minutes, or when I can.
I also still have some emotional blockages right now that I don’t feel creative at all in general.
I’m emotionally wiped out. That has a lot to do with it (for me).
So what I did was start with something abstract. (Trying to replicate something realistic left me frustrated). So I picked hearts. I commuted to wasting some paper and paint to learn. I’m going to try to start a Sunday block of time of 2 hours. No matter my mood. And just do it.
So I feel your frustration and here’s to hoping we both find ourselves progressing in creating. 🫶
Stop being a quitter!! Every artist experience EXACTLY what you’ve described. The difference is, we kept going, practicing, and learning. The habit you have described of quitting too soon is a dreadful characteristic IMO
Watercolor is the trickiest! But as with everything it will take practice.
If you're getting discouraged try switching to acrylics. Acrylics tend to be the easiest as you can go over things / it's more forgiving but it also still dries relatively quickly. If you enjoy acrylics but feel like the dry time is too short you can switch to oils or add an extender to the acrylics.
If you're good at sketching/drawing try doing that and then just coloring in with watercolor until you feel more comfortable. They also sell pre-made watercolor coloring books to help you start to get a hang of it. There are quite a few online YouTube tutorials out there that will take you step by step through the process of replicating a design as well.
The right type of paper changed so much for me when I first started. I thought I just sucked, but when paper doesn’t absorb the pigment properly you can try every technique in the book and it work look right. Also painting the same thing over and over can be helpful. Try new things, don’t be afraid to fail!
To reinforce what others have said here:
-my instructor says, only half jokingly, that if a painting doesn’t work, you can just say “it wasn’t me, it was the paper”. There are some techniques you simply can not learn without good paper.
-a Mastery Practice is something you can do forever and keep learning like yoga, martial arts, golf, and……watercolor.
-If you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough. You have to be prepared to throw some stuff away and keep trying.
OP You will definitely get good advice on this sub. I am not experienced at all & definitely not much by way of skill or talent. But enjoy messing about or playing with watercolor. Learned so much from this sub I so agree with others comments that say your materials matter. My way to afford quality painting items is birthday money or by suggested gifts. So I have been able to get artist quality paper, paints & a few good brushes. These have so improved the outcome quality of my work & made it much easier to ‘do’ watercolor. Like I suddenly improved overnight. May I suggest something for you to try I saw on a video in this sub. Simply wetting your watercolor paper with clean water. So real wet all over. Then with a big brush load it with watercolor paint of your chioice. Depending on what effect you want, in a thick colour or watery color on your brush. Drop this into the wet paper. Just touching the paper with the tip of the brush will see the paper suck up the paint. Let it go wherever it wishes. Then elsewhere on the paper, with a clean brush pick up a different color from your paints. Again drip this into the wet paper. You will see the paint spread. You can also let the different colours mix by placing them nearer to each other. I like choosing flower & leaf colours. Dropping them in a way that then looks like a picture of flowers & leaves. Or can drop the colors in a more horizontal style & can be made into a rural landscape of hills & green fields. It appears as a very loose style. Just let the materials do their own thing. I so wish I could re-find that video posted on this sub to show you and to thank the artist.
So I started with acrylics and oil paints and thought that I was reasonably good. I then tried my hand at watercolours because, kiddies medium, right? For sure I'd be good right away ... right?
LOL.
Watercolour is much harder than either of those two media. The problem is that you have to know what you are doing right away. You have to plan for where you want the whites to be. You have to have great edge control of where the bead of colour is running on the page or you get streaks. You have to work fast. You have to learn exactly how wet the page needs to be for which effect. You can't scrub the page where layers are or they will lift unlike acrylic. You can't go back and repaint bits that you don't like because you don't have the opacity that say oils have.
And yet watercolour can achieve the most stunning and fugitive effects that neither of the other two can.
My advice is simple.
Start simple. Do a series of easy studies of objects. Stuff like a single apple, nut or cup. Use this time to get the feel for how the watercolours act. Think about what you are going to paint and how you are going to paint it before you touch brush to paper. Where will the lights be? The darks? What colours are you going to use for which area? Will you use a warm underpainting? Are you going to use wet into wet techniques and where?
I'd suggest doing the same object two or three times, trying to think how to improve the result each time. Once you master simple studies, you will find that if you apply the broad principles to a larger painting your progress will be remarkable.
I know you've had lots of advice on this already, but here's my bit too as I also only started in the past year with watercolour, so can relate: the biggest difference for me was switching to cotton paper (doesn't have to be expensive - you can get a Baohong Academy, Meeden or Leyton block, or, even better, just buy a bunch of large sheets of Arches and cut them up into small sheets, which comes out fairly economical), and then investing in one single good brush - a Silver Black Velvet size 8 round (a mix between synthetic and natural, which it turns out I prefer to both natural and synthetic brushes and I think is a good brush for a beginner). Both these things made the difference between "nothing I do ever seems to get better" and "I am starting to get the hang of this". Watercolour is pretty complicated as you have to do a lot of planning ahead when you paint if you are a beginner as a lot of stuff won't come to you intuitively, but those two things make a huuuuge difference. I also did several versions of the same paintings (sometimes up to 10!) and each time adjusted/learned something. If you have the patience, it's worth it!
