Workshop: Watercolor Windowscapes (Fall 2025)

See the season through watercolor with this four-part exploration of painting skies through your window.

Workshop: Watercolor Windowscapes (Fall 2025)
Develop your technique through learning how to paint “The Core 9” foundational skies

November 8, 15, 22 & 29, 2025 (this is a four-part series)
2-3 p.m. PST

Online via Zoom (small group setting)

Details

Fall has arrived, bringing some of the most breathtaking skies of the year. Even as the days grow cooler, you can stay close to nature by capturing those shifting clouds and evening hues indoors — a peaceful way to nurture both your nature journaling habit and your watercolor practice while indoors.

In this four-part live course, we’ll explore the beauty of everyday skies through small “windowscape” studies — quick, meditative paintings you can create from home.

After painting the sky for 1,001 days straight, I have distilled what I believe to be the most essential sky painting skills into an easy-to-follow curriculum designed to help you get started immediately and walk away with the skills needed to begin painting skies of your own.

We’ll explore nine types of skies together through simple, mindful watercolor studies designed to build confidence and deepen your observation skills. Each lesson builds upon the previous exercises and covers nine core skills (“The Core 9”) — skills I have deemed to be the most fundamental in my time painting skies.

Develop your technique through learning how to paint “The Core 9” foundational skies

You’ll learn how to:
☁️ Paint nine different types of skies
🩵 Find your blue while exploring a variety of color interactions
🎨 Leverage lifting techniques, light, and shadows to create dramatic clouds
🪟 Capture everyday views with mindfulness and simplicity

Details

The course begins November 8, 2025, and spaces are limited to keep sessions personal. This workshop will be held online via Zoom. Class dates are as follows:

  • Part 1: Nov. 8th, 2-3 p.m. PST
  • Part 2: Nov. 15th, 2-3 p.m. PST
  • Part 3: Nov. 22nd, 2-3 p.m. PST
  • Part 4: Nov. 29th, 2-3 p.m. PST

Price

Enrollment is free, but space is limited. To sign up, visit the link below to complete a short registration form.


Supplies

To make the most of your time in this workshop, I encourage you to paint along with us using your favorite watercolor supplies and tools – supplies with which you’re already familiar (with maybe a few exceptions, which I have listed below with an asterisk *). This page contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Paper

100% cotton is recommended and it will have a big impact on your results, however, you can use whatever paper you have and prefer. I prefer white paper as the color of the paper impacts the whiteness of clouds and highlights. Here are my favorite paper types for watercolor skies:

Watercolor Paints

You do not need all the colors listed below, but a variety of blues such as Cobalt, Cerulean, French Ultramarine, etc. will be helpful, as well as a dark grey or black such as Neutral Tint. I have found Yellow Ochre to be immensely helpful in creating a warm horizon without turning green when it touches blue.

Please note different regions have different blues and the blue in your region might not be the same as the blue in my region. We’ll cover this more in the class.

Don’t worry too much about specific paint brands for this class. I am only sharing my personal kit colors as I am often asked which colors and brands I use.

The colors in my sky palette (listed in order below)

Here are the colors in my skies palette:

Brushes

Please feel comfortable using what you already have and what you prefer! These are my favs. If you choose to make a purchase via ArtToolkit, you can use the promo code BROOKE10 to get 10% off qualifying items.

My favorite paint brushes plus water brushes. If I could only have one, it would be the second brush from the left: Size 12, pointed round (Rosemary & Co R19). I prefer to use regular brushes when painting skies, but water brushes can work in a pinch.

Other Supplies

  • 1-2 jars of water if using regular brushes
  • Tissue paper for a wide variety of blotting and lifting effects
  • Binder clips or bulldog clips to help your paper dry flat
  • Eye dropper or small spray bottle of water to wet and refresh your paints
  • Masking tape. Be sure to always first test your tape as some papers can tear easily!

I hope this helps you feel both excited and prepared for painting watercolor skies! Remember: The most important part is showing up. You do not need all the supplies listed here. Let’s build our toolbox of techniques and have some fun!

A week of watercolor skies for November 11-17, 2024