Painting With Water-Based Media: Acrylic, Watercolor & Gouache

Class Preview

Discover the fundamentals you need to start painting with three water-based mediums that are easy to learn and a joy to paint with!

Introduction

Meet your instructor, Nina Weiss! She’ll teach you how to set up your studio workspace for success and review the different kinds of water-based mediums you’ll use in class. Then learn the basics behind color mixing and the color wheel.

Gouache

Learn how to paint with gouache, an opaque water-based medium. Nina will demonstrate how to use gouache for flat and even results, mix primary colors for the perfect look and practice painting complementary and contrasting color swatches. Finally, learn to create texture with scumbling.

A Lemon in Gouache

Make a gouache painting of a lemon following Nina’s tricks and techniques. Begin with outlining the lemon in a contrasting color, not pencil. Don’t worry about making mistakes; Nina will show you how to wash over them. Finally, learn how to layer thick strokes to complete the lemon look.

Watercolor

Get started painting with watercolors as Nina details the best products and paints for professional-looking art! Learn the wet-on-wet technique and how to add texture and color variation using a gradient bleed. Then learn to use the wet-on-dry technique for a hard-edged look.

A Watercolor Landscape

Start painting a landscape in watercolor with Nina’s color wash technique. Use the wet-on-wet method throughout the painting for a smooth, blended look. Then, learn how to preserve white spaces like magic using frisket. Finally, work with lights and darks to create contrast within your watercolor work.

Water-Based Colored Pencils

Learn about drawing and painting with watercolor pencils! Nina details the pros and cons of working with two dramatically different watercolor pencil techniques: tonal and linear drawing. Then, using your new knowledge of the color wheel, learn how to dull colors for variation within basic colors.

Water-Based Colored Pencil Landscape

Create tonal washes using watercolor pencils using Nina’s demonstration of a landscape drawing. Mix darks and lights for shadows and warm and cool color variations to add dimension. Learn how to save your white space on paper and add lines to create detail on top of the color-washed painting.

Acrylics

Start painting with acrylics for a new, opaque look to your art. Nina details the differences between acrylics and other water-based mediums and begins to demonstrate the ways to create contrast between warm and cool colors, light and dark colors and complementary colors.

A Lemon in Acrylic

Use your knowledge of acrylics to paint three lemons. Follow Nina’s contrast techniques between lights and darks to create spatial depth, then learn to use more than just yellow to create the lemon hue! Finally, finish your painting with a contrasting foreground and background to complete the illusion of depth.