# How to Paint: Watercolor Cacti & Succulents - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/how-to-paint-watercolor-cacti-and-succulents/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Illustration & Drawing · Solid intro · Rated 7 /10 # How to Paint: Watercolor Cacti & Succulents Updated August 2026 Audrey Moon · Watercolorist and Modern Calligrapher Beginner · 87 min Four loose watercolor plants, one long unscripted painting session, and no drawing skills required to keep up. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fhow-to-paint-watercolor-cacti-and-succulents%2F2107657749) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. "How to Paint: Watercolor Cacti & Succulents" is built around four real-time painting demonstrations, each one a plant: beaver tail cactus, saguaro, zebra plant, and echeveria. There is no drawing or sketching phase. Audrey Moon loads a brush and starts laying down shapes directly, and the class asks students to follow along stroke by stroke rather than study a method in the abstract. That structure makes the course feel less like a lecture and more like painting alongside someone, which is exactly the appeal for a beginner who wants a low-pressure entry point into watercolor. ## What the four projects actually teach Each plant is chosen to introduce a different technique without ever naming it as a separate module. The beaver tail cactus centers on leaving white paper unpainted to suggest form, plus a lifting technique where a clean, blotted brush pulls pigment back off the page to widen that white space after the fact. The saguaro repeats the white-space idea at a larger scale and adds color bleeding, letting green run into a wet yellow-brown base so the two tones merge on their own. The zebra plant is the most technically distinct lesson: leaves are fully colored in dark green, then dried, then finished with Dr. Ph. Martin's bleed-proof white painted in a deliberate zigzag to fake the fuzzy white ribbing real zebra plants have. That white paint fix is called out explicitly as necessary, since regular watercolor white is too transparent to read against dark green. The echeveria closes the class with a rosette built from the center outward, using two brushes at once, one to lay color and a second, water-dampened one to drag and soften each leaf's gradient. ## Where it earns its rating, and where it falls short The techniques taught are genuinely transferable: wet-on-wet blending, glazing over dried layers, lifting color, and using opaque white as a design element are all core watercolor skills, and seeing them applied four times in slightly different contexts reinforces them better than a single demo would. The real-time pacing is also a strength for absolute beginners, since there is no jump-cut assumption that a step just happens off-screen. The looseness that makes the class approachable is also its main limitation. Color mixing throughout is described in vague terms like "some sap green" or "maybe some Payne's gray," with an admitted failure to record exact ratios, so a student trying to reproduce results precisely will need to experiment rather than follow a recipe. There is also no instruction on paper, paint brand, or water-to-pigment ratios beyond passing mentions, and no discussion of how to fix common beginner problems like backruns or muddy color beyond the general lifting technique shown once. The final lesson's tips, mainly to observe real plants and invest in different brush sizes, are reasonable but thin as closing guidance. For a beginner who wants a relaxed, forgiving first attempt at loose botanical watercolor and is willing to treat color matching as trial and error, the class delivers four solid, varied paintings and several reusable techniques in under an hour and a half. Anyone looking for precise color formulas, realistic botanical accuracy, or a more rigorous technique breakdown will find the loose, go-with-the-flow approach limiting rather than freeing. The standout The zebra plant lesson's use of Dr. Ph. Martin's bleed-proof white painted in a zigzag over dark, dried green is the one technique that produces a result ordinary watercolor paint cannot. ## What you will learn - · Mixing greens, blues, and pinks by eye for cactus and succulent palettes - · Using wet-on-wet to bleed colors together on beaver tail and saguaro shapes - · Leaving deliberate white space to create dimension instead of shading realistically - · Layering and glazing dried color to darken sections without muddying them - · Applying opaque bleed-proof white over dried pigment for the zebra plant's fuzzy texture - · Building an echeveria from the center outward using rounded-to-pointed leaf shapes Best for: Beginners who already own basic watercolor supplies and want a relaxed, loose-style painting session without sketching first. Skip it if: Anyone wanting botanically accurate renderings, structured technique drills, or a class that explains color theory rather than mixing by feel. Clarity of Instruction Actionable Steps Engaging Teacher Helpful Examples [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fhow-to-paint-watercolor-cacti-and-succulents%2F2107657749)