How To Paint Your First Watercolor?

Watercolor is known for being a bit difficult to use, but that’s not true. In this video Yves-Marie Salanson (artistic director) show you how easy it is to paint with watercolor.

To do this watercolor painting Yves-Marie Salanson uses:
- A wash brush Isabey 6234 n°2 (great for backgrounds, sky and details)
- A round brush Isabey Kolinsky sable 6227 n°8 (great for details)
- The Sennelier travel box “La Petite Aquarelle” (you can also use the Sennelier l’Aquarelle)
- The Sennelier “Académie” Watercolour pads

Yves-Marie Salanson suggests you 3 easy golden rules to succeed in watercolor painting. With watercolor, you can do a lot of things. You can summarize a landscape or an atmosphere with only few brush strokes.

Golden rule 1: paint all the paper in the same time (don’t begin in the corner)
Golden rule 2: Use a lot of water. At the beginning use a lot of water and you reduce it gradually as you go along the painting.
Golden rule 3: Avoid precise details. We don’t need any details because watercolor is not a reproduction but an interpretation.

First, we do a sketch. Add water everywhere except on boats and houses.
Then we can play with colors (watch the video to discover how Yves-Marie Salanson applies them).
Once the painting is dry, we add more colors but with less water. You can create contrast in the background and add colors on the boats. Let the white color on the side of the boat on which the light will fall and add colors on the other side.
When you create shadows, do not forget to use complementary colors. For example, if you add shadow on the sand, like the sand is a naple yellow you have to add his complementary color which is purple. To finish, add more contrast.
You can see your watercolor appears as you go along the painting.