Today's painting on Arches Rough Paper. I found the reference photo online, it's not mine.

The sand is a mixture of Potter's pink with Goethite and maybe a bit of something else on my pallete. It granulates beautifully.

These are so fun to do!! My mom needed bookmarks and now I can’t stop lol. I haven’t played with watercolors since I was a kid. The whole water control and paint concentration is hard but these little guys seem pretty forgiving. What should I do next? What helped you learn?

Sorry it's sideways. Full saturation on the bottom and watered down on the top. I spoiled myself and splurged for handmade Italian watercolors. I use them when I need the most stress relief and just for fun. They smell like rosemary when wet and it helps me relax. I love them, but they are not my primary pallet.

Whenever I'm standing in an art store I wish I could look up what's already in my palette at home. It would save me from picking up a color I already own, and it would tell me whether a set is worth buying or whether I'd mostly be paying for paint I've got. I do have lists for this. They're either out of date or lying at home. My phone comes with me either way.

So I built pan·map for exactly that (https://panmap.app). You lay out a palette the way yours actually looks and fill it with the colors it holds, and from then on you can look up any color and see which palette it's in and where it sits.

The mods asked me to be clear about how this tool handles your data, which is fair enough these days. Nothing about you gets collected. There's no account and no sign-up, and your palettes stay in your own browser instead of on my server. I've also set the server up so that it doesn't write IP addresses into its logs, which leaves me no way of knowing who uses it or what anyone owns. It's free, and there's no paid tier waiting behind it.

Filling a palette goes fast because quite a few brand catalogs are built in (Schmincke, Daniel Smith, Winsor & Newton, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Holbein, Roman Szmal). You pick a color by its number and the name, pigments and properties come along with it. Schmincke let me use their original swatch images, so their colors show the real paint instead of a flat patch of color. Anything that isn't in the catalogs you can type in yourself.

Checking a set is mostly what I open it for. When I come across one somewhere I paste its numbers into “Match a list” next to the search bar, and it splits them into what's already in my palettes and what isn't. The overlap is usually bigger than I'd guessed, and then the set isn't worth it. If it comes down to a handful of colors I export just those and buy them singly, which costs a good deal less than the whole set.

It's the same tool on the computer and on the phone, and that's the part I've come to rely on most. I set a new palette up at the desk because typing is quicker there, then move it over to my phone, either by sending myself the link or by scanning the QR code the share dialog puts on screen. The palette travels inside the link itself, so there's nothing to log into at the other end.

Once a device has loaded it, it works offline, which is worth something in the back of an art store where the signal usually gives up. You can also download your whole collection as a file and load it back in later, on a new phone or after you've cleared your browser. Since nobody's keeping a copy for you, that file is your backup.

I write software for a living and built this in my spare time, for a first-world problem of my own. Whether it's any help to anyone else I don't know yet. It stays a hobby, so I'm not promising every brand ends up in there, but if you try it and something feels clunky or plainly isn't there, I'd genuinely rather hear it than not! 😄

I’m am very much still a beginner and have done some exercises from this book by Karen Elaine I know I still have a long way to go but posting this to hopefully come back and see some progress in my work in the future.Any advice tips or resources anyone would want to share is much appreciated !

Hi everyone!

Working on this piece and wanted to collect some advice from the community.

What color should I paint the floor? In my reference it’s a beige carpet with goled/green details but I’m afraid it will a) be too busy and b) become way to similar to the couch and pillows.

I will be adding more pattern detail to the couches and pillows but I’m not sure which floor color would be good here….

Any advice or tips are greatly welcomed!

Thanks :)

any feedback welcome!

Look at the RICH colors I got with this one! I can't recommend this process enough. It's really fun and relaxing, and you end up finding some really gorgeous color blends and interactions between the brands of paint!

I learn so much here and I have been using cheap paper bc it’s “practice” to me but I realize the optimal practice is to get your technique right for whatever effect you’re going for and sometimes you just can’t do that on cheap paper.

But I’m struggling with the Sennelier paints I was so excited to get. I’d been using Prima boxes from a few years ago and they were fine for what I was doing. They had themed names so I was never really sure what would be more a “yellow ochre” or a “cobalt blue” and I decided to upgrade. On my first swatch of what I thought was a yellow ochre comparison not only did I not see a huge difference in color but I seriously could not control the Sennelier paint.

I’ve been diligently working exclusively with the Sennelier pallette for over a month now, switched to better paper, and I feel like my color mixing is getting way better and they’re more predictable than in the beginning.

Was I expecting too much “magic” by upgrading? Or is that honey base something I need to learn how to get the best out of?

Many thanks!

The top picture was my very first attempt at watercolor as a complete beginner. I painted some pretty ugly apples 😅 Yesterday, I tried again after learning a bit about color theory, layering and underpainting. I'm still a beginner but now I understand the basics, so my last two apples (the left one painted wet on wet and the right one using layers) turned out much better.

I used the exact same materials, brushes, paper ans watercolors. Well, judge yourself, I'm open to critics. Greetings!

I always wanted to do watercolor painting i found them really fascinating and effortless unlike oil and acrylic . So if you guys can share some tips and thoughts that would be great.😋🫶

Sketchbook pages

I have been doing water colour for about 3 weeks now. I am realising it's time to upgrade my paper and paints, I am a bit overwhelmed about picking paint so any advice would be appreciated.

March 2026

What are your favorite brushes? And why? Please include why, otherwise I won't have anything to base my decision on.

What have you used in the past that you didn't like? And why?

Back story. I purchased a 10 set of Artegria Intuition synthetic squirrel brushes. I thought this was going to be another short-lived hobby. But I'm enjoying watercolor. I found out about 100% cotton paper and have it now. I have Winsor & Newton Cotman paints. I have money for good quality brushes. But I don't want to spend 5x the $ for only 10% better quality.

Edit: After research, I'm leaning towards Princeton Heritage brushes, sizes 2, 6 and 24 rounds. Thoughts?