Watercolor Fishing Harbor Scene

Paint this little fishing village harbour scene complete with boats and lighthouse in your Etchr sketchbook. Using A. Gallo paints and a Sakura Micron pen you can make up your own details to reflect your own experience of villages like this. Let’s go paint! What’s more delightful than hanging out by the water, and gazing…

Simple Olive Leaf Bookmarks

Here’s a sweet meditative and relaxing warm-up exercise for you to achieve two things – practice watercolor techniques and create a little gift in the form of these Simple Olive Leaf Bookmarks! All you need is your watercolor set, a brush and a fineliner. Plus half an hour of your time and away you go!…

A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies!

Some days it’s hard to raise a smile, let alone a chuckle! But if you can manage to find a paintbrush and stir your stumps as they say in the navy, then you can get your mood to lift and you might even laugh out loud! These pretty butterflies with their simple embroidery-styled embellishments are…

#Paint a Bird a Day Series

This month we are running a series of tutorials to help you beat the blues and create. What better to lift your spirits than a little bird – or two, or three … So today I’m going to feature the Imperfectly Perfect Circle Birds. You’ve heard the expression “I can’t draw a straight line” and…

Turning Circles into Roses

If a quick floral is what you are looking for then look no further than these flowers, made simply and without stress to create a stylish image ideal for a greetings card, bookmark and more. The great thing about these flowers is they are totally undemanding and unthreatening. All you need to do is pick…

A Galaxy of Abstraction

Sometimes we just don’t want to paint anything particular. For example, we have kids to entertain and couldn’t possibly concentrate on a proper painting. Or we have a headache, or it’s just one of those days. This is when a Galaxy of Abstraction comes to the rescue! This painting can be as much or as…

Three More Wet-in-Wet Birds

Along with flowers, birds are top of most watercolorists lists of favorite subjects to paint. And the way to paint them ranges all the way from literally painting every feather on a bird (not my style!) to loose impressionistic renditions of the “essence of bird!” I prefer the essence of bird approach and I also…

Paint Scruffy Cats in Watercolor and Ink

Feel like painting something truly messy and scruffy today? Here is my Ronald Searle inspired cat painting tutorial to help you explore the real essence of cat with watercolor, ink and dip pen! Today’s painting emerged from a week of exploring cats and their characters with paint, pencil, pen and paper. Come along and see…

How to Paint Loose Watercolor and Ink Poppies

Today we went for a walk along the road outside our property and saw that June had arrived in the shape of a little cloud of poppies! Couldn’t resist taking a photo or two, and my iPhone 13 did an amazing job of making them look like a work of art! Of course I couldn’t…

How to Paint Cute Whimsical Love Birds in Watercolor

Most of us used to doodle when we were on the phone – perhaps that is less common now that you can speak literally for hours on end whilst doing something else at the same time. But all of us know the pleasure of just playing with a pen or pencil and seeing what happens!…

Blast the Creative Blues with Circles!

Simple Circles for a Creative Afternoon! Would you like to paint something, but you don’t know what? Are you brand new to painting and don’t know where to start? Or would you like your picture to be simple, easy and full of joy? Then why not simply rely on simple basic shapes – for example…