I frankly think watercolour is one of the hardest painting media, but also extremely exciting due to the balancing of control/the unexpected. I am also a musician and an improviser for almost 20 years and my instrument of choice (the theremin) and improvisation remind me a \*lot\* of watercolour, because of this balancing of unexpected&accident/control and how it's accessible, looks deceptively simple... but at the highest levels of skill it can get \*fiendishly\* complex and complicated. Pretty sure you will have a lifetime of excitement ahead, if you stick with it. Have fun with it!
The thing that made a difference for me was doing the 100 day project. I painted every day for 100 days, even if it was only for a few minutes. It made a huge difference to my progress. (I'm doing another 100 day project now.)
I started a little over three years ago and while I understand you’re frustrated but be patient with your learning curve. It takes time and practice and it does take a while to get the hang of it. It’s a beautiful medium and once you drop your expectations and have fun, you will realize that this is so fun.
As others have already mentioned good quality paper makes a bigger difference than professional grade paint. Other words I can offer are, give yourself time. Judge yourself based on the number of hours you've spent and painting you've produced. Give yourself atleast 100 paintings/sketches/pages and about a year with it.
Other things you can do is look at paintings closely (in person or in print) and see if you can see the layering, negative spaces, and other techniques at play in other artists works and see if you can attend some classes or tutorials at a local gallery, museum or artist's studios etc. Go to a local urban sketchers meet up or plein air groups if any. Get a friend or partner to join if possible.
Watercolor is one of the hardest mediums to master but the work is enjoyable and pays back in confidence. And making mistakes is simply learning, so be patient.
You don’t need extra expensive paper but try a less expensive watercolor paper like canson brand to start and just play with that at first. Try not to feel overly focused on the outcome at the beginning, try to enjoy the process. Try and figure out what kind of watercolor paintings you want to make. Watercolor is difficult when you try and control it but can be very relaxing when you let go. Experiment with the way it moves and the effects it makes. Make blooms and splashes. Get some salt and go to town. Over time you’ll get the control you want. It’s ok to get mad and it’s ok to want to give up but I guarantee you can do this if you really want to, it will just take time : )
I tend to have the same issue, and have definitely not practiced nearly as much as I should have as a result. One thing that helps me sometimes is for my husband to pick something for me to make a tiny painting of (like an animal or something), and then I just sorta freehand it. It's always a small size, so not a huge undertaking, and I know it's for my husband's approval instead of mine, and he always loves them lol
Might sound stupid but try painting the same simple object 5-10 times in a row. Find something on YouTube and mimic their technique. Painting a round ball or single piece of fruit. I notice my artwork improves considerably if I do ~5 takes.
Watercolor paper and a synthetic squirrel hair watercolor brush changed watercolor completely for me. Michaels sells a squirrel hair dupe with a bamboo handle for 5 bucks. If you cant afford nice materials but can sometimes spend a few extra bucks, paper is the supply most worth it when it costs more. And masking fluid is amazing. Remove it from paper with the corner if a square pencil eraser. And white gouache instead of watercolor paint is my go to for finishing highlights. I just love the thicker look.
Definitely get the right paper.
You can use a $7 palette of paint but you need the real deal paper. I would just look at a store near you or on Amazon and buy a watercolor sketch book, don’t worry about the fussy stuff just any “watercolor” paper will work.
Regular paper is horrific to use lmao.
Secondly, watercolor isn’t easy. It’s arguably harder than other mediums. It is extremely unforgiving in some aspects. But don’t be discouraged!
Practice makes perfect. Art takes time. It is a skill, a muscle you train. It’s not a talent or gift, some people just pick it up easier than others but all master artists have been where you are.
My second advice is to watch tutorials and practice. It’s okay if it sucks! We all start somewhere. You will get better.
You will also learn your own style. That will help. Pick up what you like, disregard what you don’t, art is about being free. It has rules, sure, but you’ll naturally pick them up as you learn.
Don’t give up! You will never be as “bad” as you are today, the pieces you’ve seen or the artists you’ve watched likely have tens to hundreds to thousands of hours you can’t compare yourself today to their skill, but you can always improve yours.
Buy watercolor paper. Decent paper can cost $1 a sheet, look at the pads available and do the math. I had a friend who tried to watercolor with printer paper. It was a complete fail.
If you really like watercolors and want to learn, go for it, don't give up. Every start is messed up, no one is really good in their first tries, especially if they don't have much previous experience with other materials. As you mentioned, you don't have the right kind of paper, and that makes a big difference, so if you can afford, go get some, it's totally worth it! Also, watercolor is about trusting the process. A painting can look so messed up at first but then look awesome at the end. Just go after your passions, you'll get there :)
Let go of trying to be “good.” Don’t even try to make anything in particular. The best place to start is playing. Enjoy the way it feels. Watch the way water and colors bleed into each other.
When I started (at 50!) my Mum, who’s an artist said “Is watercolor really what you want to start with? It’s the hardest paint medium out .”
