Artistic Watercolor Techniques for Illustrating Birds

Get to know your teacher Sarah Stokes, who tells you how she became a full-time gallery artist and introduces you to the work of some artists and photographers that inspire her work. She also introduces the materials and covers the best paint for watercolor compositions.

Begin with some theory on tonal values and see why it’s so important to get them right. Do your first bird drawing in graphite, ensuring the dark, light, and mid-tones are correctly applied. Then, Sarah goes through some color theory, starting with how to mix and use watercolors effectively. Learn how warm and cold colors play their part in a composition, and create color palettes using both saturated and desaturated hues.

In the next unit, learn to master watercolor properties such as pigment control, timing, wetness, and more, to obtain the results you want. Practice a variety of expressive brushstrokes and mark-making techniques before painting your first watercolor bird using just one color.

Now it’s time to embark on a colorful journey of painting birds in watercolor. See where to get the ideal photo references and work on them digitally to get them “paint-ready”. Use practical aspects like branch shapes, negative space, and color to tell a story through your composition.

Finally, use gel pens to finish your composition and add paint splashes and drips to complete your piece. Sarah finishes the course by sharing some ideas for taking your concept further and developing a series.