Why Choose to Use Watercolors

Why Watercolors?

There are so many ways to create a work of art. You could use all kinds of mediums like colored pencils, pastels, markers, oils acrylics, or watercolors… how do you ever choose? Well, watercolors are our first choice and here’s why!

Most Exciting Medium

Watercolors are a super exciting medium and feel much more like an adventure because it’s not just you and the paints painting away . . . the water is right there with you giving you surprise after surprise that you could never imagine creating on your own! The water does half the work for you and leads you through an amazing adventure! Also, when you work with other mediums, you have complete control which may sound “safe” but it is much less spontaneous and exciting! Embrace water as your partner and follow its magic!

A great example of how watercolors can be exciting is painting something as simple as clouds. When using oils or acrylics you might just paint the clouds white and add some blue around them for the sky and the paint would just go where you place it. With watercolors you might try painting the cloud shapes with water and bringing blue around the outside of the cloud and embrace the exciting reaction the water has when it hits the cloud – it makes part of your painting itself in that reaction with virtually no or little effort on your part. Or drop some water into a half dry sky and see the water spread the blue pigment creating the look and feel of a cloud. When paint hits water it creates all these swirls and patterns that could never come so easily with another medium. The water truly does half of the work! Watercolors allow for the creation of beautiful and unpredictable designs.

The Perks

Watercolors are excellent for many other reasons. One reason is that they are inexpensive! Who doesn’t love saving some money? All it really takes is a couple of brushes, paper, paints, (go as crazy or inexpensive as you want – you can buy an inexpensive tray of watercolors for under $10.00!) and water. That’s it! Unlike acrylics and oils, when the paint dries in the pan, why you can apply water and bring it to life again and use the paint in the pan over and over. Acrylics and oils though dry when you leave them outside the tube and they don’t come back to life. What you don’t use is just wasted.

Watercolors are so easy to pack around and can be taken anywhere like backpacking, the park, or even just whipping them out at home to create a quick masterpiece. In fact, you might consider keeping a little watercolor bag on hand with small pieces of watercolor paper, a watercolor pan, pencil and brush so you can capture a scene in plein air when you are outside or in nature. Another thing that is so great about watercolors is that they are quick and looser than other most other mediums. They have a lot of give and you don’t have to worry about being perfect or get each stroke just right. Playing around with your paint and materials is a huge part of how you create your paintings.

Misconceptions

Watercolors are often thought of as the most difficult of the painting mediums. Don’t let that be intimidating because it really isn’t true! It doesn’t take any longer to learn watercolors than it would for any other medium. One reason people say it is the hardest is because it can be difficult to correct mistakes or make changes once the paint gets on the paper. Once you get your paint on the paper you cannot get rid of it. That isn’t anything to be worried about though because that is part of the beauty that the watercolors provide. Anticipating the consequences of actions and visualizing what the painting will look like when at the end and sticking to it is all part of the process. It actually is a great life lesson for everyone to experience and it can teach us to be disciplined and think ahead before doing things. Just try it for yourself and hopefully you will find how much fun and opportunity there is with using watercolors!

Become an Artist Yourself!

Do you think that all you can do is draw stick figures? Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard that one before . . . about a million times!!! Well, the fact is that everyone is an artist – they just don’t know it yet! We promise there is a great artist in you! Let Brush of Genius bring out the artist in you through our watercolor instruction program!