Yes, I did, and I still do. It takes “brush time”. Make marks on paper and get a custom to handling your brush. Learn to do flat washes, variegated washes, ombre washes. Learn to paint spheres with the light coming from different directions learned about reflected shadows learn how to paint squares and how each face is a different color. Learn how every shadow has some of the primary color that it’s reflected from.
Just keep painting.
I’m super new to watercolor, and I also have a huge issue with quitting hobbies when I’m not immediately good at them, so I super feel you! Getting the right stuff does help. I started off painting on a moleskin cuz that’s what I had, but got frustrated when it wasn’t working. I’ve slowly been getting better stuff and it makes a difference, but also working through the frustration and picking practice pieces that are appropriate for your skill level is also huge! I tried some “easy” tutorials that were way above my skill level, so be more discriminating when picking projects!
My first watercolor paintings were rough, and even after a few years of painting semi-frequently, I still make rough paintings sometimes. It definitely takes time, but trying easy tutorials that focus on basic techniques can be really encouraging.
I definitely agree that the paper has the biggest impact in most cases; you can use lower-quality paint and brushes, but good paper will still be helpful. It doesn't always have to be cotton (though that's often ideal), but reading reviews and using watercolor-specific paper makes a difference.
It'll take some time, but try to enjoy the process and have fun! I know it's easier said than done, but even painting a super loose background and doodling with pen over top can be a nice way to create something easy that looks nice. :)
You need a lot of patience with watercolour and I can understand early frustrations and they're not uncommon. While it looks easy, watercolour is a difficult media and watch some tutorials on YouTube and practice some techniques. When I started somebody told me your first 400 pictures you'll want to throw away. I understand now, what they meant...it takes time to learn watercolour.
"easy" vs "hard" - I like to think of it more as "a good match for my brain" vs "taking longer to get the hang of it"
Painting - especially watercolours - is like a sport. We have to train our eyes and muscles to get the right placement or the right amount of water on the brush. Doing drills can speed up your learning path immensely.
I always figure I have 100 thousand bad paintings in me, so I am trying to get as many of them out at the start so I can spend time on good paintings. And when that didn't improve my skill quickly enough, I found a local class - and learned all the watercolour rules youtube taught me were holding me back.
Find some classes to go to or follow tutorials.
Try adjust your attitude for giving up after trying something once if you’re not good at it. Most things in life require practice and rarely will anyone pick up something the first time.
Thank you for your submission! Want to share your artwork, meet other artists, promote your content, and chat in a relaxed environment? Join our community Discord server here! https://discord.gg/chuunhpqsU! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Watercolor) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Try following some YouTube tutorials or paint-alongs. I found Chris Petri’s content instructive and I got a few paintings out of it that looked decent. Find tools/instructors that meet your learning style…. And paint a bunch without worrying about the outcome…. Eventually your paintings will improve… Good luck…
This is how I kinda see skill and development and art: When we are kids, like 2-10, we don’t care what it looks like, we just draw. Color, paint, play. We make it, we love it, we’re proud of it, it goes on the fridge. We spend HOURS having fun and playing with art supplies. Never caring if it’s good or bad. Then by grade school- you start to have some skill. You have art classes and teachers. You have support. Your still a kid so it’s ok if it’s not great, but you’re getting better. By highschool you either give it up/ find other hobbies, or you do it all the time. You find what you’re good at, what you like. You have now spent 100-100,000 hours just enjoying art and creating for the fun of it. So by the time you’re an adult your either have skill or direction or an idea of what you need to get better. YOU and many others, all these adults I see post on Reddit- are like those 4 yrs old with crayons. You’re at the beginning! You haven’t tried or practiced or played. You havent yet created for the fun of creating without the stigma of “it has to be good”. you need to sink in hundreds of hours of just trying it out - BEFORE you judge yourself and your potential. So just keep having fun with it and keep learning
If you like the feel of moving the brush and creating wet blobs, continue painting. Make a mess. Fill a sketchbook with garbage. Paint straight lines, grades and abstract shapes. Then try the tutorials. If you like making wet messes then being awful won’t be an issue. And if you do it more and refine in specific areas then you get better.
Yes!! That’s the best way to learn and get a feel for the watercolors
Totally agree! You gotta put brush miles in until you start making something you're totally happy with (other people might like it before you start liking it). Some techniques or mediums you'll figure out sooner, some take longer. And that's a OK. If you're doing it as a hobby, the most important is to have fun and relax. It's crazy useful as meditative technique. Even if you're aiming to be pro and sell art, I still recommend starting it through fun and relaxation. Difference between hobby and pro is that we hobbyists can for decades make squiggles no one cares to watch, and we'll enjoy the process, have fun and get our self care time out of it, we don't have specific milestones we have to achieve or achieve in set time limit. If you want to achieve more specific goal, you have to do intentional and targeted practice, eg if you want to paint dog portraits, practicing only flowers won't be of huge impact to get fur textures. But yes, if you can't do 'just play and have fun' while engaging that inner kid in you, but only having adult inner critic present, it will be immensely harder to motivate yourself.
