sailboat watercolor painting

Jenna Rainey

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I’m jenna rainey. , i'm an artist, self-taught designer, and multi-faceted creative entrepreneur who is hell-bent on teaching everyone how to find their inner creative voice..

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A highly creative nerd with a unique breed of humor and the proud earner of a self-bestowed award for being the world’s most curious and driven human.

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Hang out on youtube, it’s like netflix-binging bob ross videos, but with a dose of dry + quirky humor and fewer happy little tree references. .

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Watercolor Sailboat

Jenna .

This week, I'm teaching you how to paint a quick and easy watercolor sailboat landscape!

When I don't have a lot of time or I just want to play with colors and basic shapes, I paint loose-style. It's just whimsical and fun!

This watercolor sailboat takes less than 10 minutes to paint but includes simple techniques to inspire and spark creativity. This is a great tutorial for beginners, too!

Watercolor Sailboat Step by Step

00:00 – Intro. 00:32 – Color mixing. 01:06 – Painting the sail boat. 02:16 – Painting waves. 03:01 – Painting trees and background. 04:53 – Painting the sky. 06:14 – My thoughts on the painting. 06:51 – YOUR thoughts?

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Complete Beginner's Guide to Watercolor Complete Beginner's Guide to Watercolor: Top Questions Answered Complete Beginner's Guide to Watercolor Flowers Watercolor Techniques: Wet-on-Wet Watercolor Techniques: Wet-on-Dry 10 Tips to Improve Watercolor

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November 7, 2017

Watercolor Sailboat Painting Tutorial

Los Angeles-based watercolor artist Maria Raczynska demonstrates how to paint a beautiful birds-eye ocean scene with a sailboat in this video tutorial!

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Come "Sailboat" Away In This Watercolor Sailboat Tutorial

Join us in this smooth sailing watercolor sailboat tutorial artist william "bill" dunn demonstrates how to use different techniques to paint this scene of a harbor in fort bragg, california..

"Anchor" yourself into this easy tutorial that shows you how to paint a watercolor sailboat! With artist William "Bill" Dunn captaining this lesson, you'll learn how easy it is to paint this idyllic yet quaint scene of Fort Bragg. Want to watch the video version? The full tutorial is available to members of our  Beeblys WatercolorPainting.com .

Materials Used In This Watercolor Class:

• Reference picture of a harbor in Fort Bragg, California (click  here  for Bill's picture)
• A block of Arches cold press watercolor paper (140lb, size 12″ x 18″)
• Pentel Graphgear 1000 automatic drafting pencil, 0.7mm lead size with 2B lead
• ½" Artist's or masking tape
• Painting palette for watercolor paints
• Auxiliary plate or palette for gouache paint
• A container of water
• Paper towels or a rag
• A tabletop easel or a box to prop your painting on
• A spray bottle with clean water
• Kneaded eraser
• 10" Hyde curved spring aluminum paint shield (or any paint shield)

Paints (Holbein Artists' Watercolors)

• Cadmium Lemon Yellow
• Brilliant Orange
• Pyrrole Red
• Cobalt Violet Light
• Mineral Violet
• Olive Green
• Cobalt Green
• Cerulean Blue
• Cobalt Blue Hue
• Prussian Blue
• Yellow Ochre
• Burnt Sienna
• Burnt Umber
• Neutral Tint
• Ivory Black

Daniel Smith's Extra Fine Watercolors

• Chromium Green Oxide
• Carbazole Violet

Holbein Artists' Gouache

• Permanent White
• Escoda Perla Joseph Zbukvic Series: Round brush (no. 8)
• Escoda Perla Joseph Zbukvic Series: Round brush (no. 12 )
• Escoda Perla Joseph Zbukvic Series: Round brush (no. 20)
• Neef Rigger Supreme Taklon Series: Long handle rigger brush (no. 8)
• Neef Rigger Supreme Taklon Series: Long handle rigger brush (no. 12)
• Winsor & Newton's Cotman Brush Series 111: Round brush (no. 1)
• Loew-Cornell: Chinese bamboo brush (size 2)

Step 1: Anchors Aweigh!

