Watercolor with Me in the Ocean

By Dana Fox

5O No-Sketch Projects That Bring the Ocean to Life

Dana Fox, author of Watercolor with Me: In the Forest and founder of Wonder Forest, provides fifty new marine-themed projects in this beginner-friendly watercolor guide. Known for her whimsical art style and straightforward instruction, Dana leads you through three major watercolor techniques: wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, and ink-and-wash. Best of all, there’s no sketching required, so you can focus on each painting method.

Bring adorable sea creatures like octopuses and otters to life on high-quality art paper. Start simple with shading in a monochromatic orca, experiment with adding depth to color with a bright bobbing seahorse and practice stylizing your subject in a charming lighthouse scene. With inspired art and step-by-step instruction, it’s easy to pick up a paintbrush, break out your palette, and create something beautiful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Nov 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781624148583

Book preview

MASTER COLOR CHART

All illustrations in this book use the Winsor & Newton Cotman line of watercolor paints. Below are the colors used in the projects for your color-matching reference (white is also used but not shown):

Supplies you’ll likely need:

Watercolor paint

Clean water

Mixing palette

Round watercolor brushes (sizes 2–12)

Fine detail brush

Black permanent-ink pen

White ink pen

Paper towels

DANA’S FAVORITES

For my favorite and most recommended watercolor supplies, please visit my Amazon shop at: http://amazon.com/shop/wonderforest.

WET-ON-WET

Before you put that brush to paper, let’s try a couple of simple wet-on-wet techniques.

Here, you’ll see three colored circles. Each of these circles uses a method of wet-on-wet that is used in the projects in this book.

1) The first circle was completely wet beforehand, using clean water, then two colors were dropped in on both the top and bottom areas.

2) The second circle was not wet beforehand, but rather filled with a single color, Ultramarine. While the paint was still wet, Permanent Rose was dropped into the area. As a result, this pretty lilac shade was created!

3) The third circle demonstrates a lifting technique that we will use in some projects. The paper was wet and a color was dropped in. Then a dry brush was used to lift some of that color out of the center portion.

Try each of these techniques in the blank circles shown below the colored ones!

Next, practice wet-on-wet drops by wetting the blank coral graphic with clean water and dropping in various concentrated colors. Try not to add too much additional water to the color mixes beforehand or the paper will become a big puddle! If you need to, you can lift off any blobs using the dry-brush technique.

Once you’ve got these methods down, move on to complete your first project!

Sea Turtle

This sea turtle is so fun to paint due to all of the colorful shapes. Don’t let it intimidate you—it’s really easy! You’ll be working on one shape at a time and using the wet-on-wet technique to create effortless, gorgeous color blends.

Color Chart

Supplies

• Round brush (size 6 works well)

• 4 colors of paint

• Fine detail brush

• Black ink pen

1. Starting with the shell, fill one of the shapes with water with your brush, leaving a little dry space around the edges. The paper should be glossy, not