Choose the Right Subjects for Watercolour Beginners (To FINALLY Get You Painting)
The wrong painting subject can make you give up on watercolour before you've even begun. But the right painting subject? Well, that makes watercolour feel easy, fun, and totally doable.
So, let me take the mystery out of choosing the best watercolour subject so that you can actually get painting much more often and with far more ease and joy.
Now, I could just give you a list of my favorite subjects for painting in watercolor. And in fact, I have done that in a separate video. But I think it would be even better if I share with you how I go about choosing the best watercolor subjects for me, because then you will be able to choose the best watercolor painting subjects for you.
By the way… if you would prefer a video version of this - scroll down! 👇🍿
Start with Something You Like (But Don't Absolutely Love)
My first suggestion is that you start by choosing something that you like, but don't choose something that you absolutely love. I think what often happens is when we think about painting, there are some subjects that really call to us—things that we really want to paint because we have such a strong attachment to them.
Perhaps a beloved pet or maybe your favorite grandson. Now, those do make fabulous watercolor painting subjects, but they do require a degree of confidence to tackle them. Notice I said confidence, not skill, because I really don't think you need to be creating perfect renditions of any of these things.
And I also don't think that there is any subject that is beyond us. It's just a question of the way in which you approach it and the expectations that you have of yourself. So I never want to discourage you from painting subjects that are close to your heart. But if you are finding it hard to actually get to the painting, it could be because you're trying to find the perfect subject.
And it could be that you're just a little bit afraid of creating a painting that's going to disappoint you. The thing is, if you choose something that is a bit challenging, it can be quite discouraging. For example, if that painting of your favorite grandson turns out looking a little bit more like Mr. Potato Head, you're probably going to be quite discouraged and disappointed, and you might end up wanting to give up on watercolor altogether.
We don't want that to happen.
Choose Forgiving Subjects
I think it's best to choose something that you definitely like or have an interest in, but not something that is so close to your heart that it's going to be really hard for you to approach it as a beginner. My second tip is to try and choose something that by its very nature is a little bit more forgiving of a painting subject.
Usually that means something that is growing in nature because those sorts of things have organic forms, which means no two are the same. You know, no two leaves are the same and trees all have slightly different shapes. No two trees are identical. That means when you get to painting them, if you make one of your trees have a few less branches or if your branches bend in an opposite direction, that's probably okay.
That picture of your grandson though? You need him to have exactly the right number of limbs and for them to all be pointing in the right directions in order to not be totally disappointed. Very often man-made items have a fair bit of symmetry, exact proportions required, and it's important to get certain angles right—perspective, that sort of thing.
And those can be quite challenging to get your head around. But it doesn't mean that all these man-made items are off the table. For example, I've got a couple of vases that I'm really quite attached to. And my favorite vases have curvy edges. Those vases are quite hard to capture in paint because I find it quite hard to get them symmetrical looking.
When you paint a curve on one side, it's quite hard to have it mirrored just right on the other side. So, what I do is I just modify those edges and turn it into a straight-edged vase for the purpose of my painting. Remember, we don't need to paint exactly what we see. The point is to just enjoy painting the vase. And so if it needs to have straight edges that I will have a better chance of painting, then so be it.
Paint What You Know
My third suggestion is to choose a subject that you know a little bit about. Sometimes we see watercolor paintings of slightly unusual subjects, something that might not have occurred to us, and that seems all very exciting and different. For me, this was those watercolor trucks. I don't know if you've seen those paintings of these big, sort of rusty old trucks that have got a whole lot of character to them. Cars and trucks do make lovely watercolor painting subjects.
However, I'm not much of a petrol head. So, it is a bit of a challenge for me to figure out how it all works, how the car fits together, and that makes it a little bit harder for me to draw. It's not impossible. You can draw pretty much anything if you're prepared to spend a little bit of time really observing what you see.
But there are times when you don't have the patience for that and you just want to enjoy painting. So, while I might have wanted to paint cars and trucks, I know that for me, if I'm wanting to paint some sort of man-made machinery, I'm far better off choosing something from the kitchen, which is a place I'm much more familiar with. I spend a lot of time in there.
And it has informed a lot of my painting subject choices. It means I'm painting things I'm very familiar with, things I understand quite well, and they're also full of a whole lot of happy memories for me, which makes them an awful lot of fun to paint. What do you spend a lot of time doing? I bet your hobbies and interests will provide you with a rich array of watercolor painting subjects to choose from.
Don't Be Afraid to Stick With It
And my final tip is that once you've found a painting subject that you're enjoying, don't be afraid to stick with it for a while. Don't forget that when you paint something in watercolor, it's really hard to paint exactly the same thing tomorrow. Even if you try, the paintings are going to turn out quite differently. Watercolor has a wonderful way of making fascinating things happen, and they're different every time you try them.
Some people see this as a disadvantage of watercolour. To me, it's part of the delight. And there are quite a few advantages to repeating, if not the same exact reference photo, but the same sort of subject. Many artists choose to paint in series because it is so helpful. In fact, it's the approach that I've been following since 2015 because figuring out what to paint was one of the things that really stopped me from getting my brush to the paper in the first place.
But once I worked out that I could work in a series, it made it a whole lot easier and I started becoming a far more prolific painter. In fact, I've so far painted 82 watercolour series. Want to hear more about that? Its a whole separate blog post… and there is a video too. Click here to see my 82 series 👈
Start Your Own Painting Today
The key is to begin.
Choose a subject that
speaks to you but doesn't intimidate you,
something forgiving by nature,
something you understand,
and then don't be afraid to explore it deeply. Remember, the goal isn't perfection—it's the joy of painting itself.
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