I am not a watercolor teacher.

My first watercolor painting, March 8, 2020. Based on Landscape Mountains Tutorial for Beginners from AhmadArt.
I did the same tutorial, nine months later. December 19, 2021.

I’m a learner, like you. I got my first watercolor paints last Christmas 2020, didn’t open them for three months due to laziness/fear/what if I’m not good at it, and then finally picked up a brush and… wow. Got hooked.

Over the last 9 months, I’ve learned how to achieve certain effects pretty reliably, and painted some scenes that made me feel, “Yes, that is what I came here to do!” I’ve also come to know what I don’t know. I’m more critical of my work, and more ambitious. Before I started, I thought I’d be satisfied if I could paint a gradient and some layered mountains. Now I can, but of course, I’m not satisfied! I’m never satisfied. Now I want to learn all sorts of other things you can do with medium. Luckily (and dauntingly) for me, there’s a lot to unlock. A lifetime’s worth!

As I’ve been learning, I’ve been taking notes in an increasingly elaborate Google doc. I don’t really refer to it. I learn from the act of making it. Still, the result is a lot of information that might be useful to somebody – somebody like you, maybe? Instead of keeping it locked up on my cloud, I thought I’d expand it out into posts that you can read. 

I don’t pretend to be an expert, like I said – I’m a learner – but maybe I can be the kind of teacher’s pet geek that you can crib off of.