Watercolor is one of the most fluid and unpredictable mediums, which makes it both exciting and intimidating. One of the biggest struggles for beginners is water control—too much water, and the paint runs everywhere; too little, and your colors won’t blend smoothly. If you’ve ever found yourself frustrated with streaky washes, unwanted blooms, or muddy colors, this guide is for you!

Are you dreaming of combining your love for art with an unforgettable getaway? After the success of our recent art retreat in France, I’m thrilled to announce that our next adventure will be in Portugal! 🎉 In October 2025, we’re headed to the beautiful Algarve coast for an immersive Portugal art retreat—and you’re invited.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I love Winsor & Newton's professional watercolor paints. They have been a favorite for a long time, and I use them in many of my projects and classes, so I was so excited when they approached me to put together this palette of colors!

Explore sketching for watercolor and discover how it sets the foundation of your paintings.

Enjoy a tutorial taken from a live session hosted for Watercolors Made Simple Students. Learn how to add easily depth to your watercolor paintings.

Here’s a tutorial sharing my opinion on watercolor pencils and the techniques on how I use them in my practice that would benefit everyone!

Trace and Paint Botanicals printed book is now available on Amazon. Grab a copy for yourself and one for your friend and enjoy hours of painting together!

In this video, I gave you a few options for painting white flowers with watercolor but wanted to share that you can lighten the paint color using more water.

These are seriously my top 5 watercolors to paint with! I can mix every color I need to paint leaves, stems, florals and more! If you are just starting out and are looking for a few tubes of colors that you can get started with, have a look at the ones that I show you in this tutorial!

Check out the video below and if you’re a fan of YouTube, don’t forget to subscribe here!

These tutorials are meant to give you a taste of what is possible with the right tools and techniques! If your goal is to great painting rituals that make you feel excited to sit down to paint, then I invite you to come paint with me and experience first hand how gratifying the ritual of the process really is!

Modern Watercolors for beginners is open for a few more days then it’s gone until the fall!

A self paced, video based class that you have lifetime access to as I updated and add to the course!

Over the last few months I’ve had some great conversations with fellow watercolor enthusiasts about how intimidating watercolor painting can be especially if you’ve never picked up watercolors before and if you don’t consider yourself to be artistic!

Watercolor painting tutorials designed with the beginner in mind. Learn how to mix the perfect watercolor puddle, wet-on-wet techniques, how to paint flowers, leaves and more.

Watercolor Leaves: how to easily paint multiple styles & learn to layer leaves creating depth for an interesting piece of art that you can frame, digitize to use in your design work and enjoy painting over and over again! This online watercolor for beginners class will show you how to mix paint, use my favorite brush and create depth, movement and flow to your painted piece.

’ve been sharing them on my IGTV over here and on my Instagram account here. I’ll try my best to upload them to this post daily, but in case I can get them up quick enough, make sure to follow me on Instagram so you don’t miss out!

Registration for this classes closes on February 16th! This class will launch again in the spring but at a higher price. The best part about getting into the class now is not only do you get in for a lower price, but you automatically get access to all updates as I improve the class and add more content to it!!

If you have any questions about this class, email me anytime at nicki@lifeidesign.com!

A fun time lapse showing how I practice and play warming up my watercolor and lettering skills. Join me for a 6 plus hour watercolor for beginners class!

Introduction to Modern Watercolors for Beginners is a class that I developed and teach in a way that helps you learn easily, through simple projects, how to become familiar with watercolor paints but practice, observation and fun!

If you've taken one of my many calligraphy and lettering classes with me, you'll already have the courage to pick up a new tool and try your hand at watercolor painting with me!

Watercolor is a natural progression for those of us who use a dip pen, a brush pen, or a paint brush to letter! I've created this class with you in mind, to teach you how easy it is to pick up a simple watercolor palette and a brush, to paint a winter wreath and even add a festive word or two!

Painting is something that I’ve done along side of my business for the last 5 years. For years I painted, exhibited and sold original art, quietly, in the background. It’s taken 5 years of painting and developing my style in order for me feel ready. To feel ready to pursue my goal of creating and selling my art more actively.

I share this with you because I know it’s hard when you are just starting out. You are witnessing most people’s work when they too have been practicing quietly for years and years. It’s tough some days to be comparing your work to others when our social media feeds are filled with edited, staged and styled photographs of what seems to be effortless displays of creativity and artistic expression. Some thing that I struggle with on days when I’m filled with self doubt and worry. We’ve all been there right?!

It’s also when I am most inspired to paint as many leaves and use as much color as possible. I use what I gather as reference and loosely paint what I see as I interpret colors, shapes and lines. If you haven’t played around with watercolor yet, it’s a very simple practice to help you learn how watercolor behaves and how you can easily, in a few minutes, add some interest to your sketchbook or journal pages!

I recorded this quick time lapse video for you to see how to sketch out a rough shape, loosely interpret what you see and play with color and water flow.

Happy beginning of spring! There’s something about longer days, filled with sunshine and above zero temps that make people happier, more optimistic and inspired to use color!

I thought I’d share a fun and easy watercolor project for beginners that is sure to boost your creative spirit and mood!