I was six years old when I first sat down at Art Action, a private art school co-founded by a husband-and-wife team, and started learning to paint. Mr. Tan Kay Nguan, one of the founders, taught me the basics of still life sketching and shading before eventually introducing me to watercolour. I still remember being mesmerized by it, how translucent layers of colour could blend into each other and somehow still look harmonious, like they knew what they were doing even when I didn't.
I trained under Mr. Tan until I was about eleven. What stuck with me wasn't just technique, it was discipline. Showing up every week, class after class, taught me that getting better at watercolour isn't about talent, it's about consistency. That training also built my patience, which I think is the most useful thing I bring into teaching adults today.
One struggle I still remember clearly from those early years was trying to control the water. I wanted every stroke to go exactly where I intended. It took me years to realise that in watercolour, the beauty isn't in controlling it completely, it's in letting the water and pigment move together, letting gravity pull them in directions you didn't plan. That's where the magic actually happens. It's a lesson I try to pass on to every beginner who sits down at my table today, worried they're "doing it wrong."
Is Watercolour Painting Hard to Learn as an Adult?
Short answer: no, but I understand why it feels that way.
I actually took a break from painting for a few years myself, after all that early training. Life happened, the way it does. When I picked up a brush again as an adult, I felt exactly what a lot of my students tell me they feel walking into their first class: a bit rusty, a bit self-conscious, wondering if I'd "lost it" or if I was starting from zero.
I hadn't lost it. And neither will you.
What I've learned, both from my own experience returning to painting and from teaching adults who are picking up a brush for the very first time, is that watercolour is actually one of the more forgiving mediums to start with as an adult. You don't need years of drawing practice behind you. You don't need a steady hand or a "natural talent" for art. What you need is patience with the process, and a willingness to let the water do some of the work for you rather than fighting it.
This is actually why I teach loose, abstract florals to beginners rather than tight, realistic botanical studies. It plays to watercolour's actual strength, that gentle unpredictability, instead of asking you to fight against it before you've even learned the basics.
So if you're an adult who hasn't picked up a paintbrush since primary school art class, or ever, you're not behind. You're exactly where I was.
What Supplies Do You Need to Start?
You don't need a full art supply store to start watercolour painting, and honestly, I'd encourage you not to buy one. When I teach beginners, I always recommend keeping the starter kit simple. Complicated supplies won't make you a better painter any faster, they'll just make the whole thing feel more intimidating than it needs to be.
Here's what I actually recommend to my own students:
- Watercolour paints — Pentel watercolours, easily found at Popular Bookstore, are a reliable and affordable place to start
- A palette — a simple plastic palette from Daiso works perfectly well for mixing
- Watercolour paper — Bao Hong watercolour paper in 100% cotton, 300 gsm, is great to work with and totally worth investing in even as a beginner. It holds up to layering and water without warping too much.
- A few round brushes — you don't need a full set, two or three sizes will take you through most beginner work
- A jar of water and some paper towels — genuinely, that's it
I get asked a lot whether "beginner" supplies will hold someone back from painting well. They won't. What matters far more at this stage is practice and understanding how water behaves on the page, not the price tag on your paint set. I'll break down exact costs and where to find each item in Singapore in a full supply guide, but if you're just starting out, this short list is genuinely all you need to begin.
Basic Watercolour Techniques Every Beginner Should Know
You don't need to master every watercolour technique before your first class, or even your tenth. But there are three fundamentals I walk every beginner through early, because understanding them changes how you see the whole medium.
Wet-on-Wet vs. Wet-on-Dry
These are the two basic approaches to laying down colour, and most of watercolour painting is really just choosing between them, moment to moment.
Wet-on-wet is when you apply paint onto paper that's already damp. This is where you get those soft, blurred edges and colours that bloom into each other almost on their own, it's the technique behind that translucent, dreamy look watercolour is known for. Wet-on-dry is the opposite, applying paint onto dry paper, which gives you more control and crisper edges.
Neither is "better." Most paintings, including the loose florals I teach, use both, wet-on-wet for the soft blended background of a petal, wet-on-dry for a crisper detail on top once it's dried.
Understanding Water-to-Pigment Ratio
This is the single most important thing to get a feel for as a beginner, more important than any brush technique. How much water you mix with your pigment determines everything, how transparent or bold your colour looks, how far it spreads on the page, how it interacts with the paper.
More water gives you a soft, translucent wash. Less water gives you a richer, more saturated colour. There's no formula I can hand you that replaces just practicing this and watching what happens, but here's the mindset shift that helped me most: stop trying to predict exactly what the water will do, and start paying attention to what it's already doing. Watercolour rewards observation more than control.
Why Loose Florals Are the Best First Subject
I teach beginners to paint loose, abstract florals for a reason, and it's the same reason I fell in love with this medium in the first place. Florals don't demand precision. A rose doesn't need every petal in the "correct" place to still read as beautiful, in fact, some of the most striking floral paintings lean into looseness rather than fighting it.
This makes florals forgiving in exactly the way a beginner needs. You get to practice wet-on-wet blending, water-to-pigment control, and brushwork, all while creating something that looks intentional even when it doesn't go exactly to plan. I'll go deeper into why loose florals are best for beginners in a dedicated article, but if you're choosing your first subject, start here.
