Learn To Paint Venice Using Watercolours

This part may be the longest, and possibly the most frustrating stage, so feel free to keep pausing the video.

You have to be patient with yourself as you try to get your head around the angles and perspective. If this is the first time you've done perspective, feel free to watch my video on the 1-point perspective to help you understand how it works! (see resources)

You'll need your pencil, ruler, watercolour paper and masking tape for this part!

Once you're happy with your drawing, it's time to start painting.

We're not going to paint the whole thing in one, we're going to do it bit by bit, letting things dry in between and adding layers of colour and texture.

For this stage, we just want to paint every other building so we can start adding colours and keep them separate from their neighbours. We don't want the colours to bleed so let the buildings dry before painting the neighbours!

Hopefully, when you start this section, you'll get some satisfaction from the reflections. At this point most of your painting will have colour on it, and it starts to bring the whole thing together.

Don't panic, if you're still not quite feeling it, we're going to do a second layer later on anyway to help the colours pop.

Add your reflections of colour from the buildings, let the water mix and push colours in different directions and you'll start to see a resemblance of water in the canal.

So we've now got our base layer, it's time to let the reflections dry and work on those missing buildings back up at the top.

After this, we'd have completed the first layer and we should start to see some definition coming along.

We'll be adding more coming up but for now, take a step back, have a look and see how much work you've done!

Let's bring it back to the reflections and add another layer so we can see some transparency and luminosity in the water.

Make sure the painting is completely dry though so you don't disturb the painting underneath.

Remember, it will change when it's drying so allow it to dry before you decide if it needs more work or not.

Let's add some finer detail now and add in some windows.

Use a rich greeny blue so that it stands out from the other colours. You'll also need to make it a thicker paint so we can push the contrast.

We'll only paint half of the windows so that it gives it time to dry before adding another layer.

Venice is all about texture and subtleties.

In this layer, we want to add random marks that help give the painting a bit of texture and vibrancy.

Don't overthink it, and allow your hand to be a bit shaky and create some lovely brick effects.

This stage is completely optional, you may want to skip it, but if you don't, this is where we can define the edges and make everything stand out.

I'm using a fine liner but a biro would work just as well.

Draw around all of your buildings and watch as the details pop and the painting comes together.

Don't forget to remove the tape carefully and see the white frame that you've created with it.