Step 2: A "Wet-In-Wet" Forest

Step 3: How To Paint Tree Shapes

Step 4: "Wet-On-Dry" Buildings

Step 5: Water, Water, Everywhere

Step 6: Adding Contrast, Details, And Texture

Step 7: Details On A Watercolor Sailboat

Step 8: White Paint And More Details

Step 9: Finishing Touches And Painting A Watery Reflection

Step 10: Lettering And Making It "Pop"

Step 11: A Final Sky And Signature

March 23rd, 2018

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Flowing Waters Art

Creating art for harmonious living.

Watercolor Sailboat – Tutorial

I enjoy sailing, but never seem to do it enough. It is so very peaceful to sail in the open waters. I love listening to the waves splash against the boat as it zips through the water at the mercy of the wind.

I created this painting last month from an online tutorial. My art for this week is a bit behind schedule with the Thanksgiving holiday but I’m working to catch up. It was my first try at painting waves with watercolor and it was harder than I originally thought. I used a pen for a little outlining and that was it.

This is probably the only painting I’ve ever done without adding bling with Stickles. It was hard to do, but thank goodness I survived, lol.

I hope it inspires you to create!

Thanks for stopping by.

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2 thoughts on “ Watercolor Sailboat – Tutorial ”

I also love being on the water. Peaceful. The mind slows down. Yessss. I love the sky in your painting. It contains the essence of watercolor.

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Thank you Gretchen! I’m glad you liked it 😊

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Michele Clamp Art

Watercolor paintings, tutorials, and videos

Watercolor Boat Painting Tutorial

Want to paint this watercolor boat painting? Follow the step by step instructions (including video at the end) and see how easy this can be!

I just can’t resist painting boats in watercolor. The colors, the details, the sun and shadow – all come together to make painting these watercolor boats so much fun. In this watercolor boat tutorial I break down all the steps and show you how you can paint this scene. Boat watercolor paintings can seem daunting but if you take things slowly it’s amazing how they come together.

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Watercolor materials needed.

• Mechanical pencil
• Watercolor paper (I like Fabriano Artistco 140lb cold press)
• Permanent rose
• Vermillion/pyrrole red/naphthol red
• Ultramarine blue
• Cobalt blue/cerulean blue
• Yellow ochre
• Lemon yellow
• Burnt Sienna
• Value Scale
• Color isolator
• Palette/paper towels/water pot
• Small spray bottle of water

Watercolor Boat Drawing

The drawing for this painting is pretty important. Sometimes I won’t put much detail into a drawing and just indicate the main shapes. For instance a landscape with trees can be pretty sparse in the drawing. All the detail and texture goes in by eye with just paint. But for this scene there is a lot going on and we want to indicate the position of a lot of different things.

Using a Grid Helps With Drawing Accuracy

I did this drawing by eye but, if you’re not confident with your drawing, you can grid up your paper lightly with pencil and draw it square by square. That way you can be sure you’re getting everything in the right place. It’s not a foolproof method but it gives you far less room for error. I’ve included a gridded up version of the reference below.

The aspect ratio of the photo is the same as for a 10″x14″ piece of watercolor paper. If you mark your paper into quarters on each side and join them up to make a 4×4 grid you can transfer the drawing more easily onto your paper.

Take Some Time to Make a Plan for Your Painting

Before we dive into the painting it always helps to take a few minutes and plan out what you’re going to do. It can be hard to do this – we want to jump straight in and get those brushes moving and paint splashing around. But a few minutes thought at the start always makes for a better painting. We can spot possible problem areas and make sure we know roughly how we’re going to proceed.

Which Direction is the Light Coming From?

