Easy Watercolor Ideas: 4 Fun Subjects to Paint

You’ve got the will, you’ve got the watercolor. But what in the world should you paint? When it comes to painting, sometimes you need a little inspiration to get to work, whether you’re a beginner or an expert. These easy watercolor ideas will help you get started!

Easy watercolor ideas: a collection of inspiring ideas

We’ve got easy watercolor ideas to suit all sorts of styles.

These five ideas for watercolor paintings are bound to give you ideas for creating the watercolor painting of your dream, at any skill level.

1. Sunsets

Sunsets (and their morning counterpart, sunrises) are incredibly fun to paint in watercolor because they employ all sorts of creative color. In spite of all of the color going on, however, they’re really quite easy to paint.

It’s as simple as laying the colors of the rainbow in adjacent washes and letting them blend to whatever degree you’d like. Make the paint very wet so it can mix and whirl together in abstract ways, or keep the paint in clean lines for a more defined series of colors. 

Learn how to paint a sunset in watercolor here.

2. Fancy-free florals

One of the best things about painting flowers is that they’re very forgiving: Even if they’re not quite realistic, they’re usually still recognizable as flowers. They’re also an enjoyable subject matter — you can get lost in creating gradients and blossom forms. Focus on a single bloom, or create a garden using watercolor paint.

3. Leaves

There are infinite ways to draw leaves; you can find the way that suits your style in this post about how to paint leaves. The methods taught in this post can be applied to a number of different styles or skill levels, with plenty of options for different levels of detail. Whether you’re painting a fall scene featuring a few color-saturated leaves or learning how to paint trees, this is an invaluable and easy skill to master.

4. A resist painting

Creating watercolor paintings with resist methods is an easy way to create vibrant, interesting pieces of art. You can use masking fluid to create an image, then paint it with watercolor and remove the dried fluid to create a batik-like effect on paper, or you can use the simplest of materials — crayons! — with your watercolor to create an easy wax resist image. Either way, you’re bound to end up with a vibrant and cool piece of watercolor art.

Learn how to make a batik-style painting with watercolor and how to make a wax-resist painting with watercolor.

5. Go abstract

You don’t always feel like painting something as literal as a nature scene or still life. These are the times when it’s appropriate to go abstract. “Abstract” watercolor painting can have many meanings, but at its core, you’re using the medium to express an emotion or feeling rather than showing a literal representation. You can make the painting itself partially recognizable, or explore highly abstract shape and color compositions.

6. Make the most of mistakes

Even if you’re as careful as you can possibly be, mistakes happen with watercolor paint. Luckily, they’re often easier to remedy than you might think. This post details easy watercolor ideas for fixing common mistakes so that you can continue painting with pleasure.