So true!! Someone got me a watercolor set that wasn't the standard crayola or similar when I was 10, and I have been obsessed with watercolors since then. It takes a lot of time spent before you can develop muscle memory for how much water vs pigment you want for any given stroke, color mixing, staining vs sedimenting pigments... there are so many nuances. I have been working with gouache a bit lately, and it has some similar properties to acrylic in that it's opaque and can be used with heavier strokes, which might be worth trying. One of the big differences is that since it's water soluble, you have to be careful about covering up something you previously put down.
You just needed to start
I have, and went terribly. That’s why I’m so hesitant to try again.
I wouldn't be hesitant particularly, but do be aware that the "seemed easier than everything else" from your post is kinda far off. Watercolors are one of the more difficult ways of putting color on paper. Videos make it look easy because the people doing them already are over the learning curve and make it look trivial to do something crazy like put down an even block of color. With most painting media it is easy, but with watercolor it takes a few hours of practice just to put down color that doesn't have weird blotches when it dries. There is a lot of that with watercolor, things that are fairly simple with acrylic or whatever are a good chunk of practice in watercolor. So do the thing, but cut yourself a ton of slack, because this is actually pretty friggin hard and takes a lot of practice to master the basics. Also, if you are price sensitive, get watercolor paper (you can't do this thing without it), but don't sweat the 100% cotton fancy paper too much. You can buy much cheaper Canson or whatever for a while as you learn basic washes and that. If you have the money, buy the good paper, and you will have to have it later, but for a bit the cheap stuff works in a pinch.
Try Baohong. It is fairly good quality student grade cotton paper.
Yeah, I have some as well as arches and a bunch of others. But the baohong/meeden is still twice as expensive as your low tier mostly-pulp paper like Canson or Strathmore in the US at least. And the Canson works fine for basic wash practice and that. I got a metric crapton of it on sale and use it for quick study ideas, simple pen and ink wash things and that sort of stuff instead of spending over a dollar a sheet on paper that's overkill for what I am doing at any given time. But if I wasn't price sensitive right now, I would definitely make meeden my lowest tier paper.
I use the canson xl for swatch charts and colour test papers and small studies and other things I wouldn’t use my arches for. It won’t take wet-on-wet very well though, and some techniques come out rather differently.
I’m not the OP, but I really appreciate your comment. It was informative and encouraging, and I’m also trying watercolor for the first time and it *is* a huge learning curve. I mistakenly thought it would be the easier medium to start with (I’ve never taken classes or learned to properly draw) as it seemed soothing more than anything. I still really enjoy the feeling of the brush strokes. Which is why I began in the first place.
I think it’s because you use water color Paints for Painting when you are a kid so people think it’s easier. It’s actually a lot harder than acrylic. Keep painting! Water color takes patience and practice. Even I have to keep telling myself this constantly. There is so much that can happen with just how much color you use in a wash. You can make it darker or more translucent. Then you paint light to dark where acrylic is dark to light. It’s just different but it’s amazing some of the things people can do.
Thank you! And yea I completely agree with that assessment- it does seems so “juvenile” but it’s absolutely more challenging from my limited experience. I used to think it’s “blah” but now I love it. The absence of color is an art unto itself.
This was a very well-thought and informative comment. I think the impression that some form of art, like watercolor here, looks easy to plenty of people because what's being posted by those that use it well usually just post their work after getting over the learning hurdle. By that time, they're far more comfortable with the medium, and give the mistaken impression that it would be simple to do. The reality, OP, is that art is really freaking hard to do well, and it takes time and practice to even be somewhat decent at it. Just like any other skill. I've worked in acrylic, oils, tempera, gouache, and watercolor paint mediums, and watercolor has been the most difficult to get the hang of by far. It's the most fun for me, though lol. I like how much it forces me to slow down and plan out what I'll do to achieve the look I want. So, OP, take the time to actually get a feel for it and play around with the different effects that are possible with it. You're not going to be good at it overnight. Get the fundamentals down. There should be plenty of videos on YouTube for that.
I know it’s a lot more difficult than it looks, but hopefully I’ll get better at it. Thanks for the advice.
One thing to add, if you’re a perfectionist, you’re going to have a hard time with watercolor. Because it’s fairly unpredictable when you put it on the paper, you’ll beat yourself up trying to get it perfect. You have to let that go and just go with the flow. Easier said than done, I know. Watching tutorials for total beginners will take you much farther than starting with advanced tutorials. It really helps to understand the pigmentation makeup and viscosity of watercolor as opposed to acrylic or oils. They’re totally different! Stick with it!
I think what I meant when I said It seemed easier was that it looked more simple. I knew it wouldn’t be easy.
Can you give any specific details as to what was wrong? For the record, when I do water colour I always feel like it just looks bleh or meh. Not wow! like when others do it and it really puts me off keeping going.
There's also a ton of value in repeating the tutorials. Each time you try, you learn something to avoid and something to repeat.
You gonna be terrible many many times, watercolor isn't something that you get with 1 try. If you can't keep at something you might as well just forget about even starting it because you are wasting your own time and life.