I first make note of where the light is coming from and where the shadows fall. In this case the sun is on our right and the shadows are falling on the left. This is always good to keep in the back of your mind. If the reference is unclear in some areas you can work out how the lights and darks should fall even if you can’t make it out from the photo.

Where are the Lights and Darks?

The next thing I do is note where my lightest lights are and my darkest darks. Once we’ve located these then we know that everything else has to fall somewhere between those areas. In this case our lightest light is the white hull on the left boat. The darkest darks are in the shadow underneath the boats and possibly inside the cabins. I keep this in mind. Nothing else can be darker or lighter than these areas.

Where are the Main Shapes and Values?

This one is trickier but it pays off giving it some thought. Even though there’s a lot of detail going on in this photo I like to break it down into 4 or 5 main value shapes. In this case I would estimate (or measure using our value scale) the value of the following areas

• The hulls of the boats (in light and shadow)
• The cabins of the boats (in light and shadow)

This may seem like a lot to work out ahead of time but getting those big value shapes right is an enormous help getting a scene to hang together and getting it to be convincing.

Identify a Few of the Colors

Doing some test mixes of a few of the main colors can also be a good idea. It’s much easier to do this before the painting. When you’re in the middle of the painting there’s so much going on it’s hard to stop and think about this. It’s a bit like prepping for a recipe. Getting all the ingredients measured out ready ahead of time makes putting a meal together much easier. (Not that I ever really do that – but I should!) In this painting I mixed as I went along but it’s a better idea to try out your color mixes at the start. If you think you can’t remember how you mixed your colors then putting a pencil note next to the swatch is a good idea. It’s doesn’t have to be anything complicated – just a list of the colors is enough.

Watercolor Boat Painting – Finally we Paint!

So let’s start painting. We’re going to paint this in layers and build up the painting from light to dark. We’re first going to block in all the shapes with their lightest colors. Once those are dry we can go back in and add in the darks. This way of working takes a bit of getting used to. As we’re starting with the light colors of all the shapes things won’t start to look three dimensional until quite late on in the painting.

I have many more step-by-step tutorials and videos!

We want things to look flat to start with..

If we put in too much value variation in the early stages then the darks won’t make as much impact when we put those in. In these early stages try and match the color and value as best you can to the reference. And, most importantly, keep these early washes even. Don’t be tempted to try and make things look right at this stage. It takes a bit of faith but once you get used to it it will all make sense.

Keep Going With the Light Values

Keep going across all of the main shapes of the boats. One thing to remember is that we’re putting in the light value of each different shape but these values may vary from shape to shape. For instance, the hull of the red boat is a bright orange-red in the light. The actual value of this is around a 5 i.e. mid-way down the value scale. If we compare this to the beige area above we can see that it’s a little darker. The beige area in the light is around a 7 but it’s still in the light.

Similarly the red stripe on the left hand boat is around a 4 (i.e. darker than a mid-value) in the light. If you have a value scale and a printout of the reference you can measure the values directly. If the color is distracting (and it can be with bright colors like these) squint your eyes and it becomes easier to judge value.

Use the ChromaMagic Tool to Measure Color

Alternatively you can load up the reference in ChromaMagic and click on different areas. It will show you the three components of the color – hue, value and chroma. The color notation is part of the Munsell way of measuring color. It is incredibly useful in painting and makes color very straightforward to analyze.

Paint in the Sea in the Background

The sea in the background goes in next. This is a fairly dark blue and helps to tie the boats in the scene and give us some depth.

As you can see at this point the painting isn’t looking three-dimensional. Don’t panic! This is exactly how it should be looking at this point.

Paint in the Sand Around Your Watercolor Boats

Next we’re going to put in the sand. I really like this bit as we get to put in some texture with our spray bottle. One thing to be careful of – sand isn’t yellow. Or rather it is yellow but a very grayed out low chroma yellow. In this scene it’s a kind of beige so make sure you add in some black to your mix to take out some of the brightness. I’ve made the mistake of painting sand far too bright in color many times. Again mixing a swatch of color beforehand helps a lot as does using ChromaMagic for checking the chroma.

