Learn How to Paint a Beautiful Blue Moon with Watercolours!

watercolours

If you doodle when bored or on the phone then you need a creative hobby. Let your creative juices flow. Before I started using watercolour I thought I was useless at art but watercolours changed my mind. Hopefully this post will kick off that hobby you have been dying to try.

Materials you need:

  • Watercolour paints
  • Paint brushes
  • Palette
  • Watercolour Pad
  • Cup for water

Tip: Look for paper that is 200gsm or more otherwise your paint will run off the water. 

The easiest watercolour tutorial for beginners:

  1. Prepare your area: Open your watercolour pad to a new page and fill a glass with water. Get your palette and squeeze out a bit of every blue/green colour, black and white onto separate sections. Add water to each colour to make them all watery.
  2. Draw a circle in pencil using a plate or protractor. It’s important to have a guideline so your moon stays a perfect circle.
  3. Get a medium sized paint brush, dip it in the water and run along the inside of the circle (using only the water).
  4. Mix some of the blues and greens to create a colour you are happy with.
  5. Dip your brush into the blue colour and paint along the invisible watery line you already created.
  6. Keep working in circles with different shades of the blue/green. Create a small circle in the top right area of your moon and work outwards towards your outline. If your paper gets too wet or you make a mistake dab it with some kitchen role.
  7. Highlight the area of the smaller circle with your white paint and create shadows with the black paint on the bottom left of the circle. This will create a sphere shape. Tip: Add more water to create a lighter colour.
  8. Finally, to create craters go over parts of the painting with a dabbing technique instead of strokes. Dabbing with your kitchen role is also good for highlighting.
  9. Also you can let it dry and go over it to add depth.

My favourite thing about this tutorial is you just get stuck in. No faffing about with certain techniques or over-complicated sketches.

My conclusion:

I absolutely love using watercolours because they are so forgiving. The above moon painting is so easy to do because you just keep adding to it until your happy. If you don’t feel confident with watercolours then follow the above video and let me know how it goes.

Here’ the final picture:

A post shared by Hobbyism (@hobbyismuk) on

Get stuck in and let me know if I have inspired you by using #hobbyism, visiting me on twitter 
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learn how to paint with watercolours