Messy Watercolors

Class: Messy Watercolors in Procreate by Teela, Every Tuesday

This courses teaches a messy watercolor style on Procreate. There are a total of 7 projects plus bonus content for prints, as well as extended licenses for the brushes (I love that Teela supplies all the brushes and the extended license as part of the course).

The first project is actually three mini practice projects using a leaf watercolor source image. The three projects demonstrate different levels of messiness.

Little Messy Leaves

Loose and Messy Leaves

Extra Loose, Extra Messy Leaves

Between the Little Messy Leaves and the Loose and Messy Leaves, there isn’t much difference on mine as I was still getting the hang of what “messiness” means in regards to the painting. The Extra Loose, Extra Messy Leaves, I was feeling more comfortable using the smudge brush so it has a bit more messiness in there. I think of these as practice warm-ups that introduce the new brushes and techniques.

Messy Popsicle. Reference (left), painting (right).

The second project is the Messy Popsicle. I love the colors on this one. The reference watercolor painting is on the right, and my version is on the left. Still struggled a bit with the smudge, this is most visible at the top of the popsicle with the darker pink color. I learned smudge does distort the nice texture from the brushes and stamps. So it needs to be used judiciously in order to balance the right amount of smudge and blend while maintaining enough of the interesting texture from the brushes. I’m still getting the hang of smudging and blending here.

Messy Popsicle

I love the splatter and texture in the brushes, just need to figure out how to make everything look cohesive as one painting. This popsicle reminds me of summer days, chilling out and things are easy breezy.

Messy Watermelon

I was pleasantly surprised at how the Messy Watermelon turned out. On project 3, we start using more stamps in the class for blooms, splashes, and stains. These help give that watery effect and create hard defining edges like on the watermelon rind.

Messy Echinacea

The purple in echinacea flowers are so pretty. This project introduces more stamps and more messiness. The petals were a little tough due to the layering and overlapping.

Messy Bird

At this point in the course, on the Messy Bird, I feel like I’m getting the hang of the messy watercolor technique. Getting better at blending, smudging, and warping the stamps.

Messy Fox

Messy Fox was pretty challenging due to all the fur and the light colors used like off-whites and greys. The course teaches a technique for a realistic eye and nose on the fox. This was pretty interesting, and I thought it turned out well. Basically using a lot of different colors to capture the color change in the eye and nose, then blending those all together. Zoomed in while I was working, it looked super weird. But then zooming out, it’s like ta-da! Magic! An eyeball!

Messy Beta Fish

The Messy Beta Fish is the last project in the course, took the most time, and was definitely my favorite. All of the bright and vibrant colors are just so beautiful. This project builds on all the previous techniques and packages them together. I used to have beta fish as a kid and always liked how their fins flow and billow in the water.

Overall, this was a shorter course than the Gouache Botanicals (24 projects including warm-ups vs 9 projects including warm-ups on Messy Watercolors) but there are a ton more brushes and stamps included in Messy Watercolors. I had a lot of fun learning this new technique and would definitely recommend the course. It is beginner friendly; more advanced artists can make modifications to suit their experience level.

Source photos:

Watermelon Photo by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash

Echinacea Photo by Stephan H. on Unsplash

Bird Photo by Gabriele Agrillo on Unsplash

Fox Photo by Birger Strahl on Unsplash

Beta Fish Photo by Worachat Sodsri on Unsplash