Use a Spray Bottle to Add Texture

While your sand wash is still wet take a spray bottle of water and lightly spritz the surface. If the paper is the right level of dampness the water will add small sparkles and splodges in the paint. It adds some interest and texture to the foreground. This can take a bit of practice to get right. If the paper is too wet the water will just disperse and disappear. If the paper is too dry the water won’t do anything at all.

Watercolor Boat Painting – Add the Sky

Note: I’ve got the order slightly wrong here. I’ve already put in some of the darks on the boats before doing the sky. The order doesn’t really matter. You can put in the sky before the shadows and everything should work out fine.

Let’s put in some sky now. The reference photo doesn’t really have much in the way of clouds and I didn’t really want a big expanse of blue up there. So I’ve invented some cloud shapes. You have a lot of freedom here. Put in some blue around wherever you fancy the clouds to be. While the paint is wet take a clean (very clean) damp brush and soften the edges of the clouds. The blue pigment will diffuse out into the damp areas of paper making lovely soft and convinving clouds.

Watercolor Boat Painting – Second Layer Darks

Now this bit is where the painting starts to come to life. We’re going to put in the shadow sides of the objects and make them look three-dimensional. Adding in these contrasting areas also helps the visual impact of the scene and it will make the image more interesting as well as more realistic.

Don’t Add Color in the Light!

We’ve already painted in the light sides of our objects so we won’t be putting any color in there at all. We’re just going to paint in the shadow colors on mostly the left sides. Make sure your colors are at least a couple of shades darker than your light sides and things will start to take shape. When you get to the insides of the cabins we’re even darker as very little light is getting in there – you don’t need to paint things – just a few dark shapes at different angles will suggest a lot of detail.

Be careful with the shadow on the white hull. We don’t want to go too dark here and keeping that shadow light will really suggest strong sun.

Add a Cast Shadow to Anchor the Boats to the Ground

Finally add some cast shadows on the sand and right at the bottom of the boats. This will make the boats convincingly anchored to the ground.

The Magic Bit – Details on Your Watercolor Boat Painting

By this point you should have something that’s looking pretty three-dimensional. This next bit really adds sparkle and interest to your watercolor boat painting! We’re going to put in some lovely details. Put in the masts and rigging with a small synthetic brush. Make sure they’re not too dark – a mid value gray is plenty dark enough here. The other thing to take care with is not to make your lines too continuous. Leave a few gaps here and there as it will make the masts more convincing than if you carefully paint them in one continuous line.

Continue with the masts and smaller details. Add in a few lines for the railings and the ropes holding the buoys. A few light lines on the white hull will also suggest their structure. I hope everything is looking really good by now!

Flags and Signs

We’re right at the end now. A few red marks for the flags will add a pop of color. The signs on the boat go in with an almost black background. The lettering is suggested with a little opaque white.

Final Thoughts on This Watercolor Boat Painting

If you tried this painting I hope it turned out well. I would love to see your results – please feel free to send them to me. I have also videoed the whole process and you can paint along with the full painting.

2 thoughts on “ Watercolor Boat Painting Tutorial ”

Hi Michele, Kathy Martinez here. I am working with the ColorMagic tool. Love it except for one problem I am having. My monitor is a Cintiq 32 inch display that I have supposedly color corrected with an i1 display gizmo. The colors for the Munsell chips from

Kathy your program don’t come through to match my big book Munsell chips. It is way off. My cintiq screen pretty matches my Ipad. Do you have any suggestions? I have just been finding the chip I have that matches the color swatches from ColorMagic, even though they aren’t the same as described in the program.