Common Beginner Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)
Teaching beginners for years now, I tend to see the same few mistakes show up again and again. None of them mean you're bad at this, they're just part of learning a medium that behaves differently from anything most of us grew up using.
The most common one is painting with tiny, hesitant brushstrokes. I can usually tell within the first few minutes of class when a student is scared of "painting wrongly", their strokes get small and careful, almost apologetic. But watercolour actually rewards the opposite. Confident, looser strokes tend to produce better results than cautious, tiny ones, ironically, trying too hard to control every mark is often what makes a painting look stiff.
The second is impatience between layers. It's tempting to add the next layer of colour before the first has properly dried, especially when you're excited about how a piece is coming along. But painting on top of a still-wet layer often muddies colours or disrupts the effect you were going for. Learning to wait, even just a few extra minutes, is one of the most underrated skills in watercolour.
And then there's the one I struggled with myself early on: trying to control the water completely. I go into this in more depth earlier in this guide, but it's worth repeating here, some of the best effects in watercolour come from letting go a little, not gripping tighter.
I'll walk through these in much more detail, along with a few more, in a dedicated article on beginner mistakes. But if you take away just one thing from this section: slow down, loosen your grip, and give your paper time to breathe between layers.
How Long Does It Take to Get Good at Watercolour?
There's no cast-in-stone answer to this, and I'd be cautious of anyone who gives you one. Progress depends on how often you practice, what you're trying to paint, and honestly, how much patience you're willing to have with yourself along the way.
What I can share is what I actually observe within a single 2-hour intro workshop, since that's the format most of my students experience first.
At the very start, most students paint with short, uncertain strokes. It's not a lack of ability, it's just unfamiliarity, watercolour behaves differently from anything most adults have used since school. There's usually a turning point partway through the session, often once a student realises, through their own trial and error, that adding more water dilutes the intensity of their pigment. That one small realisation about water-to-pigment ratio tends to be the moment things start clicking. Their strokes get longer, more confident, less hesitant.
By the end of the same 2-hour session, I consistently see a noticeable shift, students painting with bolder, more relaxed strokes, and almost always smiling at what they've created. That's not "mastery," and it doesn't need to be. But it is real, visible progress you can expect from a single sitting, and for most beginners, that first taste of confidence is what matters most.
So if you're wondering whether one workshop is "enough" to get anything out of, in my experience, it's enough to walk away with a real shift, even if the learning itself never really ends.
Self-Taught vs. Taking a Class — What's the Difference?
You can absolutely learn watercolour on your own. There are countless tutorials online, and plenty of people teach themselves successfully. But having been on both sides of this, as a student who trained under a teacher for years, and now as the teacher myself, I think it's worth being honest about what a class gives you that self-teaching often can't.
The biggest difference isn't technique, it's feedback. When I was learning under Mr. Tan as a child, what shaped me most wasn't just being shown how to hold a brush, it was having someone watch me paint and gently correct things in real time, before a habit had the chance to set in. Self-taught painters often develop workarounds for problems they don't even realise they have, simply because there's no one there to point it out in the moment.
A class also removes a lot of the guesswork that causes beginners to give up early. When you're teaching yourself, every mistake raises a question: is this normal, or am I doing something wrong? In a class, that question gets answered immediately, which keeps frustration from building up before you've even had the chance to enjoy the process.
That said, a single class isn't going to replace years of practice, and it shouldn't have to. I see workshops less as a substitute for self-practice, and more as an accelerant, a way to build a proper foundation quickly, with fewer wrong turns, so that whatever practising you do on your own afterward is actually building on solid ground.
If you're trying to decide whether a class is worth it for you, it might help to know what to actually look for in one, and what a good beginner workshop should offer.
Ready to Try It Yourself?
If any part of this guide made you think "maybe I could actually do this," that feeling is worth listening to. You don't need years of art training, expensive supplies, or natural talent to start. You just need a willingness to sit with a little uncertainty, let the water do some of the work, and give yourself permission to paint loosely, even imperfectly, especially at the start.
I'd love for you to experience that first shift in confidence for yourself, the same one I see in almost every student by the end of a session. My next beginner watercolour workshop runs on Saturday, 15 August, and it's designed exactly for adults picking up a brush for the first time, or picking it back up after years away.
Reserve Your Spot in My Next Beginner Workshop →
No experience needed. Just come as you are, and see where the water takes you.
FAQ
Do I need talent to learn watercolour painting?
No. What matters far more than natural talent is patience and a willingness to let go of control, watercolour is a forgiving medium once you stop trying to predict every outcome.
What's the most affordable way to start watercolour painting in Singapore?
A simple starter kit, affordable paints, a basic palette, and beginner-friendly paper, is genuinely enough to begin. You don't need to invest heavily in supplies before your first class or first attempt at home.
Can adults learn watercolour painting from scratch?
Yes, and it's more common than you'd think. Many adult beginners have never picked up a paintbrush since school, or are returning to it after years away, and still see real progress within a single session.