10 Best Online Watercolor Classes & Courses in 2023

• Rating: 10/10
• Platform: Udemy
• Suitable for: Beginners and intermediate students
• Duration: 19 lectures (4 hours 19 minutes) 
• Certificate: Yes
• Lifetime access
• Price: $34.99

There are many watercolour art classes online, but none as comprehensive as Udemy’s The Watercolour Workshop.

Suitable for newbies and intermediate students, this course gradually moves from one topic to the next, covering all one needs to know about getting started with watercolours. 

In fact, topics range from application techniques and compositional strategies to hands-on insight into still life, landscape, and portrait painting. In addition, the instructor will teach you more about how to use various forms of watercolours, as well as pastel, pencil, ink and gouache painting techniques.

The course also includes 18 ebooks that delve deeper into every step of the tutorial—an invaluable resource for those who want to learn watercolour painting through visual aids.

• Rating: 9.8/10
• Platform: Udemy
• Suitable for: Beginners
• Duration: 20 lectures (3 hours)
• Certificate: Yes
• Lifetime access 
• Price: $69,99

Developed by one of the best learning platforms, this is a great foundational course for those who find inspiration in nature but have little to no experience with watercolours and painting.

Heidi Willis, botanical illustrator and painter, teaches this 3-hour content-rich class that will not only equip you with the most common painting techniques but will also teach you practical strategies, such as buying the right materials and preparing your workspace to create a productive and creativity-inducing environment.

What’s more, this step-by-step tutorial will give you the confidence you need to really get started with watercolours and botanicals. 

• Rating: 9.8/10
• Platform: Skillshare
• Suitable for: All levels
• Duration: 18 lessons (3 hours 29 mins)
• Certificate: No 
• Lifetime access (limited)
• Price: £7.50/month (£90 billed annually)

No other medium, not even the best photo-editing software, can capture a beautiful landscape quite as watercolours can. Luckily, this all-inclusive Skillshare course is here to show you the right painting techniques so you, too, can create flawless and easy watercolour paintings of landscapes.

Jam-packed with quality content and valuable information, this masterclass for beginners covers basic technical skills, such as painting skies, background and foreground elements. It then teaches you how to blend it all together in four completed landscapes paintings as part of the final class project. 

Last but not least, the instructor Zaneena Nabel and the free Skillshare community are always available to help you with any questions so you can journey along your path to successful watercolour painting with confidence. 

• Rating: 9.6/10
• Platform: Skillshare
• Suitable for: Beginners
• Duration: 14 lessons (1 hour 20 minutes)
• Certificate: No 
• Lifetime access: yes (limited) 
• Price: £7.50/month (£90 billed annually)

Interested in watercolours but think you might be out of your depth with an online watercolour workshop? With Skillshare’s amazing starter course, you will get all the theoretical knowledge as well as gain the confidence to create your first masterpiece.

Artist, entrepreneur and a popular educator on this well-known platform, Cat Coquillette will guide you through the basics of watercolours, starting from tips and tricks on sketching compositions to how to control different brush techniques and fix mistakes. You will also get a bonus video on how to weave metallic textures into your paintings with Photoshop to give your work a more contemporary vibe. 

Best of all, the classes are organised into short, bite-sized modules easy for beginners to follow and consume.

• Rating: 9.9/10 
• Platform: Domestika
• Suitable for: Beginners
• Duration: 20 lessons (3h 31 mins) 
• Certificate: Yes 
• Lifetime access
• Price: $10 

One of Domestika’s best-selling courses, this class, led by the genius mind of Alex Hillkurtz, brings you the extraordinary experience of sketching with watercolour and ink.  

Throughout the course, Alex will show you how to translate feelings and emotions for a specific place into beautiful paintings using just these two simple materials. You will also gradually pick up skills like fundamental sketching techniques, washing and mixing colours, as well as capturing lights and shadows. All of this will lead to the course project where you can use your newly-acquired talents to create a wonderful architectural watercolour painting.

