How to Paint Decorative Design in Watercolor

How to Paint Decorative Design in Watercolor

By Vladimir London, Watercolor Academy tutor

Part 4 - In this video, you will discover how to paint decorative design in watercolor

For the round shape around the girl's head, I premix three colors: two very dark chromatic greys, one of which is a bit bluish while the other has a green undertone; and the third color is dark green. These three colors will be used for the round shape. Don't ask me which pigments I mix together to achieve such colors, for the purpose of this lesson it doesn't matter. However, there is one good tip I would like to give you. If you want to use very dark colors, do not mix black paint. Black watercolor looks really dull. If you want to go dark grey, it is much better to mix some complementary colors to achieve chromatic greys.

What complementary colors are and how to achieve chromatic greys is fully explained in the section on the color theory in the Watercolor Academy course. This course covers much more than color theory. You will learn the rules of composition, how to mix and apply pigments, how to paint in alla prima, and layer by layer, how to make realistic portraits and figures, how to paint botanical and animalistic artworks, how to paint seascapes and landscapes, how to paint still life and architectural compositions.

The best thing about this academy is that it comes with a personal tutoring course. In this course, your skills and progress will be evaluated on an as-you-go basis. Your skills will be assessed after you complete each task. You will know precisely what to work on at every step of your curriculum. Every task will be fully explained, illustrated and step-by-step instructions will be given to you. Each task will be described point-by-point so you can always know what to do and how to do it. There is simply no way to fail because your skills cannot stay the same as long as you practice the watercolor painting techniques we will teach you. If you move through the tasks one by one and follow our guidance and suggestions, this course will work for you and your watercolor painting skills will advance to a higher level.

You may be wondering, is it possible to learn watercolor painting by correspondence? Studying by correspondence will actually give you a great advantage over some face to face teaching. First of all, your schedule will be much more flexible, allowing you to study at your own pace. But above all, you will receive all feedback and tutoring in writing. This means that it will be available for you to keep and refer to at any time so you can re-read instructions and explanations, recheck our critique, refresh yourself on rules, remember advice you were given, and refer to educational materials that will be provided for each task. If you do not understand something, we will create a special video tutorial for you. For example, the very video you are watching right now was created for one Watercolor Academy Correspondence Course student. She had trouble with one particular topic: how to preserve white paper when making a variegated wash wet-into-wet. Part 2 of this video was done to illustrate the process step-by-step. So if you become our student and have any challenges or questions that we cannot explain in writing, we will make a dedicated video to show you how it can be done the right way.

To learn how to paint in watercolor, enroll now