# The Watercolorist's Sketchbook: Creative Exercises to Inspire and Explore - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/the-watercolorists-sketchbook-creative-exercises-to-inspire-and-explore/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Illustration & Drawing · Quick win · Rated 6 /10 # The Watercolorist's Sketchbook: Creative Exercises to Inspire and Explore Updated August 2026 Arleesha Yetzer · Watercolor Illustrator & YouTube Artist All levels · 37 min Five quick sketchbook exercises loosen up a stuck watercolorist in under 40 minutes, but nobody learns a new technique here. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fthe-watercolorists-sketchbook-creative-exercises-to-inspire-and-explore%2F805039633) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. The Watercolorist's Sketchbook is less a technique class than a mindset reset, and it is upfront about that trade. Arleesha Yetzer, a watercolor illustrator with a YouTube following near 50,000, spends 37 minutes walking through five small exercises meant to loosen up an artist who feels stuck, blocked, or unsure what to put on a blank page. There is no promise of a finished piece by the end, and the class delivers exactly what it promises: a set of low-stakes prompts rather than a tutorial on watercolor fundamentals. The arc is sensible. It opens with a materials rundown that is almost aggressively minimal, two round brushes, a mixed palette, water, a rag, and a couple of pencils, before moving into Exercise 1, where simple spheres and cubes get sketched in pencil for value first, then repainted in watercolor for color. That pencil-to-paint pairing is the most instructive segment in the class because it isolates two separate decisions, light and shadow, then color, so a beginner can actually see how a shape reads differently in graphite versus pigment. Exercise 2 is the highlight. Random, unplanned watercolor shapes get painted first and left to dry, then reinterpreted in pencil into faces, ears, plants, or creatures based on whatever the blob suggests. It's a familiar cloud-gazing trick applied to painting, but it works, and it produces genuinely surprising results because the artist commits to not overthinking the shape before drawing on top of it. ## Where the exercises thin out Exercise 3, taping off small grid squares and dropping in just two colors to study how they mix, is a reasonable color-study habit, but it gets less screen time than its usefulness deserves, and there is no real discussion of specific pigment behavior, granulation, or how particular pigment pairs interact. Exercise 4 asks the viewer to paint a mood or theme like nostalgia, which is a fine creative prompt but offers little concrete instruction beyond "notice how color and shape make you feel," a directive that experienced painters will already know and beginners may find too abstract to act on. The closing study, an ear painted from a personal reference photo, does tie the earlier lessons together by revisiting the value-sketch-then-paint sequence and introducing the idea of relative color, choosing each new hue based on the color next to it rather than trying to match a photo exactly. It is a useful concept, briefly stated, and not elaborated on with much technical depth. ## Who it actually serves This class does not teach brush control, wet-on-wet versus wet-on-dry technique, paint-to-water ratios, or how to choose or care for materials, and the "all levels" label undersells how much prior comfort with watercolor is assumed. Someone who has never picked up a brush will be able to follow along but won't learn how to actually control the medium. Where it succeeds is as a short, repeatable warm-up ritual, something a working illustrator or hobbyist can return to on days when the sketchbook feels intimidating. Judged as a technical class it comes up thin. Judged as a creativity reset, which is what it is actually trying to be, it holds together and does its job in well under an hour. The standout The random-shapes exercise, where dried, loosely painted blobs get reinterpreted in pencil into faces and creatures, is the single most transferable warm-up idea in the class. ## What you will learn - · How to warm up with simple pencil-then-paint studies of spheres and cubes to practice value before color - · A random-shapes game that turns loose watercolor blobs into faces, creatures, and small scenes using pencil over dried paint - · A two-color exploration method using taped-off grids to study how pigments mix and flow together - · How to build a mood or atmosphere page around a single theme using color and shape choices - · A combined study exercise that pairs a value sketch with a relative-color painting of a real subject Best for: Watercolorists who already own basic supplies and want low-pressure warm-up routines to break through a sketchbook rut or art block. Skip it if: Complete beginners wanting brush handling, paint mixing ratios, or paper/materials guidance, or anyone hoping for a finished, polished painting to follow along with. Helpful Examples Clarity of Instruction Engaging Teacher Actionable Steps [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fthe-watercolorists-sketchbook-creative-exercises-to-inspire-and-explore%2F805039633)