Complete with tips and tricks of the trade, lifetime access and certification, this is a great class for urban sketchers and aspiring architects. 

• Rating: 9.7/10
• Platform: Domestika 
• Suitable for: Beginner
• Certificate: Yes 
• Lifetime access
• Duration: 18 lessons (3 hours 14mins)    
• Price: $11.99

This beginner-friendly Domestika course is all about colours, fine shapes and vivid wildlife illustrations. 

Presented by self-taught UK-based artist Sarah Stoves, this class is a great opportunity to learn a variety of watercolour techniques inspired by the beauty, movement and colours of birds. Even though these ​​watercolour lessons focus on painting birds, students will still learn a great deal about the basics of watercolour painting, such as choosing the right materials, controlling pigments, adding pen work to enhance effects and much more. 

Students will then be able to apply these techniques not just in the final class project but on illustrations of other wildlife, thus mastering one of the most difficult skills—painting animals with a fluid art medium like watercolours. 

• Rating: 9.6/10
• Platform: Creativebug
• Suitable for: Beginners
• Duration: 31 lessons (3 hours)
• Certificate: No 
• Lifetime access
• Price: from $5.95 

As the name suggests, this class focuses on the watercolour techniques needed to paint a delicate and intricate subject like flowers.

In this one-month course, the lovely Yao Cheng will lead you to explore a variety of brush strokes techniques used for painting the petals and leaves of many popular flowers, as well as give you a chance to work with different colour combinations and learn how to capture movement and light effectively.                     

In addition to a charming introduction to the world of watercolour flower painting, this course comes with a generous two-month trial period and a gallery of downloadable finished images to get you inspired. Plus, classes are streamed in HD and accessible online at any time and on any device.

• Rating: 9.4/10
• Platform: Angela Fehr Watercolour
• Suitable for: All levels     
• Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes 
• Certificate: No 
• Lifetime access
• Price: Free

Here is the perfect opportunity for anyone who wants to get into watercolours without investing money! 

This is an excellent free course from Angela Fehr, a watercolour artist with loads of experience and a loyal community following for years. She offers a watercolour course that never ends, meaning that you start the workshop, and every couple of days, you receive an email with watercolour classes. The lessons are designed for beginners and more advanced students and explore topics like basic watercolour techniques, wet-in-wet painting, composition planning, floral and landscape painting and more. 

Another standout feature are Angela’s unique pep talks, which follow each lesson, keeping you motivated and encouraged as you progress along the course.

• Rating: 9.4/10
• Platform: CreativeLive
• Level of difficulty: Beginners
• Duration: 13 lessons (2 hours 37 mins)
• Certificate: No 
• Lifetime access
• Price: $5 (this class), $13 per month 

If you are interested in branching out from watercolour into gouache painting, this is the course for you. 

Brought to you by CreativeLive, another interactive platform for creatives, this class touches briefly on techniques and dives deep into materials. In fact, Mary Jane Begin, award-winning illustrator and professor, will introduce you to basic painting practices from choosing the right paper, brushes and paints and making simple marks and shapes.  

This course may not provide any certificates or accreditation, but it does offer a great deal of practical knowledge about the fundamentals of gouache painting that you are not likely to find among other watercolour classes.

• Rating: 9.3/10
• Platform: Simplified Classes
• Suitable for: Children 
• Duration: 8 lessons 
• Certificate: No 
• Lifetime access
• Price: $29.00

Not all online watercolour classes are for adults! This course by Simplified Classes is specifically geared towards six to 12-year-olds who might need a creative outlet even more than grown-ups. 

Taught and organised by Emily Lex, a watercoloring enthusiast and mother of four, this is the perfect course to introduce your little ones to the world of art. Each of the eight video lessons on the platform are short, easy to follow and focus on a single project or technique, such as learning about watercolour supplies, creating colour palettes and mixing colours. Also included are practical and super fun exercises as well as 20 bonus, hand-drawn sketches and patterns for children to colour in their free time.