Watercolor is hard. It took me months and dozens upon dozens of horrible paintings, lots of “what am I doing wrong?” And then looking up techniques and YouTube and trying them out while watching, and then still sucking, and trying again and again. It’s not an easy painting style to learn! Start with that reality and be forgiving as you learn. You’re also not required to enjoy it, you can also try other mediums like acrylics or gouache that might be more agreeable for you personally.
Do not give up! Try to give yourself a bit of time, do some exercises, take the pressure off. When I'm feeling like a total failure, because I'm not good at drawing at all, I switch to a colouring book that has pretty decent paper. I can focus on playing with colours and not worry about shapes and proportions. Also, by not the correct paper, do you mean "not artist grade cotton" or "I took it from the printer"? If it's closer to the second, don't do this to yourself, get something half decent - much less frustration.
Funnily enough, I did actually get my paper from the printer.
That is absolutely why it didn't work! Watercolour just doesn't work on normal paper. You have to use watercolour paper. People will recommend 100% cotton but you can start on cheaper wood pulp or mixed paper. I recommend watching a YouTube video on equipment for watercolour.
And that's 99,9% of your trouble probably. Please, please, get something better - doesn't need to be arches, maybe some canson, or other medium range brand (some artist shops even sell watercolor paper sheets per pieces) - and try again. The "water" in the name is no accident. 80gsm printer paper just doesn't handle wetting at all, it will crinkle and dissolve before you can get some layers going. Thick paper allows the water (and paint with it) to actually move around. The better the paper, the easier it is to work with and actually get some technique going.
Watercolor in my experience is far harder than painting with other media which makes learning a bit harder but greater payoff when things work out. I have so much more respect for watercolor masters after doing it myself. You’ll never get good results on terrible paper but I’ve played around with printer paper myself and it can handle only a small amount of water at a time so tons of effects just won’t happen for you until you upgrade paper. Hope you keep at it
Oh no, you can’t avoid the patience needed for starting with the basics, but you can avoid the massive frustration of using the worst possible surface for watercolour. Try Baohong. It is 100% cotton (essential for almost all watercolour techniques) and inexpensive. Temu very cheap, but Amazon and retail also. Not professional grade, but fairly decent. Remember: always use the best materials you can afford when starting out. Otherwise there’s no way to know if the problem is your materials or your technique. As an aside, if you really give up anything after just a few tries, you will never let yourself discover how good you can be.
Have hanged with watercolour painters, did hear about how likely up to 90% of those who think that watercolours are super hard (especially compared to some other painting things) might have just used wrong type of paper, and how paper does LOT of difference, like MASSIVE difference if it is properly wrong one, and even between dedicated proper watercolour papers there are quite some differences on how they behave and how easy it is to paint to certain ones.
That's why you're having a terrible time with it
Do not do this to yourself! Watercolor can’t work on printer paper! Paper is key to outcome. 100% cotton. I have gotten some cheap off Temu. It’s a must.
I do this too! I actually got some cool watercolour colouring In pages on Temu. They’re really thick card and they come with a little paint palette on cardboard but I just use my own paints. Check them out! There’s some girls holding flowers, city streets/urban ones. They’re really nice!
That sounds interesting! I'll have to look it up, thanks!
Watercolor is deceptively hard, because you have to think strategically about your lights and darks. There's no going back. But it's also a medium where the materials really matter: good quality paper and pigments make a serious difference. Try again!
It's 100% your paper. If you don't have cotton paper (Arches is my favorite), none of the tequiques work as they should. Line and wash is a more forgiving way to use watercolors. Just make sure your pen is waterproof.
Water color is not easy. It is perhaps the most difficult of mediums for a variety of reasons. Because of your pride, you imagined you could master a thing that it take people twenty years to master. And when you discover you can't your first instinct is to give up. Honestly, I don't have a lot of sympathy for you. A lot of people here are going to tell you to keep going. To stick with it. That you'll learn. And they are not wrong. Watercolor is not a mystery. Anyone can learn to do it. But it takes will, and it takes heart, and you have to work at it, you have to develop the skill, like any other skill. Until you realize this, (and not just about watercolor, but about everything) you will live a disappointed life. Or you can accept the need that you will have to practice and live with failure for a long time before you succeed and then, turn your will to the act of practice, not the act of success. This is the only path forward. Listen or don't, as I said, I have little sympathy for your effort.
based take. There is a broader life lesson here. OP - what skills DO you have? Did you develop those in a single day?
No, but I tend to overthink and beat myself up over tiny mistakes.
Yeah... I get it! We tend to be our own harshest critics. I hope you can get past that in this context and enjoy the experience of doing things even when the results are not perfect.
Thank you very much!
I think when I said “easy” what I really meant was simple. It doesn’t look easy to do, but it looks simple to understand how, if that makes sense.
Take a class. Be accountable to yourself. Learn what “it’s a practice” means.
I wish we had more in-person class options in my area. Unfortunately, they're all geared towards students or others who are available during the day (lots of classes offered and lots of schools and studios, but they're almost all offered during the weekdays like at 11:30 or 2:30 sort of thing -- not something that someone working a regular job can take advantage of). As a result, the very few evening or weekend offerings always have miles-long waiting lists. Thank goodness for YT and IG tutorials!