Hi Kathy – I replied by email. I was thinking that it may well be hard to match chips directly to the screen. I’m going to try with a setup that I know the colors off and see how it goes. ColorMagic will report the colors in the photo accurately but whether you can match to the display directly may not be possible. Screens give out light and chips only reflect the light so comparing them side by side is going to make the chips always look dark. But maybe there’s something else going on! We’ll see. If it’s fixable we’ll fix it.

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Sailboat Painting Tutorial Watercolor Painting Tutorial

The sun is shining, the wind is blowing and it's time to paint! Travel with me to the Maine coast and paint this gorgeous sailboat.

Painting Tutorial Level

Skill Building

M. Graham watercolors

Painting Demonstration 1

I paint a quick, rough first wash with big mop brushes. I want the brush to hit and miss a lot, so I have the sparkling, dancing light. There are very few bright white highlights on the water. Most of the highlights are the color of the sky, a soft almost cobalt blue.

I paint the background trees first wast after the sky and water have completely dried, otherwise they will bleed everywhere. The trees are going to be painted in several layers, so don't worry about perfection, just a nice gray green color.

Painting Demonstration 2

This is the really fun step. Just let your brush dance along the water, pulling into the shadows on the sails. Be sloppy! Don't worry about perfection, just the slapping of the hull on the water and the wind blowing in your face. Paint that!

Painting Demonstration 3

It's time to start painting the sailboat. I use a very light dry brush on the wood of the boat to get the sparkle.

I try to paint the people in one step as far as possible. I don't want any details in the people at all. I don't want skin color or clothes color, just the idea of people enjoying themselves on a beautiful day. So leave the highlights white, paint the shadows and let the rest bleed into each other.

Artist Tips

Painting Demonstration 4

Just a few details on the sailboat, as well. I want the sails to have a bit of shape and structure, but I don't want to paint every line.

The United States flag is really a focal point of this painting, but it's off to the side so that makes it tricky. The bright colors are muted just a bit in shadows on the flag. I can tell it's bright but it's not distracting from the painting as a whole. I also added a touch of the bright Pyrrol Red around the painting so it wouldn't be a completely unique and distracting color. Just a touch will do it!

Painting Demonstration 5

No that the sailboat is almost done, I can darken the water. I want those sails to glow against the water. I'm leaving lots of sparkle and movement in the water. It's an exciting day out on the water, after all!

Painting Demonstration 6

I've added a bit more detail to the boat and refined some edges. I'm also darkening the trees and enlarging them. I don't want it to be a stripe but I do want the dark to contrast with the white sails.

To purchase Sailboat Painting Tutorial original watercolor painting, please click!

Sailboat Painting Tutorial Final Watercolor Painting!

I did a bit of refining with this painting at the end. I toned the edge of the tree line down so it wasn't so harsh. I also made it a lot taller. I played with details and fussed a bit, but eventually I had to slap my hand and stop.

I thought about making it the slight gray day like the photo, but this is one time the photo is off. In my memory, it was a bright sparkling summer day. So I painted it that way.

I love this painting! It just sparkles with light and that lovely summer day haze over the water. Maybe I'll go sailing next summer...

I hope this inspires you to paint - or to sail. Either is an incredible journey!

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How to Paint a Tall Ship Sailboat in Watercolour

Skill Level : 2 Intermediate

Medium : Watercolour Painting

Subject : Seascapes

Tutor : Dennis Clark

Class Length : 2 hours 20 minutes

Avg Rating : No Ratings Yet

Silver Level or Higher Class

Class Description

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Gone are the days when the ocean was filled with all types of sailing ships. Fortunately there are still some sailboats sailing the high seas. It is certainly a grand sight when a tall ship sails into a modern harbour. The sight conjours up the imagination of pirates and gun ships in battle.

In this lesson you will learn:

1.  How to paint a stormy sky to offset the light coloured sails 2.  How to paint the seas to give the impression of waves in motion 3.  How to add colour to the sails 4.  How to simplify the deck detail and shrouding and more ...

