A First Watercolor Lesson. It's about paint handling, and "value".

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To begin this watercolor lesson watch the video, and then print the "coloring book" using the to button on the left.

Value is the relative difference of dark and light. In a black and white (and gray) picture, value is easy to understand. Value in a color picture is difficult for the beginner to grasp. Perhaps its helpful to note that a dark red and a dark blue can have the exact same value.

A wash is an area of very wet paint. You create a wash when you paint an area of the paper with a layer of paint which is so wet that it stays so wet that the paint puddles on the surface. Basically watercolor is either washes or "drybrush", Drybrush isn't really dry but just wet enough to leave behind some damp paint. Washes are what makes watercolors so distinctive and beautiful, but that's another lesson,

You will be dealing with both of these concepts from the very first stroke of the brush. Understanding them makes eveything much easier.

This is a map of the captains color palette.