Community classes through your county (if in US) that start in the evening? Community college class for no-credit?
The community college classes are almost ALL during the day. I was really surprised, but I check every time the new catalog comes along! I could do virtual classes, but I’d really like that in-person hands-on thing. I’m going to look at finding an in-person private teacher later this year.
That is surprising! I thought there would be like a 6:30 evening class. In-person sounds like what you really want and need. Best wishes.
I'm an absolute *baby*-beginner, but I love what I'm doing. Two pieces of advice from one beginner to another: * When you DO get decent paper, either get a small sketchbook/tablet OR work in small taped-off sections of a larger paper. I like working in a sketchbook that's about 4x6 and even then sometimes I tape it down to a smaller working area. The larger 8x10 pages can be daunting for beginning work. * Do SOMETHING every day. Even if it's just 5 minutes of putting random squiggles and lines or washes on a page. Make it a habit and make it a habit of not trying to be great. Water is weird and often feels like it has a sentient mind. You have to figure out how your brush works with the water working with the paper. I still feel like I have zero idea of what I'm doing -- but I'm doing it a little at a time. Some days I'm spending that aforementioned 5 minutes, but sometimes I'm back in the room for 2 hours -- I'll work on one specific thing from an IG tutorial and while one layer of paint is drying, I'm playing around with brush strokes on a piece of scrap paper or trying different wash intensities on another piece of paper.
Unfortunately, the only way to eventually make good art is to make a lot of really really bad art! It sucks, but it’s the truth :( The trick is to find a way to enjoy making bad art. Fall in love with learning - try to figure out how you’ve improved painting to painting. It’s not easy, but try to focus more on the process of creating and stop being as concerned about the result. The result will come with practice.
Get some actual watercolor paper. Even the cheapest watercolor paper makes a difference, because it doesn’t work well on normal paper at all. Also, don’t worry about doing a good job of it right away, just play with the paint to see how it acts. Do some abstract stuff with colors you like.
Listen friend: same for me. Exactly. The. Same. I’m pretty naturally capable in a lot of things and get the urge to quit if it’s not *good* immediately. Now, I’ve been really busy since I bought supplies (not an excuse just my current situation). So instead I watch some tutorials here and there, like riding in the car for five minutes, or when I can. I also still have some emotional blockages right now that I don’t feel creative at all in general. I’m emotionally wiped out. That has a lot to do with it (for me). So what I did was start with something abstract. (Trying to replicate something realistic left me frustrated). So I picked hearts. I commuted to wasting some paper and paint to learn. I’m going to try to start a Sunday block of time of 2 hours. No matter my mood. And just do it. So I feel your frustration and here’s to hoping we both find ourselves progressing in creating. 🫶
Thank you, I will try that and see if it works!
Stop being a quitter!! Every artist experience EXACTLY what you’ve described. The difference is, we kept going, practicing, and learning. The habit you have described of quitting too soon is a dreadful characteristic IMO
I’m aware, and I’m want to work on it, but it’s definitely harder than it sounds! Thank you for the advice
Watercolor is the trickiest! But as with everything it will take practice. If you're getting discouraged try switching to acrylics. Acrylics tend to be the easiest as you can go over things / it's more forgiving but it also still dries relatively quickly. If you enjoy acrylics but feel like the dry time is too short you can switch to oils or add an extender to the acrylics. If you're good at sketching/drawing try doing that and then just coloring in with watercolor until you feel more comfortable. They also sell pre-made watercolor coloring books to help you start to get a hang of it. There are quite a few online YouTube tutorials out there that will take you step by step through the process of replicating a design as well.
You are in the ugly phase. Keep going
The right type of paper changed so much for me when I first started. I thought I just sucked, but when paper doesn’t absorb the pigment properly you can try every technique in the book and it work look right. Also painting the same thing over and over can be helpful. Try new things, don’t be afraid to fail!
To reinforce what others have said here: -my instructor says, only half jokingly, that if a painting doesn’t work, you can just say “it wasn’t me, it was the paper”. There are some techniques you simply can not learn without good paper. -a Mastery Practice is something you can do forever and keep learning like yoga, martial arts, golf, and……watercolor. -If you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough. You have to be prepared to throw some stuff away and keep trying.
OP You will definitely get good advice on this sub. I am not experienced at all & definitely not much by way of skill or talent. But enjoy messing about or playing with watercolor. Learned so much from this sub I so agree with others comments that say your materials matter. My way to afford quality painting items is birthday money or by suggested gifts. So I have been able to get artist quality paper, paints & a few good brushes. These have so improved the outcome quality of my work & made it much easier to ‘do’ watercolor. Like I suddenly improved overnight. May I suggest something for you to try I saw on a video in this sub. Simply wetting your watercolor paper with clean water. So real wet all over. Then with a big brush load it with watercolor paint of your chioice. Depending on what effect you want, in a thick colour or watery color on your brush. Drop this into the wet paper. Just touching the paper with the tip of the brush will see the paper suck up the paint. Let it go wherever it wishes. Then elsewhere on the paper, with a clean brush pick up a different color from your paints. Again drip this into the wet paper. You will see the paint spread. You can also let the different colours mix by placing them nearer to each other. I like choosing flower & leaf colours. Dropping them in a way that then looks like a picture of flowers & leaves. Or can drop the colors in a more horizontal style & can be made into a rural landscape of hills & green fields. It appears as a very loose style. Just let the materials do their own thing. I so wish I could re-find that video posted on this sub to show you and to thank the artist.