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Dennis: I really enjoyed this class. Thank you for an informative lesson. Kathy KathyKuz

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Class Tutorial

Tall sailing ships have always captured the imagination of the adventurous. Pirates with eye patches and a hook hand and all that. What we are going to do is paint one in watercolour.

This is the photo we will be working from:

We will unfurl the last sail so that we have a better looking ship.

Masking the Sails

There is a lot of white areas to be protected so use masking fluid to do this. About ½ inch or 15mm around the edge of the sails should be enough protection.

When you have protected all areas that need to be, gently blow dry before proceeding.

Painting the Sky

With a large flat brush wet all the sky area and then float in some Cobalt Blue.

Be careful to keep the horizon straight.

Add more blue pigment to the sky mix and bring a touch of Burnt Sienna to warm it up a bit. Drop this colour into the wet sky and move it around to suit. We are looking for a darkish sky in order to contrast with the light sails. This will ensure a lovely dramatic painting.

With a bundled up tissue dab some areas to give the impression of cloud billows.

Painting the Sea

Make up a light mix of Blue and Viridian and paint the sea with horizontal strokes. Don't paint it too evenly. To be able to indicate some nice windswept waves use the two colours in horizontal lines and intermingled.

Keep the foreground darker at the lower end of the painting and lighter towards the horizon.

Now we can begin to add in the curved lines for the swells and waves. Don't overdo it and make the waves too wild. The waves will get smaller into the distance.

Because clouds show reflections from the sea surface, very carefully glaze in a few light sea colour on sections of the clouds. This creates a colour harmony between sea and sky.

Use a small round brush to paint in the shadow areas of the waves. Note that each swell will have a light refection on the top edge.

A word of warning: Don't make the swells too large in relation to the size of the ship.

Paint the dark reflection of the ship.

Dry the sea area before continuing.

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Painting the sails.

Remove the masking fluid off the ship.

With an Orange/Brown colour begin painting in all the spars and the masts. To keep them straight and even it is best to do so with a series of short strokes.

The sails are made out of a very strong cotton cloth or canvas and unless they are new sails, they will be slightly discoloured and yellow from being exposed to the harsh elements.

To achieve the aged look, start painting, or rather glazing, some Yellow Ochre over the sails.

When that has been completed, mix up a light Blue/Gray for adding the shadows on the sails. Remember to show any folds in the sails themselves.

Continue working on the shadows and eventually adding the darkest shadows under the spars. Touch up, with a light Gray for the seams at the edge of the sails.

Carefully add the other details in the sails and the shadows on the masts.

Touch up all the other smaller details in the sail areas, including the flag.

Painting the Ship

With a very dark mix of Brown made up from Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna, paint the hull of the sailing ship and the lighter strip on the side.

Now comes the interesting part of this painting, and it is all the small details on the deck. In the reference photograph there is a ton of detail. Now, we are NOT going to paint all the detail as shown in the photograph.

We are going to simplify the lot by blocking in the main shapes only. Slowly build up the various tones and colours. Be careful to keep the general shapes of the sailors.

As you can see there is simply a suggestion of all the items on the deck and no details whatsoever.

Once the shapes have been painted we can now, with a small round brush add the railings.

Add Finishing Details

Paint in a gull or two for some extra movement and interest. This close-up shows just how simplified all the details are.

With some Chinese White, straight out the tube, touch up all the small areas that need White, such as the tips of the spars.

For this size of sailing ship we would not be able to paint in the thin ropes with a small brush. They would just be too thick. We will add them in with a very sharp-pointed pencil. A 0.5mm Mechanical pencil works very well here.

Notice that I am only adding in the main rigging and leaving out all the lesser ropes. It is not necessary to add them all in. The brain is well able to add them in for you.

Again, with Chinese White, add the bow wave of the ship as well as the highlights in the deck area and some of the wave tops.

To finish off I want you to notice that each sail has a slightly different brightness than the others. Don't try to keep them all the same colour.

This is what the final painting looks like:

About Dennis Clark

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