I can’t count the number of times that I mentioned in this website how much I enjoy painting using watercolor. I love how flexible the medium is and how prone to accidents that make each painting I did unique – even if the finished art sometimes look like a total disaster.
One cannot overly emphasize the importance of having mentors around when learning this art. I enrolled in various online classes held by local artists here in the Philippines whenever I can afford to pay for them. I also have been following artists on YouTube who truly excel, in my opinion, when it comes to teaching about this medium. In this blog I’m going to enumerate my favorite YouTube channels of artists that I have been following a while and who have become part of my watercolor journey. These are the channels that I have turned the notification on so I would know when they have posted a new video. I will mention them here in no particular order or rating. If you would like to learn how to paint in watercolor, I would recommend these artists and their channels to you.
Paul Clark is my favorite YouTube channel for watercolor tutorials simply because he uses limited palette and offers downloadable drawing templates free of charge on his website (see link above). If you are just starting out with watercolor, you will find so many helpful tips on color mixing, sketching, recommended watercolor papers, brushes, and paints in his channel. I am such a huge fan of Paul Clark that I even scoured the bookstores in Metro Manila for a copy of his book (photo above). I failed to find a copy locally so I had to order this one from overseas. I’m happy with this book because for the price point, you learn a lot. It’s bang for your buck!
Another thing I love about Paul Clark is he sometimes incorporate soft pastel in his works. He’s the reason why I invested in a set so I could also add some on my works. I also like the community that Paul and his partner, Margot, had built on Facebook. In this community, Margot posts weekly set of photos as part of painting challenge and anyone can try their hands on painting any of the picture reference. I also like how the members of the group are cheerful and happy to share their painting tips when someone asks for it. It’s in that community that I learned the true meaning of the British expression: “I’m not mad about it!”
Just to drive a point on how much I love this channel (as I haven’t stressed so already), here is a gallery of just some of the paintings I did using his tutorials:
Just like Paul Clark, Karen Rice hails from UK. I love Karen Rice for her loose-style of painting, pretty much like Paul Clark’s although Karen has her own style as well. Karen Rice uses watercolor primarily but she also adds gouache in some of her works. My favorite playlist in her channel while I was new to watercolor is the one for beginners. This playlists contains beginner-friendly art projects that any newbies can paint along, I personally guarantee. The gallery below are some of the paintings I’ve done from Karen’s tutorials from her YouTube channel:
In my article, “My Top Art Teaching Hacks for Non-Artist Homeschooling Parents“, I mentioned Nianiani’s YouTube channel for parents to explore if they want to learn how to paint in watercolor with their children. I’ve been following Nia’s channel for more than a year now because I like how she does step-by-step tutorial of her projects from breaking down the sketching into simple steps all the way to mixing colors and completing a composition. Unlike Karen and Paul, Nia’s style is one that’s more illustrative and detailed. She does loose style compositions but the ones I enjoyed following were her still-life and food illustrations.
She also likes to doodle! Doodling is really one of those thing that I have not outgrown. If you see my notebooks, you’ll see tons of doodles on the side. Nia likes to paint on her doodles. It was from her also that I learned that there are specific type of pens that you can use with watercolor that does not smudge. I now have quite a collection of bleed-proof pens that I use with my line and wash art. If you are one who is interested to learn the basics of watercolor illustration, I highly recommend her channel. Below is a gallery of paintings I did using her tutorials from both her SkillShare page (link above) as well as YouTube channel:
JC is my mentor in portrait painting so I am including his channel here. He doesn’t post tutorials in his YouTube channel per se but I do visit his channel once in a while to see his works for inspiration. He hasn’t conducted any class for the past months as he was busy with the recent opening of his gallery. JC will always be one of the locals artists that I look up to. As soon as his classes open, I will definitely enroll again. Here are some of the portraits I did through his classes:
The Fabulous Scientist 
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