# Let's Play! The Magic & FUN of Intuitive Loose Watercolor Painting! - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/lets-play-the-magic-and-fun-of-intuitive-loose-watercolor-painting/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Illustration & Drawing · Solid intro · Rated 6 /10 # Let's Play! The Magic & FUN of Intuitive Loose Watercolor Painting! Updated September 2026 Yasmina Creates · Artist & Creativity Cheerleader All levels · 124 min This is process therapy disguised as a painting class, valuable if you need permission to make bad art, useless if you want technique. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Flets-play-the-magic-and-fun-of-intuitive-loose-watercolor-painting%2F1535267347) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. ## A mindset class wearing watercolor clothes This course is not really about watercolor. It uses watercolor as the cheapest, most forgiving vehicle for a program about creative anxiety: identifying the inner critic, learning to quiet it, and reconnecting to a state the instructor calls flow. The fourteen lessons spend more time on psychology than pigment. Two lessons are devoted entirely to naming "the enemy of creativity" and the flow state before a single brushstroke happens, and a guided meditation near the end walks the viewer through an inner-child visualization rather than any painting method. That framing is both the course's strength and its limit. As therapy-adjacent content, it is genuinely well built. The instructor tells a specific story about a seven-year-old at a party who declares she'll never be good enough, then uses it to define the "bad inner critic" versus the "good inner critic," the second of which treats mistakes like a coach noting things to improve rather than reasons for shame. That distinction, and the concrete script for rebuilding the habit (catch the negative thought, replace it with what you'd say to a friend), is more useful than most creativity pep talks because it gives an actual mechanism instead of just encouragement. ## What actually happens on paper When painting does start, the approach is loose to the point of being unstructured by design. The demonstrations show picking a random brush and color and following wherever the hand goes, with the instructor narrating her own state of mind in real time: noticing an urge to add yellow that doesn't logically belong, deciding not to correct a bleed, treating a touched wet edge as not a mistake at all. There is a drills lesson that introduces the closest thing to actual skill practice, straight-line and thin-to-thick brush control exercises, done slowly and mindfully rather than for polish. And there is an emotion-focused session where the instructor paints anger and grief directly, narrates a memory of a grandfather while doing it, then deliberately adds a warm color at the end to shift the emotional tone of the piece. That sequence is the most substantive single technique in the class: using color and mark-making as a deliberate emotional processing tool, not just a metaphor for it. ## Where it comes up short For anyone hoping to leave with new watercolor skills, the class will feel thin. Supplies are covered briefly, favoring cheap paint on principle, and the "basics/refresher" lesson is exactly that, assuming prior exposure rather than teaching wash technique, color mixing, or paper handling from scratch. Structurally, the course also repeats itself. The guidelines (don't care about results, stay in the moment, silence the critic) are restated almost verbatim at the end of nearly every lesson, which reinforces the message but stretches thin content across 124 minutes. The final project asks for a journal entry about the emotional experience of painting rather than a finished piece, which is consistent with the class's actual goal. Judged as a course about creative permission and self-compassion that happens to use a brush, it delivers. Judged as a watercolor course, it is closer to an extended warm-up exercise than instruction. The standout The emotional-release exercise, where color and messy marks are used deliberately to work through a specific feeling and then reframed with a positive color at the end, functions as a real art-therapy technique rather than a painting lesson. ## What you will learn - · How to reframe a harsh inner critic into neutral, constructive self-talk - · How to start an unplanned painting session from a blank page with no subject in mind - · A brush-control drill for practicing thin-to-thick and straight-line strokes - · How to use color and mark-making to process and release specific emotions - · A guided visualization for entering a relaxed, playful headspace before painting - · Basic watercolor material choices, including why cheap paint suits this practice Best for: Someone with creative block, perfectionism, or art-related anxiety who wants a low-stakes daily habit to rebuild a relationship with making things. Skip it if: Anyone wanting to learn actual watercolor technique, such as washes, control, or composition, since skill-building is explicitly not the point. Helpful Examples Engaging Teacher Clarity of Instruction Actionable Steps [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Flets-play-the-magic-and-fun-of-intuitive-loose-watercolor-painting%2F1535267347)