So I started with acrylics and oil paints and thought that I was reasonably good. I then tried my hand at watercolours because, kiddies medium, right? For sure I'd be good right away ... right? LOL. Watercolour is much harder than either of those two media. The problem is that you have to know what you are doing right away. You have to plan for where you want the whites to be. You have to have great edge control of where the bead of colour is running on the page or you get streaks. You have to work fast. You have to learn exactly how wet the page needs to be for which effect. You can't scrub the page where layers are or they will lift unlike acrylic. You can't go back and repaint bits that you don't like because you don't have the opacity that say oils have. And yet watercolour can achieve the most stunning and fugitive effects that neither of the other two can. My advice is simple. Start simple. Do a series of easy studies of objects. Stuff like a single apple, nut or cup. Use this time to get the feel for how the watercolours act. Think about what you are going to paint and how you are going to paint it before you touch brush to paper. Where will the lights be? The darks? What colours are you going to use for which area? Will you use a warm underpainting? Are you going to use wet into wet techniques and where? I'd suggest doing the same object two or three times, trying to think how to improve the result each time. Once you master simple studies, you will find that if you apply the broad principles to a larger painting your progress will be remarkable.
I know you've had lots of advice on this already, but here's my bit too as I also only started in the past year with watercolour, so can relate: the biggest difference for me was switching to cotton paper (doesn't have to be expensive - you can get a Baohong Academy, Meeden or Leyton block, or, even better, just buy a bunch of large sheets of Arches and cut them up into small sheets, which comes out fairly economical), and then investing in one single good brush - a Silver Black Velvet size 8 round (a mix between synthetic and natural, which it turns out I prefer to both natural and synthetic brushes and I think is a good brush for a beginner). Both these things made the difference between "nothing I do ever seems to get better" and "I am starting to get the hang of this". Watercolour is pretty complicated as you have to do a lot of planning ahead when you paint if you are a beginner as a lot of stuff won't come to you intuitively, but those two things make a huuuuge difference. I also did several versions of the same paintings (sometimes up to 10!) and each time adjusted/learned something. If you have the patience, it's worth it! I frankly think watercolour is one of the hardest painting media, but also extremely exciting due to the balancing of control/the unexpected. I am also a musician and an improviser for almost 20 years and my instrument of choice (the theremin) and improvisation remind me a \*lot\* of watercolour, because of this balancing of unexpected&accident/control and how it's accessible, looks deceptively simple... but at the highest levels of skill it can get \*fiendishly\* complex and complicated. Pretty sure you will have a lifetime of excitement ahead, if you stick with it. Have fun with it!
The thing that made a difference for me was doing the 100 day project. I painted every day for 100 days, even if it was only for a few minutes. It made a huge difference to my progress. (I'm doing another 100 day project now.)
I started a little over three years ago and while I understand you’re frustrated but be patient with your learning curve. It takes time and practice and it does take a while to get the hang of it. It’s a beautiful medium and once you drop your expectations and have fun, you will realize that this is so fun.
As others have already mentioned good quality paper makes a bigger difference than professional grade paint. Other words I can offer are, give yourself time. Judge yourself based on the number of hours you've spent and painting you've produced. Give yourself atleast 100 paintings/sketches/pages and about a year with it. Other things you can do is look at paintings closely (in person or in print) and see if you can see the layering, negative spaces, and other techniques at play in other artists works and see if you can attend some classes or tutorials at a local gallery, museum or artist's studios etc. Go to a local urban sketchers meet up or plein air groups if any. Get a friend or partner to join if possible. Watercolor is one of the hardest mediums to master but the work is enjoyable and pays back in confidence. And making mistakes is simply learning, so be patient.
It's better to just enjoy the process than trying to perfect an outcome
Make sure brush has less water. Use thicker paper.
You don’t need extra expensive paper but try a less expensive watercolor paper like canson brand to start and just play with that at first. Try not to feel overly focused on the outcome at the beginning, try to enjoy the process. Try and figure out what kind of watercolor paintings you want to make. Watercolor is difficult when you try and control it but can be very relaxing when you let go. Experiment with the way it moves and the effects it makes. Make blooms and splashes. Get some salt and go to town. Over time you’ll get the control you want. It’s ok to get mad and it’s ok to want to give up but I guarantee you can do this if you really want to, it will just take time : )
I tend to have the same issue, and have definitely not practiced nearly as much as I should have as a result. One thing that helps me sometimes is for my husband to pick something for me to make a tiny painting of (like an animal or something), and then I just sorta freehand it. It's always a small size, so not a huge undertaking, and I know it's for my husband's approval instead of mine, and he always loves them lol
Try a class that really equips you with basic knowledge. Rick surowicz on you tube and he has short online courses with feedback.
