Free Download: Watercolor Illustration Exercises for Beginners

Improve your watercolor technique with these easy practice exercises for children’s illustrations

Watercolor allows you to paint atmospheres and bring a personal approach to any scene. Illustrator Julie Mellan (@julie_mellan) uses it to create captivating illustrations for children’s books. She explores color, light and shadow to paint images full of personality that have been published by houses like Penguin Random House, Clavis and Fleurus.

Dynamic and expressive animals are the protagonists of Julie’s illustrations. In her Domestika course, Julie teaches you how to design, draw and paint in watercolor dynamic and expressive animal characters for children’s books. Here she shares some helpful resources to help you get started and refine your technique.

watercolor exercises

The first resource you’ll be able to download is a quick recap of basic watercolor painting exercises. It’s all about the basics: paint a perfect solid color, a smooth gradient, or play with the wet paper to get interesting textures.

The basics of animal anatomy

When drawing an animal character, even if you choose a stylized and anthropomorphic model, you must first learn the real and realistic anatomy. As Julie says, “Learn to walk before you dance!”. In this resource, she shares some tips for sketching the basics of animal anatomy before you start painting.

facial expressions

If you want to express an emotion or show certain feelings in your illustrations, facial expressions are key, which means you need to make them play their role as accurately as possible. Julie’s downloadable model sheet includes several facial expressions that you can use as a reference to practice creating your own character.

After clicking on the button below, you will find in the Downloads folder of your computer three files in .pdf format containing the Watercolor Illustration Exercises for Beginners by Julie Mellan.

This download will only be available until December 1, 2021. If you wish to access this exercise after this date, you can enroll in Julie Mellan’s course, Animal Characters in Watercolor for Children’s Books.

Discover New Full Cast Dramatized Audio Books with GraphicAudio

How to fast improve your well being?Powerful Zen word Chinese Calligraphy Wall Art & Chinese painting Matte Canvas, Physical art, Canvas prints. Discover Art B Zen Store