September 25, 2026
How to start a watercolor without a tutorial
To start a watercolor painting with no tutorial, pick just one angle to treat your subject. The angle I use is edges: paint the whole picture with only hard edges, or only broken edges, or only soft edges. Once you have explored each one on its own, you start mixing them in the same painting.
Why is it so hard to start a watercolor without a tutorial?
This came up during a watercolor retreat I led with my students in the south of France. On the first day, I asked them what their biggest roadblock in watercolor was. They answered that it was very difficult to start a new watercolor painting with no tutorial. They didn't know exactly where to start. I also asked them to share pictures they wanted to paint, and they didn't know how to begin those either.
When you don't know where to start in watercolor, the issue is not that there is no solution. The issue is that there are too many solutions. You can start with different colors, different topics, many different things. The best way to overcome this is to pick one angle to treat the topic, and one of the best angles I have found is the edge angle.
I used a photo from one of my students as the first example of the workshop: a view of Le Havre, in France, with buildings, the sea and the reflection of the sun on the water.
What are the 3 kinds of edges in watercolor?
There are 3 kinds of edges:
- Hard edges: a very neat transition between one element of the painting and another, for example between trees and a building.
- Broken edges: a kind of crumbled edge, like you can see with some shadows.
- Soft edges: a transition where it's not clear where one element ends and the next one starts, like between the sky and the buildings in a New York landscape.
In any subject, some edges seem obvious. In the Le Havre photo, the buildings are obviously hard edges and the reflection of the sun on the sea is obviously a broken edge. Here is the fun part: I would like you to question these assumptions.
Step 1: How do you paint a whole watercolor with hard edges?
The first exercise I showed my students was to start with hard edges. We painted the buildings with hard edges, using wet on dry. This is the technique I use to create hard edges. Hard edges are never done on wet paper, they are always done on dry paper.
Then we painted the sea and the reflection. Between the reflection, the sea itself and the dark areas of the sea, I again used hard edges by creating lots of separate brush strokes. This is a first way to create a completely new watercolor painting with no tutorial, just with hard edges.
Step 2: What happens when you try broken edges instead?
The second exercise was the same topic, this time with broken edges. The reflection obviously has to be done with broken edges. For the buildings, it's not obvious, and this is where it gets really interesting.
When I used vertical gestures to make broken edges on the buildings, I ended up with something that looked like trees. When I used horizontal gestures instead, creating the buildings with broken edges was much easier.
This is where you will find new techniques and new gestures that are your own. By doing these experiments, you end up with techniques that belong to you, and also with paintings that are not a photocopy of the topic. My broken edge painting is very different from the reference photo.
Step 3: How do you use soft edges when they don't seem to fit?
In the Le Havre reference photo, it's not clear where soft edges could be. When you tell yourself "it's not going to work with soft edges", this is exactly where you have to dive deep into soft edges.
In the workshop, I wet the whole area and then added pigments to create soft edges. Wet on wet is one way to create soft edges. There are many other ways, but for this practice I chose wet on wet. Then I added the sea and the reflection. The reflection was obviously a broken edge at first, and we decided to turn it into a soft edge.
When I added a little bit of buildings, they lost some definition and looked a bit like trees. But the reflection showed some gifts from watercolor: it was very beautiful, with the pigments mingling on the paper. Soft edges are very good at that. You end up very far from the reference photo, but it brings you so many more ideas.
I then tried another painting with a mountain in the background instead of buildings, with soft edges everywhere. It conveyed a different mood from the hard edge version and from the broken edge version. Of course you won't copy the reference photo exactly, but that is not the point. The point is to know how to start a watercolor painting without any tutorial.
When should you mix different edges in the same painting?
At first, I advise you to use only one type of edge for a given watercolor painting. Then you can mix the edges together, once you find out what works best for each element. For example, you may find that hard edges are better for the buildings and broken edges are better for the reflection on the sea. In another painting, you may use soft edges for the reflection and hard edges for the buildings.
This way you experiment with many situations and many different possibilities. In the end, you will find ways to do some edges very efficiently, plus your own mixes of edges: broken, hard and lost.
Lost edges are another kind of edge. A soft edge is still a little bit defined, whereas with a lost edge you don't know exactly where it starts and where it ends.
FAQ
Should I use only one type of edge at the beginning?
Yes. At first, I advise you to use only one type of edge for one given watercolor painting. Once you have explored hard, broken and soft edges separately, you can start mixing them.
How do I make hard edges and soft edges in watercolor?
Hard edges are always done on dry paper, with the wet on dry technique, never on wet paper. For soft edges, wet on wet is one way: wet the area, then add pigments.
Will my painting look like the reference photo?
No, and that is not the point. Treating the subject through one type of edge gives you paintings that are not a photocopy of the photo, along with new techniques and gestures of your own.
If you want to finally create on your own, with a proven system instead of copying tutorials, this is exactly what you'll find here 👇
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