Whimsical Faces: Paint a Beautiful Watercolor Portrait

Hi, I’m Jessica Sanders, a self-taught watercolor and mixed-media artist who loves exploring art and sharing it with you!

Whimsical Faces: Paint a Beautiful Watercolor Portrait

Let’s paint a beautiful, whimsical, watercolor portrait!  

In this class for intermediate students, we will explore painting watercolor with light layers to achieve stunning depth of color in a whimsical portrait.  :)

Painting portraits is not easy.  That’s where I come in. I will walk you through painting a beautiful, whimsical watercolor portrait in a loose and free style, step by step. 

First, I will also share my KISS Approach (™) to painting.  We will Keep It Super Simple in 5 ways throughout the painting process.  

Next, we will do a warm-up to get to know our chosen colors.  We are only using 3 colors, so it's important to get to know those colors.

Then, we will sketch a simplified face.  If you prefer, you can trace the drawing I’ve provided for you as a download.

For the rest of the class, I will demonstrate painting the portrait, in real time.  I want you to know how long it actually takes to paint a painting like this.  (You can always watch at a faster speed, with Skillshare settings).  

I encourage you to paint along with me. :)  We will focus on building up light layers (washes) of color, to create depth and contrast in our portrait.  When we are finished, not only will you have a beautiful, loose, whimsical portrait, but you will also have learned more about simplifying your paintings and your process.

As always, we will wrap up the class with a project using the skills and techniques we have learned in the class.