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Watercolor Videos: The Best YouTube Channels for Watercolor Painting

Beth 10 years ago

Back in the “olden days”, if you wanted to learn to how to paint you either had to buy a book, order an expensive DVD or sign up for a  local class with a real-life instructor. These days, though, learning to paint is as easy as firing up a browser and watching one of countless different watercolor videos online.

Videos are amazing for learning. They allow you to go at your own pace, to pause and rewind whenever you miss anything and to see the technique demonstrated visually…often in high definition.

I was actually inspired to start learning watercolors because of a video I watched on YouTube. The way the paint flowed and the colors blended was almost magical. As soon as I saw that video, I knew I wanted to learn more.

If you love watercolor videos as much as I do, I hope you’ll find this post useful. These are some of my personal favorite watercolor-related YouTube channels that I’ve gone back to again and again. I’ll keep adding to this list as I find more, so be sure to bookmark it and check back often.

Stephanie Law

If you aren’t familiar with the artwork of Stephanie Law, you definitely have to check it out. She is amazing! That is why I was SO excited when I saw her post that she is going to be starting to add more how-to videos to her YouTube channel. I would kill to be able to achieve some of the effects that she gets in her paintings. She only has a few videos up right now, but she is going to be adding a ton more in the future. I am so excited to see where her channel goes from here! I hope you’ll follow along, too:

  • YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCyJr2wpUpvwtOw52GRTaAw
  • Instagram Account: https://www.instagram.com/spmlaw/
  • Website: http://www.shadowscapes.com/

The Mind Of Watercolor

This is far and away my favorite watercolor channel on YouTube at the present moment. It is run by Steve Mitchell and provides some of the most helpful watercolor tips and tutorials that I have had the pleasure of watching. I love how he breaks everything down into really easy/logical steps.

Most importantly, however, I also love his philosophy on working with watercolors. His channel name comes from the fact that watercolors sometimes have a mind of their own. Instead of fighting against the natural way that watercolors work, he shows how to work with them, allowing them to do their own thing so that they can add a bit of their magic to your paintings.

I’m posting a two-part tutorial that he did on painting a landscape so that you can see what I mean. Personally, I find the way that he explains everything and shows how to use the natural tendencies of watercolors to your advantage really inspiring.

Kelly Eddington

Although Kelly Eddington’s YouTube channel has been around for quite awhile, she just recently started uploading regularly to it. Her channel combines instructional painting videos geared toward beginners with inspiring videos showing her paint some amazing watercolors from start to finish. Not only is she an excellent artist, but her videos are really well made and provide a ton of information.  Here’s more info about her channel and website, along with a sample video so you can see what she’s all about:

Agnes Cecile

Whenever I tell people about Agnes Cecile’s videos, I always say that she turns watercolor painting into performance art. Although her videos are technically not instructional, you can still learn a lot from watching them. The majority of her videos are of her painting portraits. She also has some amazing non-watercolor paintings on her channel. Her videos are a pleasure to watch, and I always look forward to her new uploads.

Anna Mason

Anna Mason creates incredibly life-like botanical paintings. Although she only has a handful of videos up right now, they give you a glimpse into how she layers the paint to achieve so much depth and dimension. The videos that she has up on YouTube are short segments taken from longer instructional videos that she has on her website. If you want to access the full videos on her site, you have to pay a small membership fee. However, there is plenty of excellent content in her free videos to make them worth watching.

Grahame Booth

I just recently happened upon Grahame Booth, and really enjoyed his watercolor videos. He doesn’t have many up right now, but the ones he does have listed are really well made. He paints with a loose, easy style that allows the paint to do what it was meant to do. The results are really beautiful.

Kelogsloops

I started following Hieu on Instagram quite awhile back. I loved his paintings. It was only later that I discovered that he also has a YouTube channel. Although he doesn’t have a ton of videos up, the ones that he does have are beautiful to watch. I particularly enjoy his time lapse paintings.

Being able to see one of his paintings come to life is a lot of fun. He’s really good at creating textures with his watercolors and at layering elements to create a lot of depth in his paintings. I’d encourage you to check out some of his videos.

Here’s one of my favorites to start with:

Steven Cronin

Steven Cronin is another painter that I just recently found on YouTube. He paints landscapes using an extremely limited palette. He has a loose style that is well-suited to watercolors. One of the things that I admire most about his paintings is that he can take a complicated scene with tons of tangled foliage and distill it down to its most basic parts, resulting in a painting that captures the essence of the scene without being fussy or overworked.

That’s it for now. Remember to check back, though, since I plan to update this list regularly as I find new channels. By the way, if you know of any other YouTube watercolor channels that you think are worth sharing, please feel free to leave a comment below. Thanks!

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9 thoughts on “Watercolor Videos: The Best YouTube Channels for Watercolor Painting”

  1. Thank you for this beautiful painting and explaining the details. Incredible talent!

  2. Thanks so much for all the great information! I’m just dipping my fingers into painting, and this is a great place to start!

  3. there are a couple more, one of them being someone who is a gem in how she teaches watercolor and mixed media, her channel is The Frugal Crafter, Lindsay Weirich from Maine. I love the Mind of watercolor he is wonderful. Also Steve Cronin very informative. The channel Art Tutor has tons of great classes that are posted for free, you can sign up for more on a regular basis but what is published there is amazing. Thanks for sharing the other artists on your channel. Definitely will look into them.

    1. Thanks so much for the suggestions, Lois! I love Lindsay’s videos…she is so positive and is so much fun to watch. I haven’t checked out the other channels yet, but I definitely will. I’m excited to have some new options to explore. Thanks again, and have a great evening! 🙂 Beth

  4. Thank you so much Beth for your links to various watercolour tutorials. I decided to click immediately on Steve Mitchell’s and have spent a very enjoyable couple of hours following the landscape tutorials 1 and 2. I have never been good at trees and just doing these tutorials has given me confidence I can master them as his technique is so easy to follow. I intend to look at all those you have recommended. Thanks again!

    1. You’re welcome! Steve is awesome, isn’t he? Hope you enjoy the other channels, as well. Good luck and have fun!

  5. I wanted to let you know that I found this post almost 5 years later, and thank you for the great information!

  6. Check out Keith Whitelock’s video watercolour tutorials on You-tube. He’s a great painter, a great teacher and is very generous with his tips and techniques.

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