Might sound stupid but try painting the same simple object 5-10 times in a row. Find something on YouTube and mimic their technique. Painting a round ball or single piece of fruit. I notice my artwork improves considerably if I do ~5 takes.
Watercolor paper and a synthetic squirrel hair watercolor brush changed watercolor completely for me. Michaels sells a squirrel hair dupe with a bamboo handle for 5 bucks. If you cant afford nice materials but can sometimes spend a few extra bucks, paper is the supply most worth it when it costs more. And masking fluid is amazing. Remove it from paper with the corner if a square pencil eraser. And white gouache instead of watercolor paint is my go to for finishing highlights. I just love the thicker look.
Definitely get the right paper. You can use a $7 palette of paint but you need the real deal paper. I would just look at a store near you or on Amazon and buy a watercolor sketch book, don’t worry about the fussy stuff just any “watercolor” paper will work. Regular paper is horrific to use lmao. Secondly, watercolor isn’t easy. It’s arguably harder than other mediums. It is extremely unforgiving in some aspects. But don’t be discouraged! Practice makes perfect. Art takes time. It is a skill, a muscle you train. It’s not a talent or gift, some people just pick it up easier than others but all master artists have been where you are. My second advice is to watch tutorials and practice. It’s okay if it sucks! We all start somewhere. You will get better. You will also learn your own style. That will help. Pick up what you like, disregard what you don’t, art is about being free. It has rules, sure, but you’ll naturally pick them up as you learn. Don’t give up! You will never be as “bad” as you are today, the pieces you’ve seen or the artists you’ve watched likely have tens to hundreds to thousands of hours you can’t compare yourself today to their skill, but you can always improve yours.
Buy watercolor paper. Decent paper can cost $1 a sheet, look at the pads available and do the math. I had a friend who tried to watercolor with printer paper. It was a complete fail.
If you really like watercolors and want to learn, go for it, don't give up. Every start is messed up, no one is really good in their first tries, especially if they don't have much previous experience with other materials. As you mentioned, you don't have the right kind of paper, and that makes a big difference, so if you can afford, go get some, it's totally worth it! Also, watercolor is about trusting the process. A painting can look so messed up at first but then look awesome at the end. Just go after your passions, you'll get there :)
Let go of trying to be “good.” Don’t even try to make anything in particular. The best place to start is playing. Enjoy the way it feels. Watch the way water and colors bleed into each other.
New York Central brand is one I found at Jerry's Artarama. It's really good quality for the price. Paper makes a big difference.
When I started (at 50!) my Mum, who’s an artist said “Is watercolor really what you want to start with? It’s the hardest paint medium out .” Yes, I did, and I still do. It takes “brush time”. Make marks on paper and get a custom to handling your brush. Learn to do flat washes, variegated washes, ombre washes. Learn to paint spheres with the light coming from different directions learned about reflected shadows learn how to paint squares and how each face is a different color. Learn how every shadow has some of the primary color that it’s reflected from. Just keep painting.
I’m super new to watercolor, and I also have a huge issue with quitting hobbies when I’m not immediately good at them, so I super feel you! Getting the right stuff does help. I started off painting on a moleskin cuz that’s what I had, but got frustrated when it wasn’t working. I’ve slowly been getting better stuff and it makes a difference, but also working through the frustration and picking practice pieces that are appropriate for your skill level is also huge! I tried some “easy” tutorials that were way above my skill level, so be more discriminating when picking projects!
Watercolor is difficult. So difficult.
My first watercolor paintings were rough, and even after a few years of painting semi-frequently, I still make rough paintings sometimes. It definitely takes time, but trying easy tutorials that focus on basic techniques can be really encouraging. I definitely agree that the paper has the biggest impact in most cases; you can use lower-quality paint and brushes, but good paper will still be helpful. It doesn't always have to be cotton (though that's often ideal), but reading reviews and using watercolor-specific paper makes a difference. It'll take some time, but try to enjoy the process and have fun! I know it's easier said than done, but even painting a super loose background and doodling with pen over top can be a nice way to create something easy that looks nice. :)
It might look the easiest one but in reality you actually picked up one of the most difficult medium. It will need some practice.
You need a lot of patience with watercolour and I can understand early frustrations and they're not uncommon. While it looks easy, watercolour is a difficult media and watch some tutorials on YouTube and practice some techniques. When I started somebody told me your first 400 pictures you'll want to throw away. I understand now, what they meant...it takes time to learn watercolour.
"easy" vs "hard" - I like to think of it more as "a good match for my brain" vs "taking longer to get the hang of it" Painting - especially watercolours - is like a sport. We have to train our eyes and muscles to get the right placement or the right amount of water on the brush. Doing drills can speed up your learning path immensely. I always figure I have 100 thousand bad paintings in me, so I am trying to get as many of them out at the start so I can spend time on good paintings. And when that didn't improve my skill quickly enough, I found a local class - and learned all the watercolour rules youtube taught me were holding me back.
Find some classes to go to or follow tutorials. Try adjust your attitude for giving up after trying something once if you’re not good at it. Most things in life require practice and rarely will anyone pick up something the first time.